Volume 14, Number 1

International Association for Political Science Students

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POLITIKONThe IAPSS Journal of Political Science

Volume 14 Number 1April 2008

ISSN 1583-3984

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science

Editor in Chief

Klavdija Pojbic IAPSS Vice-Chairperson

Editorial Board

Andrea AmiciUniversità Roma III

Italy

Adrien JahierUniversité de Toulouse I

France

Mehmet OzkanUniveristy of Linkoping

Sweden

Advisory Board

Birol AkgunSelcuk University

Turkey

Milan BrglezUniversity of Ljubljana

Slovenia

Cristina DogotUniversity of Oradea

Romania

Theodore ChadjipadelisAristotle University of Thessaloniki

Greece

Hasan KosebalabanLake Forest College

Illinois - USA

Edmé DomínguezGotheborgs University

Sweden

Sergiu GherghinaCEU

Hungary

Laura HertaBabes-Bolyai University

Romania

Dessislava GavrilovaCEU

Hungary

Giannis PapageorgiouAristotle University of Thessaloniki,

Greece

Politikon is the academic journal of the International Association for Political Science Students(IAPSS). It is recognized as one of the leading academic journals publishing the work of students fromacross the fields of political science and international relations. Founded in 2001, the journal ispublished twice yearly and distributed in hard copy and online to more than 10,000 IAPSS membersin more than 40 countries on every continent, as well as outside the IAPSS network. Politikonpublishes the best in undergraduate and graduate student scholarship from around the world. Thepeer-review and refereeing process involves full Professors, leading academics and experts fromacross the world and abstracts from Politikon are included in the International Political ScienceAssociation s (IPSA) Annual International Political Science Abstracts.

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science

Volume 14 Number 1 – April 2008

Contents

Foreword International community under microscope.KLAVDIJA POJBIC 7

Paper At the down of a new order: hegemonism as the landmark of anevolving international system.TURKHAN SADIGOV 9

Paper Clash or alliance. Civilizations and their meaning in political conflicts.NINA-BIRKE GLONNEGGER 29

Paper The approach of moderate constructivism towards the internationalregimes.VALDRIN GRAINCA 47

Paper Understanding the EU democratic deficit . A two dimension concept ona three level-of-analysis.DORIAN JANO 61

Paper Minority rights in world politics: group or individual rights?CORINA REBEGEA 75

Book Review Norms of liberty. A perfectionist basis for non perfectionistpolitics.LUCIAN BOGDAN (Book of DOUGLAS B. RASMUSSEN) 87

Book Review The Romanian revolution of December 1989.MILENA MARIN (Book of PETER SIANI-DAVIES) 91

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 7-8

The international community under microscope

Klavdija PojbicEditor in Chief, Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Scienceklavdija.pojbic@iapss.org

Dear reader,

The present Number critically evaluates different aspects of the internationalcommunity, from foreign policy questions over international regimes andEuropean Union to minority rights in world politics.

It seems that 9/11 had more effect on the international community than anyother contemporary occurrence. Turkhan Sadigov, Master in InternationalRelations and European Studies, in his article At the Dawn of a New Order:Hegemonism as the Landmark of an Evolving International Systemargues that the developments within NATO and other institutional mechanismsof the transatlantic interaction, triggered by September 11th, give grounds toqualify the latter as the latest order-scale breaking point , and that Americanstrategies toward European partners and transatlantic arrangements, adoptedin the post-9/11 order, testify to the hegemonic nature of the emerginginternational order. In order to contribute to the realist-institutionalist andunilateralist-multilateralist debate, the author s analysis builds on thefundamental theoretical frameworks of international order by Robert Gilpin andJohn Ikenberry. Applying both theoretical frameworks to the institutionalarrangements of the transatlantic relations of the post-Cold War period, theresearch highlights the qualitative changes of international order, resulting fromthe events of September 11th, thus instituting the latter as a breaking point inthe wake of which the order took a hegemonic shape.

Nina-Birke Glonnegger, Master in International and European Relations, in herClash or Alliance: Civilizations and their Meaning in Political Conflictsalso stresses the importance of 9/11 for a political science discourse. Theauthor believes that Huntington s Clash of Civilizations theory gained newtopicality through actual events in the political world climate against thebackground of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article aims toevaluate Huntington s theory within the context of actual political events in thefield of international relations.

Another aspect of the international community are international regimes.Valdrin Grainca, a student of Master on International and European Relations,presents The Approach of Moderate Constructivism towardsInternational Regimes. The article adapts a theoretical approach towardexplanations of international regimes. Since the author estimates liberalinstitutionalism as the leading perspective on international regimes, his articledefies its main theoretical foundations rather Prisoner s Dilemma and Market

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Failure and rates these explanations as not convincing. Therefore he turns tothe moderate constructivism by arguing that this perspective can provide betterexplanations by focusing on identity theory, which argues that the strength ofinternational regimes depends on the identity of states.

Dorian Jano focuses on another challenge of a democratic internationalcommunity democratic deficit. In his Understanding the EU democraticdeficit : A two-dimension concept on a three level-of-analysis authorargues that divergences among the scholars emanate from the methodologicaland the conceptual difficulties that the concept itself has, when applied to thecase of EU. Given the lack of a common ground for understanding the EUdemocratic deficit debate the author proposes an all-inclusive model

Democratic Deficit Space ) of how to understand the EU democratic deficitarguments in the enormous already existing literature.

In the last article Corina Rebegea, Master in Human Rights, elaborated on thisissue in the article Minority Rights in World Politics: Group or IndividualRights? Author presents minority rights as a very sensitive issue for theinternational community in the context of the recognition and protectionafforded to human rights and argues that as the only internationally recognizedrights-holders are the states, the recognition of minority groups as rights-holders would challenge the established principles of sovereignty, territorialintegrity and statehood. Consequently, she argues, minority rights areconstructed through international and regional documents from anindividualistic perspective in order to project a certain notion of citizenship,sovereignty, nationhood or autonomy.

The articles give a great theoretical and practical insight into specific fields ofinternational political science, which hopefully will prove value-added to yourstudies and interests.

* * * *

For the first time Politikon presents book reviews.

Lucian Bogdan, a Ph.D. student in Contemporary History reviewed Norms ofLiberty. A Perfectionist Basis for Non-perfectionist Politics by Douglas B.Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl.

Milena Marin, a student of the Interdisciplinary Master in East EuropeanResearch and Studies reviewed The Romanian Revolution of December1989 by Peter Siani-Davies.

Enjoy your reading!

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 9-26

At the down of a new order:hegemonism as the landmarkof an evolving international system.

