Nato (Creation/persistence)

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Historical institutionalism - definition & concepts

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Definition:
• Accept rational notions such as the world system as anarchic and the actor/state as rational i.e. utility maximizing individual guided by national interests.
• But: inclusion of factors that limit ‘ideal-typical’ rational choice assumption about functional and efficient institutions only serving the pure interest of the MS:

Path dependency:
The idea of path dependence in regards to the development of international institutions, is that once a regime exists, and the states who have created it in the first place has ‘started down that path’, the costs of reversal are high and will increase over time, why states are assumed to keep going down that path and sustain the already existing regime even though it might have outlived its usefulness, is inefficient or even contradict with the preferences of the member states.

Unintended consequences:
As existing norms & rules (institutions) lead development down a certain already existing path, this may lead to unintended consequences (unintended by the rational actors) and these can turn out to be inefficiencies/against the interest of the actor.

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How HI/path dependence explain persistence of NATO

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The persistence of NATO appears as a typical case of historical institutionalism/path dependence = NATO was established in 1949 as an intergovernmental, transatlantic military alliance and had as its main purpose to deter a Soviet military attack. The end of the Cold War thus meant the demise of NATO’s main threat, the Soviet Union. But instead of dissolving the NATO regime, the member states decided to make use of existing NATO procedures and mechanism to deal with new future problems, even if the framework might very well turn into a suboptimal institution, not fulfilling preferences of MS.

The high level of instutionalization reached so far, made a reversal or the creation of a new institution extremely costly. Changes within NATO fraework were thus preferable, eventhough the institution no longer corresponded with the long-term interests of the member states.

HOWEVER: NATO has never been more active since 1989, which does not correspond to the definition of a suboptimal institution. The concept of path dependency fails to fully explain why exactly NATO persisted =Path dependency merely explains that the more institutionalized a security organization might be, the more likely it is to persist even if a change in its environment has occurred.

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Alternative explanations - rationalism (assets), wallander

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In order to understand WHY NATO persisted and adapted to the changed circumstances post Cold War, it becomes valuable to include Wallander's notions on institutional assets.

Institutional assets:
Wallander suggests that whether an institution adapts to change or not, depends on whether its assets (its norms, rules, and procedures) are specific or general. If its assets are specific i.e. highly effective for particular transactions, but not applicapble to other transactions, then it become unless and most likely to disappear if its initial purpose disappears. On the other hand, if an asset is generel i.e. useful in a variety of situations, the instituion will be less costly to adapt and are thus also likely to persist even if the threat disappears.

Wallander: during the Cold War, NATO had developed general assets for decision-making, military planning, coordination and implementation. + the specific assets to deal with the Soviet Threat, was not only directed to cope only with this external threat or external threats in general, but also to cope with instability and mistrust among the members.

Thus= when the Cold War ended, NATO members turned to the existing regime to cope with new security issues, because NATO’s assets made it an effective security organization capable of dealing with new threats and coping with instability as well as mistrust among members. Some assets had been adapted to the new circumstances and new assets has emerged, but the ones developed during the cold war made it favorable for the members to continue with the existing regime instead of creating a new one.

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Alternative explanations : Constructivism (Risse-Kappan)

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Risse suggest that NATO remains alive after the Cold War - not because it is too costly to dissolve it, but rather because the organisation represents an institutionalisation of the transatlantic security community based on common values and a collective identity of liberal democracies.

Risse claims that while peace prevails between like minded liberal states, they still face cooperation problems why peace necessairily has to be kept formally institutionalised. Via NATO, the members are institutionally bound by shared interests in learning and applying a common practices.

Thereby constructivism suggest that as long as states' share a collective identity as liberal democracies and share norms of what is 'appropriete' e.g. coordination on security, then a security partnership among liberal democracies will persist.

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NATO - persistence/change after Cold War (EMPIRICS)

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a) in response to end of Cold War, NATO started changing its force structure proclaiming that its primary purpose was now crisis management and promotion of intl. stability. This meant that NATO made great reductions in its forces.

b) NATO also made great effort to close the gap with countries no longer percieved as threats. In beging of 1990s, the NACC was created to link NATO members with former states of the Soviet Union. This was further institutionalised via the 'partnership for peace' agreement creating ties between NATOs command structure and that of Eastern European and Russian militaries.

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Argument

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Although the concept of path dependency/HI generally supports the development of NATO in post cold war system, this essay will argue that institutional persistence rather reflect dynamic adaption of NATO to ensure that it continues to fit state preferences.