Form Characteristics of Regional Security Organizations - The Missing Link in the Explanation of the Democratic Peace

Abstract

This paper contributes both to the debate on the effects of regional security organizations and to the debate on democratic peace. It argues that even if international organizations as such may not be able to influence the conflict behavior of their member states, the subgroup of interdemocratic institutions is well suited to do so. The form of interdemocratic institutions differs in two significant respects from the form of traditional institutions: they are more densely connected via transnational links with the societies of their member states (embeddedness), and they are more densely connected via transgovernmental links with the political systems of member states (communicative arena). Due to their characteristic form, interdemocratic institutions channel more information from and to member states and increase the autonomy of policy fields. As a result, they effectively bloc typical escalatory paths to war and foster deeper forms of cooperation. Hence, we argue that interdemocratic security organizations constitute the missing link in the causal chain of the democratic peace theory. In a first step, we unfold this argument by drawing on the rich literature on international organizations, theories of rational design, theories of war, and the democratic peace theory. We then specify and operationalize the form characteristics of regional security organizations. In the empirical part of the paper, we contribute to the research on comparing regional institutions by presenting detailed data on form characteristics of five differently composed regional security institutions. We compare two democratic institutions – the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union (EU) - with two Latin American security institutions – the Organization of American States (OAS) and Mercosur/Mercosul (Spanish: Mercado Común del Sur, Portuguese: Mercado Comum do Sul, English: Southern Common Market) - which are composed of recently democratized countries, and a traditional institution – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - whose members are still mainly non-democratic. We demonstrate that NATO and the EU are indeed embedded in strong networks of societal actors and that both provide wide communicative arenas. We further demonstrate that Latin American security organizations, as their member-states became democratic, are developing those form characteristics as well. Although the security environment in Southeast Asia is more fragile than in the Southern Cone, ASEAN continues to be a mostly intergovernmental organization. The analysis is part of a broader project studying the international organization of the democratic peace. In this paper we restrict ourselves to establishing a relationship between the properties of member states and the form characteristics of international institutions, which are theoretically relevant for judging the effectiveness of those institutions in preventing war. In the further course of the project, it will be studied empirically whether the differences of institutional form characteristics identified here are indeed causally responsible for the stable peace in Western Europe and the recent settlement of former rivalries in the Southern Cone of Latin America. The case of Southeast Asia contrasts with these findings.

Das Working Paper bietet Beiträge zur Debatte der Auswirkungen regionaler Sicherheitsorganisationen und zur Debatte des demokratischen Friedens. Es bietet Argumente, dass, falls Internationale Organisationen nicht in der Lage sein könnten, Konflikte ihrer Mitgliedsstaaten zu regeln, die Untergruppe zwischendemokratischer Institutionen dazu in der Lage sein könnte. Die Form der interdemokratischen Institionen weicht in zwei signifikanten Merkmalen von der Form traditioneller Institutionen ab: Sie sind über transnationale Verbindungen weitaus näher mit den Gesellschaften ihrer Mitgliedsländer verbunden (embeddedness) und sie sind über transgouvernementale Verbindungen mehr mit den Herrschaftssystemen ihrer Mitgliedsländer verbunden (communicative area). Aufgrund ihrer charakteristischen Form, leiten interdemokratische Institutione mehr Informationen von und zu den Mitgliedsstaaten und erhöhen die Autonomie von Politikfeldern. Auf Grund dessen verhindern sie typische Eskalationswege zum Krieg und fördern nachhaltigere Formen der Kooperation. Daher untersuchen wir, ob die interdemokratischen Sicherheitsinstitutionen für uns das fehlende Verbindungsglied der Kausalkette der Theorie des demokratischen Friedens darstellen. Wir entfalten diese These in einem ersten Schritt vor dem Hintergrund der umfangreichen Literatur über Internationale Organisationen, Theorien des rational choice, des Krieges und der Theorie des demokratischen Friedens. Dann werden die charakteristischen Formen der regionalen Sicherheitsorgansiationen operationalisiert. Im empirischen Teil bringen wir Beiträge zur vergleichenden Untersuchung regionaler Sicherheitsorganisationen, indem wir detaillierte Daten zu fünf unterschiedlich aufgebauten Institutionen bieten: NATO, EU, OAS, Mercosul und ASEAN. Wir zeigen, dass NATO und EU in starke Netzwerke sozialer Akteure eingebettet sind und beide große kommunkative Foren darstellen. Die lateinamerikanischen Sichereitsorganisationen entwickeln ebenfalls solche Charakteristik in dem Maße, wie ihre Mitgliedsstaaten demokratischer werden. Obwohl die Sicherheitslage in Südostasien gefährdeter als in Südamerika ist, entwickelt sich die ASEAN zunehmend in eine intergouvernementale Organisation. Das Workingpaper ist Teil eines breiter angelegten Projektes über die internationale Organisation des demokratischen Friedens.