Turkhan Sadigovturkhans@yahoo.com

The aim of this article is to analyze the continuity and change inthe evolution of American order in the post-Cold War period.Puzzled by the relative disregard of commensurate conceptualanalysis of the effects of the dramatic events of September 11th onthe evolution of the international order, in this work I consider theways that the international order evolution has taken as a result ofthe terrorist attacks. Engaging in an analysis from the perspectiveof the transatlantic relations and striving to contribute to therealist-institutionalist and unilateralist-multilateralist debate, myanalysis builds on the fundamental theoretical frameworks ofinternational order by Robert Gilpin and John Ikenberry. Applyingboth theoretical frameworks to the institutional arrangements ofthe transatlantic relations of the post-Cold War period, theresearch highlights the qualitative changes of international order,resulting from the events of September 11th, thus instituting thelatter as a breaking point in the wake of which the order took ahegemonic shape

Introduction

It is already a common place to speak about the events of September 11, 2001as the latest turning point of historical importance. However, while manyscholarly works implicitly or explicitly underline the critical nature of changesengendered by the terrorist attacks, they tend to define their arguments in verynarrow terms, considering for instance a set of interstate relations (Friedberg,2002) or various policy areas (Gormley, 2002). Thus, the gap exists betweenthe revolutionary scope of the development and narrower approaches to itsanalysis.

While attempting to fill this gap, this article approaches the events ofSeptember 11th from the perspective of international order. American foreignpolicy and specifically its transatlantic dimension is the decisive area to look at.The very unprecedented scope of the US power, enjoying supremacy virtually inevery aspect of social life, enables it to develop and sustain an internationalorder. On the other hand, the transatlantic relations stand at the center of theAmerican order-building efforts, for the very potential of Europe to influence thecentral place of Washington in the international system.

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The aftermath of the terrorist attacks on America witnessed considerableweakening of the transatlantic ties unlike for the turbulent post-Cold Wardecade. The souring of the US-EU relations in the wake of 9/11 developed in aclear contrast to the Euro-Atlantic ties in previous periods. The tide of problemstriggered by the developments in Afghanistan, Iraq and in a number of policyareas has shaken transatlantic consensus, animating the long-standing debatebetween unilateralism and multilateralism and the wider debate betweenrealism and institutionalism1 in the US foreign policy discourse. While the post-Cold War order was marked by transatlantic disputes over the perception ofpower, force, stability and other broad issues (Kagan, 2003), thesedisagreements, according to John Ikenberry, within 1991 2001, had nonegative impact on the further development of the American internationalorder, based on the wider shared constitutional principles (Ikenberry, 2001).However, all this harmony changed after 9/11 that brought about crucialreorientation of the US strategies. Noting this, can we speak about the (post-)September 11th world as an instance of the new international order? And if thechange has indeed occurred, then what is the nature of the American order inthe wake of the new historic breaking point 2 represented by 9/11?

In this article I argue that firstly, the developments within NATO and otherinstitutional mechanisms of the transatlantic interaction, triggered bySeptember 11th, give grounds to qualify the latter as the latest order-scalebreaking point ; and secondly that American strategies toward Europeanpartners and transatlantic arrangements, adopted in the post-9/11 order,testify to the hegemonic nature of the emerging international order, albeit of itsweak modification.

I begin the article by placing the American order-building strategy into thecontext of multilateralism/institutionalism unilateralism/realism debate,developing it into a more concise discussion within constitutional theory -hegemonic stability spectrum, thus creating a framework for the subsequentanalysis. Next, I discuss American strategy throughout post-Cold War period,noting a qualitative difference between the 1991-2001 American order and thatof the post-9/11 period, thus establishing the latter as a new breaking point 3.

1 In my article I equate unilateralism with realist paradigm and multilateralism with the institutionalimage of international relations. Though the legitimate concerns may be expressed about theadequacy of this equation, the underlying logic of both unilateralism and multilateralism givesground to draw parallels with realist-institutionalist debate, which will be shown in the first sectionof the article.2 The term breaking point is borrowed from Adam Bronstone (1997). In this work, the concept ofbreaking point closely relates to change , with the latter meaning the qualitative shift in the

governing arrangements among a group of states, including basic rules, principles, and institutionsof the order (see Ikenberry, 45) and the former a point that introduces change , delineating oneinternational order from the other.3 In accounting for the nature of post-war orders, according to Ikenberry two variables should beemployed: first, the basic characteristics of orders in managing power disparities and second, thestrategies that the leading power employs to create the order (see Ikenberry, 21-22).

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And finally I concentrate on the main features of the American post-9/11strategy, arguing that it basically represents an instance of the hegemonicorder-building practice.

Framing the debate

The very scope of the American preponderance in world politics throughout the20th and beginning of the 21st century, complemented by the historic experienceof breaking away with isolationism, and thus embracing only internationalism,induced the debate between unilateralists and multilateralists over the mostexpedient ways of the projection of this preeminent US power in world politics.Moreover, this debate is echoed by a general realist-institutionalist dispute ininternational relations discipline. A set of policy issues, which the debate isrevolving around are: the ways of assuring the longevity of Americanhegemony and broadly, mechanisms of advancing American national interests;advisability of either short- or long-term returns to power ; capability of theAmerican power in addressing global problems.

While arguing for the central role of the American hegemony as a guarantor ofthe stability of international order, unilateralists stand for Washington s freedomof action in its engagement policies, echoing realist perception of powermaximization. They believe that while diminishing returns to the dominantpower weaken American positions, unfettered projection of power gives moremargins of the choice and the tailoring of successful policies to preventunfavorable developments. On the other hand, as the power, underpinninginternational stability, the United States is said to have certain custodialobligations; it cannot afford to be constrained by rules and institutions (Patrick,2002, 15). This orientation to the short-term gains is closely tied with negativeperception of institutions, rules, obligations and other binding commitments.Unlike multilateralists, unilateralists perceive power calculation as the soleguiding principle of the foreign policy, fearing that foreign commitments couldlead to the political engagement that is devastating to the American nationalinterests.

Contrary to the unilateralists, multilateralists assume a broader room formaneuver, emanating from the consensual engagement and self-restraint.Thus, they argue that by providing mechanisms to resolve differencescoordinate action, and monitor and enforce commitments (Patrick, 2002, 10),multilateral frameworks expand the specter of the hegemon s alternativesrather than constrain them. Therefore, multilateralists like institutionalists,argue for the greater employment of international institutions, rules,transnational regimes and other frameworks finding unilateralist skepticismpremature. Multilateralists argue that as a result of the employment of theinstitutional and other forms of cooperative power projection, the leading statewins the minds of allies and challengers, thus raising the legitimacy of itsdomination.

