Regional security cooperation

Published: 13 February 2024What are the different kinds of regional security organisations that exist? What theoretical tools do we have to explain the emergence of regional frameworks across the world? And how do they vary from an institutional and operational point of view? In this chapter, we show that regional security cooperation projects vary in many ways, for example in membership size, degree of formality, size of bureaucracy or whether they are part of a general-purpose or task-specific organisation, and revisit the reasons for why states and other actors invest in regional security cooperation in the first place. Then, we turn to theoretical explanations, which can be divided into three broad streams – those that emphasise dynamics internal to the region; those that accentuate dynamics external to the region; and those that focus on political dynamics not linked to security concerns – to explain the existence of regional security cooperation. Lastly, we map existing regional security cooperation projects across the globe, and discuss their functions, effects and effectiveness

Historical institutionalism and institutional design : divergent pathways to regime complexes in Asia and Europe

Published online: 11 May 2023Why and how do pathways to regime complexes diverge? Building on insights from the literatures on institutional design and historical institutionalism, we argue that early institutional design choices produce long-term variation in the pace, density, and composition of institutional layers within a regime complex. In a first step, we argue that if an institution becomes focal, this increases the exit costs for member-states to leave. Additional institutional layers become a more likely outcome. In a second step, we argue that depending on the focal organization’s formal or informal design, variegated sovereignty costs inform the additional layering pathways. If a focal organization is formal, sovereignty costs are high for member-states. Consequently, creating additional institutional layers becomes cumbersome, leading to a slow pace of “negotiated layering” and a regime complex characterized by low density and composed of formal and informal institutions. In contrast, low sovereignty costs associated with informal focal organizations enable a rapid process of “breakout layering” resulting in a high density of mostly informal institutions. We develop our argument by examining the evolution of security institutions in Europe and Asia through diplomatic cables, treaty texts, personal memoirs, and policy memos

Governing cyberspace : policy boundary politics across organizations

Published online: 01 September 2023Policy boundaries and issue interdependence are not a given. The stakes they imply—who governs, how, and where a policy domain is—become institutionalized over time, often first by the Global North. We know little about how these stakes are presented and institutionalized within and across organizations. We tackle this lacuna by asking how, and to what effect, an emerging policy domain is situated in a densely institutionalized environment. We argue that new policy domains such as cyberspace or artificial intelligence prompt resourceful governments to forum-shop policy frames by clustering promising issues in new and existing organizations in pursuit of coalition-building. Initially, resonance is more likely to be established in organizations with like-minded countries, leading to partially differentiated non-hierarchical regime complexes. In the long-term, competing adjustment pressures, particularly felt in the Global South, help trigger a regime-shift to an orchestrating general-purpose organization. Key actors must reconfigure their frames thereby reducing differentiation. In today’s geopolitical world, this hardens intra-organizational political differences. We examine three propositions in the case of cyberspace and show how the proliferation of competing frames across organizations led to shifting the policy debate to the UN, where only piecemeal policy adjustments are possible. Our analysis is based on primary sources and immersion strategies

Organizational overlap and bureaucratic actors : how EU–NATO relations empower the European Commission

Published online: 22 January 2024 (OnlineFirst)Organizational overlap is a ubiquitous feature in regional governance. Most studies have focused on member states, demonstrating that overlap enables states differently. We still know little about whether and how overlapping organizations impact international bureaucracies and how this shapes the relationship between bureaucratic actors within organizations. We argue that overlap can empower international bureaucrats, but not equally. Those with autonomous resources from member states are the most attractive interlocuters for bureaucrats from other organizations and, hence, likely to become most empowered. Substantive expertise and formal competence are less consequential in this context. We unpack this argument by looking at a policy domain understood to be heavily guarded by member states, security and defence policy. Based on primary documents and interviews, we show that the European Union (EU)–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) overlap has enabled the European Commission to leverage its position within the EU to its advantage and further encroach on the EU's security and defence activities.This research benefited from the support of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies ‘Europe in the World’ research area and the Swiss National Science Foundation Research Grant 100017_172667

