Theories of International

Security

Seminar 2: Security Institutions -

The Case of NATO
 How can we account for NATO’s
enlargement?

Context:
 After the end of the Cold War, NATO has
expanded in 4 occasions: 1999; 2004; 2009; and
2017.
 How can we account for NATO’s
enlargement?

 The treaty's Article 10 describes how non-member states may join NATO,
and outlines NATO's "open door" policy:

“The Parties may by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a
position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security
of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty. Any State so invited may
become a Party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with
the Government of the United States of America. The Government of the
United States of America will inform each of the Parties of the deposit of each
such instrument of accession” (Article 10)
 Current status of the enlargement:

 Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are currently the only

countries with a Membership Action Plan, and together with Georgia,
were named NATO "aspirant countries" at the North Atlantic Council
meeting on 7 December 2011:
 Puzzle of NATO’s enlargement

 Many expected NATO “to wither away, or at least to stagnate and

decline in relative importance” (Barany and Rauchhaus 2011: 286)
after the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union.

 But this hasn’t occurred. On the contrary, this institution, “has not
simply persisted; it has embarked upon the even more complex, and
certainly more contested, process of enlargement”.

 How can this be explained?

 Explaining NATO’s enlargement

 The most common explanations for NATO´s

enlargement come from what are known as the
“traditional” approaches: neorealism, neoliberalism,
constructivism, and foreign policy analysis.
 Neorealism
 Most surprised with NATO’s endurance and enlargement. However,
Neorealist scholars like Kenneth Waltz or Mearshimer have an explanation
for this.

 IO’s like NATO “reflect state calculations of self-interest based primarily on

the international distribution of power. The most powerful states in the system
create and shape institutions so that they can maintain their share of world
power, or even increase it. In this view, institutions are essentially "arenas for
acting out power relationships." (Mearsheimer 1994: 13)

 This means, as Waltz argues, that the expansion of NATO occurred because
its serve what powerful states believe to be their interests. Specifically, the
United States.
 Neoliberalism
 Differs from neorealism because assumes that states do not need to
worry about other states' gains in power because, in an international
system characterized by increasing complex interdependence,
military power is losing its effectiveness and fungibility as a means to
achieve state objectives, and survival ceases to be the primary
concern of states. Therefore, states are able to focus on their own,
absolute gains from international cooperation.

 Consequently, NATO will expand if enlargement is an efficient means

for the member states to increase their benefits from the alliance. In
this case, this can be true for the states that want a membership
because they might gain more power. But this is not clear in the case
of great powers.
 Constructivism
 Constructivism, as some have said, however, provides a
“superior explanatory framework” when its compared against
neorealism and neoliberalism.
 Frank Schimmelfenning (1998) argues that the identities,
interest and preferences of actors are products of
intersubjective social structures and not merely the results of a
cost-benefit analysis.
 Hypothesis: State will seek and be granted a NATO
membership if it demonstrates that it shares certain values
and norms.
 NATO’s decision to expand was a process of internatioanl
socialization
Other explanations

 Organizational theory: Emphasizes the

internal dynamics of organizations
 Multilevel approach: Ryan C.
Hendrickson (2007)
 Another approach: Critical
Security Studies
 Although traditional theories are the most recognized and used to explain this
issue, there are also another set of approaches that belongs to the realm of
critical security studies and than can assess NATO´s expansion from another
perspective.

Though there is an array of different critical perspectives, they all have some
elements in common:

1. Identify and criticize a particular set of social circumstances and demonstrate

hoy they come to exist.
2. How questions rather than Why questions
3. Emphasis the role of discourse
What can critical theories tell us
about expansion?

 Securitizing NATO (Gabi Schlang

2007 and Webber, Sperling, and
Smith 2012)
 Postcolonialism and enlargement
(Kuss 2004)
 Securitizing NATO

 As we have seen, Securitization is understood as the act of

representing issues as “existential threats, requiring emergency
measures and justifying action outside the bounds of political
procedure” (Buzan, Waever, de Wilde 1998: 24).
 After the Cold War, NATO started a process of desecuritization of the
soviet threat.
 But it did not take long for another issue to be securitized:

“the risks to allied security that remain are multi-faceted in nature

and multi-directional which makes them hard to
predict and assess” (NATO 1991: paragraph 8)

 However, a less concrete idea of threat

 Securitizing NATO

 NATO has identified a broad array of threats facing the members of

the Atlantic Community: Russia, flawed or incomplete transitions to
democracy within Europe or failed states along Europe’s perimeter
were concived in this new threats assesment (Webber, Sperling, and
Smith 2012: 93)

 With the securitization of these diffuse risks, the expansion was seen
as a way to cope with this new emergency:

“The unsettled political complexion of eastern and southern Europe also

created a critical part of the post- Cold War context: NATO had to adopt a
more explicit political role in order to foster and project political stability. These
stated roles, threats and contexts framed the institutional rationales selling
enlargement to the member states and their electorates”. (Webber, Sperling,
and Smith 2012: 93)
 Postcolonialism and
enlargement (Kuss 2004)

 Postcolonialism is a very wide and rich body

of knowledge.
 In the specific case if security studies,
postcolonialism: 1) critique the Eurocentric
character of security studies, and 2) aims to
expose and analyze those discourses
related to security that mediate relations
between “The West” and the “Non-West”.
 Enlargement was conceivable as a valid course of
action because the relation between NATO and the
CEEC was mediated by an orientalist discourse that
assumes essential difference between Europe and
Eastern Europe.

 Eastern Europe was constructed by Western

Europe, not as irredeemably alien but as a halfway
house between Europe and Asia
 The contrast between Eastern and Western Europe, within which
NATO enlargement becomes a kind of relocation from Europe's East
to Europe proper, has perpetuated an account on East-Central
Europe.

 The transition or 'return to Europe' accounts of NATO enlargement,

the feeble Eastern Europe is making a transition to the West while
being coached by the West.

 Agency!