Of course, each of the debating approaches also has its own vision of theinternational order. A more focused analysis enables to sort out two interrelated

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theoretical frameworks of international order, specifically constitutional theoryof John Ikenberry and hegemonic stability of Robert Gilpin (Gilpin, 1981), eachrepresenting one of the debating parties, laying out a more focused take on thequestions posed. Both Gilpin and Ikenberry approach international order fromthe standpoint of change in its functioning, at the same time complementingeach other: while Gilpin concentrates on the decline of order, Ikenberry s focusis on the emerging order. At the same time, hegemonic stability underpins oneof the three types of Ikenberry s international order gradation (Ikenberry,2001, 23-29). According to this gradation, while hegemonic and constitutionaltheories exhibit opposite poles of the spectrum of order-building efforts, theyhave a middle ground: weak constitutional orders can develop into hegemonicorder, and vice versa (Ikenberry, 2001, 49). This gives an opportunity todevelop a flowing gradation of orders and, thus, account for the much broaderinstances of international phenomena.

The focus of Ikenberry s analysis is the fundamental problem of devising andmaintaining a stable and legitimate order (Ikenberry, 2001, 4)4. He argues thatthe best place to analyze the problem is to turn to the rare historic juncturesafter major wars, when states are grappling with fundamental questions oforder (Ikenberry, 2001, xiii). While the end of the war ruins the old system andleaves the world politics in a state of huge power disparities between winnersand losers, the leading state has a fundamental task of creating a stable5 andlegitimate order. From a set of alternatives available, Ikenberry argues that thebest way of handling this task is the strategic restraint , underpinned byinstitutions, on the part of the hegemon, which this way earns legitimacy for itsnew order. He defines this kind of modest order as constitutional.

According to Ikenberry (Ikenberry, 2001, 30-32), there are three fundamentalcharacteristics of a constitutional order. First, there is a broad agreement aboutthe basic rules of the game . Both leading state and minor powers engage intothe order willfully, as they see clear advantages of this type of order to theirspecific set of interests (positive sum game). Second, institutions andprocedures, with substantial independent voice and growing influence ( highreturns to institutions ) are established, which ensure the indiscriminateexercise of power. In consensual order the leading state engages into strategicrestraint , employing institutional mechanisms that set effective restraints on itsown power and simultaneously bind minor powers to the institutionalprocedures. And, finally, these institutional arrangements should be rooted inthe wider political context, which makes them difficult to retract.

4 According to Ikenberry Order refers to the governing arrangements among a group of states,including its basic rules, principles, and institutions. Political order is created when these basicgoverning arrangements are put in place, and the political order is threatened or broken apart whenthese arrangements are overturned, contested, or in disarray (Ikenberry, 2001, 23). Moreover,change in these governing arrangements embrace not every rule or principle, but only basic rules,or rules of the game (Ikenberry, 2001, 23).5 The definition of stability in Ikenberry is closely tied to the understanding of order and means theability of political order to contain and overcome disturbances to order and ability to handleinternal and external forces that encroach on the foundations of order (Ikenberry, 2001, 45).

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Moreover, a constitutional order embraces various types, from weak to stronginstitutionalism. The strength of this order hinges on the degree that thebinding mechanisms of power restraint play a central role within the order. Thestronger the legitimacy of rules, rights and protections are and the more theyget institutionalized and generally observed , the stronger the constitutionalorder grows (Ikenberry, 2001, 36). The weak constitutional order exhibits, onthe contrary, tendency to limit and often negate central role of bindingmechanisms. This creates the possibility of development of order into thehegemonic one (Ikenberry, 2001, 28) that, as I will argue later, was the casewith the weak constitutionalism of the post-Cold War world, which developedafter 9/11 into the weak hegemonic order. In this case, there is a conceptualbridge between various types of order in Ikenberry s analysis, and between hisconstitutional theory and Gilpin s hegemonic stability.

Taking for granted the realist perceptions of states as rational profit maximizingactors, Gilpin argues that order is created by the hegemonic state, whosepower preponderance renders system stable. Striving to further its gains,according to hegemonic stability, a leading power fashions the order in the waythat best suites its interests of power maximization (thus embracing theunilateralist logic). It provides both threats and benefits to ensure theparticipation of weaker states in the systemic arrangements that favor itsinterests. However, as a result of economic, technological and military changes,the hegemon loses its power preponderance, while other states gain in theirpower relative to that of the leading state. As a result, a disjuncture betweenthe existing social system and the redistribution of power (Gilpin, 1981, 9)creates an incentive for discontent actors to seek to alter the order, leading tohegemonic war the consequences of which reflect the new distribution of power.

An interesting theoretical issue is that hegemonic orders can run a broad wayfrom weak to strong modifications (Ikenberry, 2001, 26-27), forming aspectrum of strength . The strong hegemonic order is built around directcoercion, embodying a hierarchical logic of strict subordination. On thecontrary, in the weak modifications of hegemonic order, hierarchical powerrelations and political authority are established by the rule of law (Ikenberry,2001, 26) and come very close in its operational logic to the weakconstitutional orders (Ikenberry, 2001, 28).

Continuity and change in the US foreign policy in the post-Cold Warperiod.

The American order throughout 1990s was generally marked by a constitutionallogic, championed by the engagement and enlargement doctrine of the Clintonadministration (Clinton, 1996,http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/national/1996stra.htm). For thereasons mentioned previously, the research focuses on the transatlantic ties toassess US foreign policy for the period under discussion. Thus, initially the USsubstantially strengthened, in comparison to previous years, its institutional tieswith the European Union by signing the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA) andthe Joint Action Plan (JAP) in 1995. On the other hand, as the basic pillar of

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transatlantic institutional security cooperation, NATO has not only preserved itsexistence, but also entered an era of expansive readjustment and evolution.These developments rendered neorealist worries obsolete and expanded theagenda of transatlantic relations on the new institutional basis.

However, the analysis of the post-Cold War international order shows that theevolution of institutional developments has been marked by ambiguity and half-heartedness, which was apparent both regarding the implications of NTA andJAP and subsequent evolution of NATO. The close examination of the afore-mentioned institutions, underpinning transatlantic relations for the 1991-2001period shows that in each case one of the three fundamental characteristics ofconstitutional order was absent, thus rendering the post-Cold War Americanorder constitutional, albeit of its weak modification.