Accountability in densely institutionalized governance spaces

Published online: 31 January 2024The concept of organizational accountability is central to good governance both domestically and internationally. However, assessing accountability in densely institutionalized global governance spaces requires new conceptual and analytical tools. Rather than concentrating on the accountability of states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and transnational corporations as distinct sets of global actors to whom different accountability criteria and mechanisms may apply, we want to focus on how growing overlap and interplay among diverse global policy actors affects organizational accountability. And rather than focusing exclusively on accountability in terms of retrospective sanctioning based on fixed standards or legal obligations, we suggest that, in a densely institutionalized world, accountability also needs to be thought of as a prospective process. We therefore suggest a stronger focus on pluralistic, participatory, and deliberative forms of accountability that emphasize standard-setting and responsiveness through collective deliberation, learning, and competition

Ad hoc coalitions : from hierarchical to network accountability in peace operations?

Published online: 28 November 2023Launching multinational peace operations are time and politically sensitive decisions that frequently involve the use of force. As a result, a host of accountability issues arise. To date, mainly backward-looking and hierarchical accountability measures have been developed to guide the implementation of multinational peace operations led by the most prominent actors in this policy domain: intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and ad hoc coalitions (AHCs). We argue that the existing accountability mechanisms have their flaws, which hypothetically speaking could at least be partly addressed by converting AHCs into network hubs with an emphasis on pluralistic and horizontal accountability practices. AHCs bring a diverse set of actors together and operate with a light institutional framework, in which actors meet on equal grounds. If used as network hubs, AHCs can facilitate an open information exchange and exchange of best practices

Global governance by the EU

The EU conducts global governance in multifaceted ways. In this paper, we address how the EU engages with various global governance actors and how it navigates these relational webs. We draw particular attention to the EU’s competences, its structuring powers and how it navigates its institutional environment to answer these questions. First, we highlight that the EU’s issue scope and membership has increased over time, triggering an increased interest in global governance issues and actors. As a result, partnerships have been increasingly established with other countries and organizations. Second, we discuss the competences that the EU has across the different issue areas and demonstrate that its competences vary across them, showing that the EU does not always act as one. These two sections set the stage for examining not only the formal powers that the EU has in speaking and acting on behalf of its membership but also its structural powers that can shape global governance arrangements through issue linkages and regulations. Third, a focus on the EU’s institutional landscape enables us to draw attention to its strategies employed to navigate global governance arrangements. We show how the EU makes use of densely institutionalized governance spaces and exploits overlaps in membership and mandate with other organizations to pursue its preferences. Overall, this analytical lens helps decenter the EU and question EU-narratives about its liberal aspirations and vision for global governance.Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré acknowledges the financial support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 892444. And Stephanie C. Hofmann is thankful for the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation Research Grant #100017_172667

Is liberal internationalism worth saving? : ad hoc coalitions and their consequences for international security

Published online: 06 February 2024Slow responses and blocked decision-making of international organizations provide opportunities for ad hoc coalitions to fill functional and political gaps. Compared to UN peace operations, ad hoc coalitions avoid gridlock and high transaction costs, they are fast to set up, can be task and time specific, flexible and easily dissolved. However, they also have much lighter human rights and financial accountability frameworks, a patchy record of longer-term impact and can contribute to a more fragmented response to armed conflicts and threats to international peace and security

The polycrisis and EU security and defence competences

Published online: 10 June 2024From the 2009 sovereign debt crisis to the 2022 Russian full-scale war in Ukraine, the EU has experienced a succession of intersecting crises, or a ‘polycrisis’. We examine how this polycrisis has impacted the EU's role in security and defence. While the EU's competences in security and defence have long suffered from disagreements among member states, they have shown notable developments since Brexit, and most importantly, since the 2022 war in Ukraine. We make a two-step argument to shed light on why the polycrisis has had these differentiated effects over time. The first move we make is to unpack the polycrisis to explain why and when an increase in competences may take place. We single out two crises that offer pathways for positive politicisation, leading to increased cooperation and competences: an external military threat and an internal crisis in the form of the loss of a major veto player. In a second step, we argue that the existence of an alternative organisation, NATO, helps us explain where and what cooperation can take place. Shared military threats can lead to complementary rather than substitutive empowerment at least during the duration of the crisis