In the wake of 9/11, the American order has dramatically changed itsunderlying logic. A weak constitutional order could not manage to absorb amajor shock that has shaken the underpinnings of the international order. As aresult, all three features of constitutional order lost their credibility, with theAmerican order taking a brand new shape in the post-9/11 period. While theend of (a weak) constitutionalism of the post-Cold War order in this situation isat hand, this makes September 11th the latest order-scale turning point ofinternational relations.

NAT / JAP

On December 3, 1995 at the Summit in Madrid transatlantic partners signed theNAT / JAP, which became the most important transatlantic arrangement besidesthe NATO alliance (Bail, et. al., ix). While the very fabric of the Agenda and thePlan and their implications for the creation of more robust, consensualtransatlantic relations are substantial, the lack of meaningful institutionalprovisions, underpinning the implementation of the documents have, renderedthem inefficient. While the development shows the lack of one of the substantialelements of the constitutional orders (strong institutional mechanisms thateffectively lower the returns to power), the same development testifies to theweak nature of the American post-Cold War order.

The treaty generally meets two out of three basic features of constitutionalorders. Thus, it sets four major goals for the EU-US relations: promoting peaceand stability, democracy and development around the world; responding toglobal challenges; contributing to the expansion of world trade and closereconomic relations; building bridges across the Atlantic. This framework signalsthe resolve of both parties to engage in mutually cooperative order building-relations, setting the agreement about basic rules of the game between theparties.

On the other hand, NAT / JAP also testify to the will of parties to support awider political context, which makes their institutional cooperation more robust.First, both parties recognize the importance of the construction of a newEuropean security architecture in which NATO, EU, WEU, OSCE and the Council

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of Europe have complementary and mutually reinforcing roles to play(European Commission, 2001,http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/us/new_transatlantic_agenda),thus marking a favorable political context for institutional arrangements.

At the same time, the treaties do not introduce credible institutionalmechanisms to ensure the implementation of its provisions. As some authorsnote, the NAT refers to the development of the security architecture of Europewithout making any propositions for institutional change (Bail et al., 12).Although both sides were moved toward closer cooperation and readjustment ofrelations after the emergence of new problems, they have not gone muchfurther than developing merely a shopping list of what has been done (Bail etal., 17), while the extent of readjustment, exemplified by no less than 150specific actions (European Commission, 2001,http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/us/new_transatlantic_agenda )obviously required more effective institutional mechanisms. Responding to thegrowing economic problems in Euro-Atlantic relations, policy-makers initiallyagreed to create the Transatlantic Free Trade Area and endorse a NewTransatlantic Marketplace, relying on institutional strategy. However, the factthat these initiatives subsequently have not been endorsed testifies to the weakinstitutional underpinnings of the transatlantic dialog for the post-Cold Warperiod. While the case of NATO proves the resilience of this institutionalframework, the subsequent discussion shows that transatlantic relations, evenin the security dimension, were constructed on weak constitutionalism.

NATO

Despite the lack of notions of a specific institutional transformation by NTA andJAP, the security realm of transatlantic relations witnessed a substantialreadjustment of institutional mechanisms. As an institutional expression of thetransatlantic security interaction, NATO s remarkable resilience in its adaptationto the post-Cold War realities testifies in favor of a constitutional logic behindthe American order. While from three fundamental characteristics of aconstitutional order a general consensus on the order has been achieved andnew institutional mechanisms to lower the returns to power have beendeveloped, at the same time, American inconsistency worsened a wider politicalcontext of the post-Cold War NATO.

At the dawn of the new world order, transatlantic partners unequivocallyexpressed their intent to proceed with the institutional cooperation. The newStrategic Concept of NATO adopted during the Rome Summit in November1991 stated that member states confirm that the scope of the Alliance as wellas their rights and obligations as provided for in the Washington Treaty remainunchanged (North Atlantic Council, 2000,www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b911108a.htm). While according to Stanley Sloan(2001), after the Cold War defense of democracy, human rights, and the ruleof law constituted the heart and soul of the alliance (Sloan in Papacosma etal., 2001, p.5), the allies underlined the continuing commonality of interests.

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This reflected one of Ikenberry s characteristics of a constitutional order,namely broad agreement about the basic rules of the game .

Moreover, NATO transformation affected mainly the introduction of newinstitutional mechanisms that render the alliance more resilient and assist it inlowering the returns to power, testifying for the second feature of constitutionalorder. First, the Strategic Concept of 1991 considerably downsized the levels ofarmaments, at the same time raising their integration on the multilateralistbasis, thus reflecting effective constraint on the possible disengagement fromthe alliance and balancing in the new strategic circumstances. Second, theUnited States welcomed the adoption of the European Security and DefenseIdentity (ESDI) as a necessary step in the achievement of the provisions ofMaastricht Treaty, concerning the realization of the Common Foreign andSecurity Policy (CFSP)6. Under the provisions of the ESDI, a substantial part ofNATO assets can be placed under European command for operations in whichthe Alliance itself may not be directly involved (NATO Handbook, p.253). Thispooling and sharing of assets may be viewed in this case as a vivid instance ofthe institutional limitation of the returns to power .

However, transatlantic relations (as well as other dimensions of the Americanorder throughout 1990s) were marked by inconsistent constitutionalism. In thecase of NATO, a number of security initiatives were taken up by Washingtonunilaterally, despite the reluctance of both the closest allies and internationalcommunity. The US bombing of Iraq in late December 1998 in closecoordination with Britain put under strain the feasibility of the development ofEuropean Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) (BBC News,http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1178000/1178971.stm),and thus threatened broader ESDI.

One of the most strenuous points of the post-Cold War transatlantic interactionwas the Kosovo air campaign in 1999. While allies agreed on the necessity ofjoint multilateral operation, Europeans viewed the acting without the UNSecurity Council (SC) mandate as an exception rather than the rule(Papacosma, et al., p. xiii). On the other hand, while the US contributed thebulk of forces, apparent European weakness in the conventional weaponstriggered the adoption by the EU at the Cologne summit the task of creatingautonomous military forces (Serfaty, 1999,http://csis.org/hill/ts991110serfaty.html) that could be called upon in caseswhen the EU acts without NATO s involvement. Hence, apart from pointing tothe inconsistency of the American institutional strategy, the Kosovo campaignalso testified to the relative weakness of the NATO institutional mechanisms inmuting the implications of the power disparity between the allies.

The US military initiatives generally undermined one fundamental component ofa constitutional order. The Iraq (1998) and Kosovo (1999) campaigns had beenlaunched without the UN SC mandate that testifies to a broader US

6 For details of the CFSP, see the Treaty on European Union (1996) on the European Union web-page, Luxembourg, <http://europa.eu.int/en/record/mt/top.html>

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inconsistency toward the international institutional frameworks. Viewing theAmerican triggering of the UN financial crisis, American extraterritorialsanctions and Washington s reluctance over the ICC Statute adoption asextremely harmful to the transatlantic relations, many analysts insisted onthese developments as various instances of one phenomenon Americanambivalent multilateralism (Patrick and Forman, 2002). More than that, thisambivalence was part of a greater American ambivalence toward internationalinstitutions. American policy concerning the Kyoto protocol, ICC statute, debtsto the UN, and rejection of a host of international conventions substantiallyundercut the constitutional nature of the international order. The developmentsmake it clear that the American post-Cold War order lacked the thirdfundamental component of constitutional order, namely the necessity ofinstitutional arrangements to be rooted in the wider political context, whichmakes them difficult to retract.

Change after September 11th

American order dramatically changed its underlying logic following the events ofSeptember 11th. A weak constitutional order could not manage to absorb amajor shock that had shaken the underpinnings of the international order. As aresult, all three features of constitutional order lost their credibility. Agreementabout the basic rules of the game disappeared with American questioningabout the effectiveness of the basic institutional arrangements of NATO and UNSC to be adequate in the new, post-9/11 circumstances and placing high valueon unilateralism advanced by the doctrine of preemption (Bush, 2002, pp. 5-7,13-16). On the other hand, the post-9/11 events showed the whole extent towhich NATO is inefficient in exhibiting independence ( high returns toinstitutions ) and making power less consequential. Acting unilaterally inAfghanistan and Iraq, Washington virtually ousted institutions from the arena ofday-to-day power management. This disregard for institutions wasaccompanied by the new alliance doctrine, advanced by Paul Wolfowitz,according to which the mission must determine the coalition, the coalition mustnot determine the mission that substantially diminished the role of institutionsand their value in lowering the returns to power. Not strategic restraint, butemployment of institutions to advance narrow self-interest became thedominant feature of the post-9/11 period. In this situation, Europeans reactedby the commensurate employment of NATO as a tool of power projection ratherthan consensual power restraint. As a result of the afore-mentioned, theinstitutional mechanisms became easily retractable as September 11th providedfor the drastic changes in the overall political context.

The immediate developments of post-9/11 period pointed first to thedisappearance of the consensus about the basic rules of the game . The initialrejection by Washington of the European attempt to invoke article 5 of theNATO treaty marked the essence of the post-9/11 unilateralist Americanstrategy that repeatedly manifested itself in Afghanistan and Iraq. The NATOmechanism became less attractive to Washington, which strove not to beconstrained by the militarily weak allies. Moreover, the development manifesteditself in the official doctrine of preemption / prevention, outlined in the National

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Security Strategy (2002) of the Bush administration. The doctrine asserts theright of the US to act unilaterally, stating that we must be prepared to stoprogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or useweapons of mass destruction against the United States (Bush, 2001, p.14).The administration argued that international institutions cannot provide for aswift response to the national security threats, and preemption is a betteroption, giving the US self-imposed (and, thus, substantially less legitimate)right to use power indiscriminately. It runs counter to the principle of strategicrestraint that the leading power usually engages in the development of aconstitutional order, marking deep transatlantic disagreement about the basicrules of the game .

The deterioration of the consensus regarding the basic rules of the game wasaccompanied by the growing inefficiency of NATO in making power lessconsequential and exhibiting low returns to institutions . Thus, one of thecentral arguments of the post-9/11 doctrine, formulated by Deputy Secretary ofDefense Paul Wolfowitz, is that the mission must determine the coalition, thecoalition must not determine the mission ( ) It follows that there will bedifferent coalitions for different missions (Ham, 2002, p.43). This, according toPeter van Ham, means that NATO is no more the privileged institutionalplatform for the coordination of Western military efforts (Ham, 2002, p.43).

On the other hand, transatlantic partners began to employ NATO institutionalmechanisms to advance their narrow national interests that further deterioratedthe situation. Initially, the European allies attempted to bind American powerinstitutionally and lower the future returns to power and make it lessconsequential. As Stephen Walt notes, invoking of the article 5 of the NATOtreaty was accompanied by European insistence that the United States consultwith its allies before taking action (Walt, 2001/02, p.61). However, while theAmericans were using NATO to approve the decisions already taken inWashington (Ham, 2002, p.31), the European allies followed suit, employingNATO to advance a set of their own narrow self-interests. As France led theopposition to Turkey s request to invoke article 4 of the NATO treaty prior to thewar in Iraq in January February 2003, motivating it with the argument thatthe provision of such aid would be an acknowledgement that war wasinevitable (Grant, 2003, p.19), the alliance was becoming a tool of advancingnarrow self-interests of one group of member states against others. Thisattitude substantially questioned the independence of the NATO mechanisms asa principal tool and underpinning of the post-Cold War order, andcommensurately diminished the returns to institutions , which together withlowering the returns to power form the second fundamental nature of aconstitutional order.

Finally, September 11th substantially changed the wider political context inwhich the institutional mechanisms of the international order operated.American policy of playing off Old and New Europe against each other(Donald Rumsfeld quoted in Grant, 2003, p.20) signaled about thereconsideration of Washington s constitutional policy-making toward Europeanallies. It was a sign of an old-known divide and rule mechanism or balance-of-

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power policy, an instance of a hegemonic policy-making when the leading statedeparts from its narrow power calculations, to ensure the advance of its short-term national interests as opposed to the long-term gains that providesconsensual strategic restraint as a genuinely constitutional arrangement. TheUS made it explicit that its further strategy will be based on devising coalitionsof willing a coalition of states that engage into the alliance on an ad-hocbasis, instead of assuring the legitimacy of the issue that drives the effort. Inthis case, the coalitions are supposed to be created according to particularinterests, but not the other way around, when constitutionalism endows alliancewith independent voice and ability to forge commonality of interests. As aresult, the defense summit of the leaders of Belgium, Luxembourg, Germanyand France on April 29th, 2003 in Brussels formulated an avant-garde principle,according to which some European nations should integrate even closer in thesecurity sphere to form a core of the EU and thus drive further the subsequentcloser integration of remaining Europe. While Britain, Spain, Italy and EastEuropean countries were left out of the scheme, the venture seemed to beimplicitly anti-American and anti-NATO (Grant, 2003, p.97). Thus, while the oldtransatlantic mechanisms in this case became even less relevant, at the sametime, the very underlying political context, on which these institutions werefound, was also gone.

In the situation of a weak constitutionalism of 1991-2001, when the returns toinstitutions were low and they played diminishing roles in muting the powerdisparities, the breakdown of order after the shocking events of September 11th

was predictable. American strategy, marked by ambivalent and selectivemultilateralism has already set up a shaky basis for the constitutional order. Inthis situation, September 11th reversed all three characteristics ofconstitutionalism. Thus, September 11th became a watershed between the weakconstitutionalism of the post-Cold War period and post-9/11 international order.However, while September 11th marks the breaking point , the question arises:What instead is emerging in place of the old American order?

American ambiguous hegemonism

The initial trajectory of the Bush administration policy in the immediate wake ofSeptember 11th testified to the aspiration of Washington to seek acquiescenceof weaker and secondary states , thus striving to legitimate order (Ikenberry,2001, p.xi). The US engaged in the enormous effort to forge an internationalcoalition to combat terrorism. However, what eventually happened was thereversal of constitutionalism of the pre-9/11 American order.

Many analysts have argued that the post-9/11 developments can aptly beaccounted for in terms of the realist power politics (Gray in Booth and Dunne,2002)7 framework. Moreover, the major thrust of developments aptly fits intoGilpin s hegemonic stability theory provisions, as following. Firstly, while, the

7 See also Abdullah Ahmed An-Na im, Upholding International Legality Against Islamic andAmerican Jihad , Ibid., 164; Robert Cox, Meaning of Victory: American Power after the Towers ,Ibid.; Amitav Acharya, State-Society Relations: Asian and World Order after September 11 , Ibid.

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distinctive feature of the international order is hierarchy, the stability of thesystem hinges on the power preponderance of the leading state. Next, thehegemon acts on the basis of power maximization, managing the system in theways that serves this aim. And finally, in adjusting the order, the leading stateemploys both threats ( sticks ) and benefits ( carrots ) to ensure theparticipation of weaker states in the systemic arrangements that favor interestsof the hegemon.

The following discussion proceeds in three steps, based on Gilpin s framework.First, I will analyze the character of mechanisms employed by Washington toensure the stability of the post-9/11 order. Secondly, I will elaborate on theunderlying incentive that drives the US order-building. Finally, I will elaborateon the ways of Washington s strategy to ensure the operation of the order. Theanalysis shows that the weak constitutionalism of the post-Cold War order hasdeveloped after the breaking point into a hegemonic order, albeit of its weakmodification.

One of the prominent features of the emerging international order is theAmerican inclination to secure the stability of the system through the projectionof its dominant power. However, this projection is often marked byinconsistency.

Driven by the huge power preponderance, Washington in the post-9/11 periodembraced unilateralist/realist strategies to defeat the threat and ensure theultimate stability of the order. When in the immediate aftermath of the attacksin New York and Washington, European allies on September 12, 2001 invokedarticle 5 of the NATO treaty, the US was reluctant to positively react to theinitiative. Afterwards, during the war in Afghanistan, as Cox notes, the USshowed little interest in concerted action with allies, while the Europeans hadbeen sidelined almost completely in an American war fought for largelyAmerican ends (Cox in Booth and Dunne, 2002, p.156). Thus, the ultimatestability of the order became reliant solely on the American [military]preponderance, which was the prime tool of ensuring order stability.

The hegemonic perception of the stability of the post-9/11 order makes itselfexplicit also in the case of Washington s aspiration for exemption frominternational law. While the Americans argue that they are painfully aware ofthe exceptional risks that they will run as the sheriff for order (Gray in Boothand Dunne, 2002, p.233), they seek the right to act unilaterally, withoutconstraints and legal obligations. Between July 2003 (Grant, 2003, p.46) andMay 2004 (ISN Security Watch,http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/secwatch/index.cfm?service=cwn&parent=detail&sNewsID=8864&menu=74860) Washington pressed 99 countries toengage into bilateral treaties with the US, ensuring that they would never handover American soldiers to the International Criminal Court one of the primeinstitutional pillars of the international law enforcement. On the same groundsof exemption as a necessary precondition of attaining security in the newcircumstances, Washington also used 9/11 to renounce the Anti-Ballistic Missile(ABM) treaty.

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However, while the post-9/11 order is marked by instances of the Americaninitiatives in the accommodating of allies, these developments testify to a weaknature of this hegemonism. Specifically, despite wariness, the US subsequentlyacquiesced to the invoking of article 5 and gave allies vast roles during thepost-war reconstruction in Afghanistan, seeking their accommodation inachieving order stability. On the other hand, the American appeals to the UN SCauthorization for exemption of US soldiers from the ICC provisions, signals theinconsistency of the US policy toward international law exemption. In its foreignpolicy Washington strongly relied on the Security Council Resolution 1487,adopted in July 2003, which effectively exempts US troops from internationalwar crimes prosecution. Moreover, the Bush administration reportedlyrequested the renewal of the Resolution (ISN Security Watch,http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/secwatch/index.cfm?service=cwn&parent=detail&sNewsID=8864&menu=74860), expressing the readiness to work with theUN on the law exemption. On the other hand, the withdrawal from the ABM wasaccompanied by efforts to gain Russian approval and broader internationalacquiescence (Perez-Rivas, 2001,www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/rec.bush.abm/). Thus, Washington sambiguity in the issue of exemption from international law and treaties toensure stability of the hegemonic order, points to weak hegemonism of theemerging order.

Power maximization as the underlying incentive of order

The post-9/11 American strategies are heavily predetermined by the powermaximization. In doing so, Washington followed hegemonic methodologies oforder management. However, while this logic behind the American strategy isat place, the US works extensively with other states to gain legal coverage fromthe UN, making the emerging system an instance of a weak hegemonism.

The Bush administration s policy of preemption is one of the most prominentexamples of urging other states to comply with the American security interests.It secures Washington s right to launch a military operation against a range ofstates (defined by the axis of evil doctrine) to prevent them from acquiringWMD or tailor policy that is alien to the US. Preemption marked a substantialresistance of the European allies to share a common vision of the Americananti-terrorist strategies centered on the issue as to what extent the use ofmilitary means is justified. While the preemption is a tool of advancing broadAmerican national interests, at the same time it does so in a clear hegemonicstyle of direct coercion, demanding compliance of other states with the USpolicy and, thus, avoiding consensual mechanisms.

The axis of evil doctrine (Bush, 2002,http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html) isanother instance of the hegemonic molding of the order in ways that satisfiesthe interests of the leading power, violating the UN Charter that prohibits thethreat or aggressive use of force in foreign policy, thus triggering transatlanticdisagreements. While Europeans share Washington s worries about the WMDproliferation, they do not see a direct link between the proliferation and rogue

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regimes (Voigt, 2002, http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/aussenpolitik/ausgabe_archiv?archiv_id=3740&type_id=3&bereich_id=31). Brussels sees the military solution as pre-mature and destabilizingrather than alleviating. Instead, Europeans propose to accommodate theseregimes and provide incentives for cooperation. Notwithstanding the conceptualdifferences, the Bush administration s reliance on the military coercion is clearlyhegemonic.

However, while Washington clearly seeks power maximization, at the sametime, it does so often on the basis of consensus rather than a sheer powerprojection. Throughout the post-9/11 period Washington has engaged in anumber of consultations, to ensure that national interests of other states arealso secured. Simultaneously, the US actively worked with the UN SC to securethe legal framework for its power maximization. As a result, there have beenadopted a number of resolutions, condemning terrorism, with the SecurityCouncil members support of the September 28, 2001 UN resolution thatgave carte blanche to the US to take whatever actions it thought justified toattack sanctuaries for terrorism (Keohane in Booth and Dunne, 2002, p.144).Thus, the American power maximization to a good extent relies on thecoordination of interests with other states, thus facilitating American attemptsto gain support of the UN, and rendering Washington s power maximization of aweak hegemonic nature. As Peter van Ham argues, Washington s post-9/11policies reflect the American strategy of building a benign empire (Ham,2002, p.32).

Coalition building after 9/11 or the hegemonic policy of sticks andcarrots

While Washington discovered that the war on terror cannot succeed withoutextensive and enduring support from many other countries (Walt, 2001/02,p.63), its strategy was marked by the employment of both sticks and carrots ,as two elements of hegemonism. However, by rendering substantial assistanceto both the improvement of NATO capabilities and raising of allies militarypreparedness, the Bush administration endorsed weak hegemonism.

The pre-Iraqi war US coalition building is a suggestive instance. While making itclear that neutrality is unadvisable, Washington, at the same time, entered anastonishing bargain with its NATO allies. It promised multibillion-dollarassistance to Ankara in the case of joining the military campaign (Hartung etal., 2002, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/021019-iraq2.htm).And this is despite the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO and there areinstitutional mechanisms of reaching a (consensual) solution to the Turkishparticipation in the US coalition. The same economic aid promises have beenextended also to other European allies. Thus, instead of the institutionalmechanisms of order/coalition building and appeal to legitimacy, the USengaged in the policy of carrots on the bilateral basis (Walt, 2001/02, p.61).

On the sticks end of the hegemonic coalition-building spectrum was anAmerican drive to punish errant allies after 9/11. On March 2002 Washington

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introduced tariffs on imported steel. While American partners on NAFTA havebeen excluded from the tariffs, their major target was the European Union. Bythis, according to Wallerstein, the Bush administration intended to teachEurope the lesson that it had better toe the line (Wallerstein in Booth andDunne, 2002, p.99).

However, the American policy of hegemonic incentives is marked byinconsistency in the light of the Prague summit of NATO in November 2002. TheUS has made substantial contribution to ensure the achievement of two summitobjectives: first, to endorse the institutional improvements ensuring theefficiency of NATO capabilities as a security actor; second, to provide measuresfor the development of allies military capabilities to alleviate power asymmetrywithin NATO, testifying to the American support of both the furtherimprovement of the transatlantic institutional mechanisms and allies militarycapabilities.

Thus, the breaking point of September 11th instituted weak hegemonic order.While the emerging system complies with all the characteristics of thehegemonism, outlined by Gilpin, at the same time the continuing validity ofmajor institutional mechanisms and huge potential and experience ofconstitutional cooperation between the transatlantic partners, shapes a weaknature of the current hegemonic order.

Conclusion

In an attempt to account for the revolutionary impact of September 11th oninternational developments in commensurately big-scale terms, this articleengaged in the analysis of the problem of continuity and change of theinternational order. It did so through the prism of the transatlantic relations,due to their importance for the order-building efforts of the US. The analysistried to highlight the degree to which the events of 9/11 triggered changes inthe international system, while at the same time assessing the nature of thesechanges.

The research argued that September 11th became the instance of the latestbreaking point , after which the American order embraced hegemonic logic,albeit of its weak modification. The analysis of the American post-Cold Warorder (1991-2001) does show the continuity of its constitutional underpinningsthroughout 1990s. During this period, Washington has taken steps to ensurethe important role of multilateral institutions, treaties and procedures inshaping the distribution of power between the US and its European partners,reflected in the constitutional logic behind the institutional evolution of NATOand the NTA / JAP. However, the Clinton administration s policy was marked byinconsistency and selected multilateralism toward international institutionsthat rendered the American order an instance of weak constitutionalism. In thissituation, the major shock of September 11th changed the nature of theinternational order, resulting in the retraction in all of the basic features of aconstitutional order. Transatlantic agreement about the basic rules of thegame disappeared, and the UN and NATO became less independent, thus

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deteriorating the overall political context, in which the institutional mechanismsbecame easily retractable.

The major developments of the post-9/11 period have pointed to thehegemonist track of the American order evolution. The stability of the orderbecame heavily dependent on Washington s power preponderance. Accordingly,the underlying incentive that drives the US order building has become powermaximization, to sustain order stability. And finally, Washington employed thepolicy of both threats and benefits to ensure the participation of other states inthe operation of order. However, in each of these hegemonic inclinations theBush administration demonstrated inconsistency that gives ground to qualifythe emerging order as an instance of weak hegemonism.

Understanding the true role of September 11th and its effects on theinternational order has both theoretical and empirical implications. On thetheoretical level, transformation of constitutional arrangements of the post-ColdWar into post-9/11 hegemonism means that constitutional orders are not asstable as Ikenberry portrayed them. While Ikenberry argues that once in place,a constitutional order exhibits high returns to the character and makes thechange of its underlying arrangements costly (Ikenberry, 2001, p.70), theanalysis of the transformation of constitutional arrangements of the post-ColdWar into hegemonism points to the contrary. Second, while Ikenberry arguesthat the leading power prefers to embrace a constitutional logic to proceed withthe order building at the historic juncture (Ikenberry, 2001, p.xi), the Bushadministration s policy has not complied with this logic. Third, the post-9/11developments have not proved Ikenberry s thesis that huge power disparity(more drastic in 2001 than in the immediate aftermath of 1991) and democraticnature of states (transatlantic partners) make constitutional outcome morelikely. The immediate empirical implication of the research findings, on theother hand, informs about the period of the long-term instability that theAmerican order has entered. According to Ikenberry, hegemonic order does notpossess meaningful mechanisms to mute the consequences of emerging powerdisparities (Ikenberry, 2001, p.29) that threaten the order stability. On theother hand, hegemonic stability (with constitutionalism following the samepath) argues for the inevitable decline of the hegemon as the diminishingreturns and other factors bring into the arena of world politics challengingpowers (Gilpin, 1981, p.9). With strong signs that the new US president will notdrastically change the US policy toward international institutions and policy-formation (ISN Security Watch,http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18790), the persistence of thehegemonic instrumentality, even in its weak mode, could mean the beginning ofthe decline of the American global predominance and an era of globalinstability.

REFERENCES

Acharya, A 2002, State-Society Relations: Asian and World Order after September 11 ,in Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (ed.) Worlds in Collision, New York: Palgrave, 194-204.

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An-Na im, Abdullah Ahmed 2002, Upholding International Legality against Islamic andAmerican Jihad , in Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (ed.) Worlds in Collision, New York:Palgrave, 162-171

Bail C. (ed.) 1997, EU-US Relations: Balancing the Partnership, Baden-Baden: NomosVerlagsgesellschaft.

BBC News 2001, Iraqi Raids 'Self-Defense, viewed September 3, 2007<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1178000/1178971.stm>.

Booth K., Dunne T.(ed.) 2002, Worlds in Collision, New York: Palgrave.

Bronstone, A 1997, European Union United States Security Relations: TransatlanticTensions and the Theory of International Relations, London: Macmillan Press LTD.

Bush GW 2002, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,Washington: White House

Bush, GW 2002 State of the Union Address, viewed September 13, 2007<http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html>

Clinton B 1996 A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement,Washington: The White House, viewed October 7, 2007,<http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/national/1996stra.htm>

Cox, R 2002, Meaning of Victory: American Power after the Towers in Ken Booth andTim Dunne (ed.) Worlds in Collision, New York: Palgrave, 152-161.

European Commission, External Relations May 2001, The New Transatlantic Agenda,Overview, viewed October 15, 2007,<http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/us/new_transatlantic_agenda/>

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Friedberg, A L January 2002, September 11 and the Future of Sino-American Relations ,Survival 44 (1): 33-50

Grant, Charles July 2003, Transatlantic Rift: How to Bring the Two Sides Together,Centre for European Reform Pamphlet

Gilpin, R 1981, War and Change in World Politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press

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Hartung, William D., Berrigan F., and Ciarrocca M. 2002, Operation endlessdeployment , The Nation, viewed November 18, 2007,<http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/021019-iraq2.htm>

Ikenberry, John G 2001, After Victory, Princeton: Princeton University Press

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ISN Security Watch 2004, US wants renewed immunity from war crimes prosecution ,viewed September 8, 2007,<http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/secwatch/index.cfm?service=cwn&parent=detail&sNewsID=8864&menu=74860>

ISN Security Watch 2004, US: Losing Europe , viewed March 28, 2008,<http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18790>

Kagan, R. 2003, Paradise & Power: America and Europe in the New World Order,London: Atlantic Books

Keohane, R 2002, The Public Delegitimization of Terrorism and Coalitional Politics , inKen Booth and Tim Dunne (ed.) Worlds in Collision, New York: Palgrave, 141-151.

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Patrick S., Forman S. (ed.) 2002, Multilateralism and US Foreign Policy: AmbivalentEngagement, London: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Patrick, S 2002, Multilateralism and Its Discontents: The Causes and Consequences ofUS Ambivalence , in Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman (eds.) Multilateralism and USForeign Policy: Ambivalent Engagement, London: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Perez-Rivas, M 2001, US Quits ABM Treaty, viewed December 4, 2007,<www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/rec.bush.abm/>

Serfaty S 1999, European Common Foreign, Security, and Defense Policies: Implicationsfor the United States and the Atlantic Alliance , Testimony of the Director of the EuropeProgram Center for Strategic & International Studies to the House Committee onInternational Relations, November 10, 1999, <http://csis.org/hill/ts991110serfaty.html>

Sloan S 2001, Continuity or Change? The View From America , in S. Victor Papacosma,Sean Kay and Mark R. Rubin (eds.) NATO after Fifty Years, Wilmington, Del.: ScholarlyResources

Voigt, Karsten D 2002, Transatlantic Relations after the German Elections, November12, 2007, Philadelphia, <http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/aussenpolitik/ausgabe_archiv?archiv_id=3740&type_id=3&bereich_id=31>

Wallerstein I 2002, Mr. Bush s War on Terrorism: How Certain is the Outcome? , in Ken Boothand Tim Dunne (ed.) Worlds in Collision, New York: Palgrave, 95-100.

Walt, Stephen M Winter 2001/02, Beyond bin Laden: Reshaping US Foreign Policy ,International Security 26 (3): 56-78

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 29-46

Clash or alliance:Civilizations and their meaning in political conflicts.

Nina-Birke Glonneggerninaglonnegger@web.de

Huntington s Clash of Civilizations theory gained new topicalitythrough actual events in the political world climate against thebackground of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Alongwith those conflicts, Huntington s theses seem to be more currentthan ever before and became the focus of the public discourse, inwhich - it seems - the gap between supporters and adversariesgets bigger every day.This article aims to evaluate his theory within the context of actualpolitical events in the field of international relations. The empiricalattempt of this study will be the presentation and evaluation ofconflict statistics regarding the conflict climate in the years 2000and 2006 in order to confirm or disprove several aspects of theclash of civilizations hypothesis.

1. Introduction

In the summer of 1993, the renowned American political scientist Samuel P.Huntington released his article The Clash of Civilizations? (Huntington, 1993:22-49) in the journal Foreign Affairs. According to the Foreign Affairs publisher,this article provoked more reactions and discussion from scientific quarters thanany other contribution since the 1940 s (Huntington, 1996: 13).

Without any doubt, Huntington s theses hit the mark, not least due to the factthat it was published at a strategic wisely chosen moment. Shortly before, theend of the Soviet Union marked the final expiration of a conflict between thetwo superpowers, which has been dominating the world climate for 40 years.The sudden laps of those concrete points of reference lead to disorientation inpolitics and science. Nobody could tell what the future in international relationswould look like.

At the same time, the shift of global attention from Eastern Europe towards theMiddle East during the first Gulf war where a mostly Western/Christiancoalition under command of the USA fought against a Muslim state that had thesupport from the majority of the Arabic states indicated a new perspective. Atthis point, Huntington presented his theory, which claimed that thephenomenon of clash of civilizations would create and dominate a new worldorder. He therewith hit the nerve of many observers who had already thought,feared or perceived this scenario. In retrospect, Huntington s theory was thefirst approach that tried to interpret in a comprehensive and systematic way thehistorical developments after the end of the Cold War.

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In 1996, Huntington finally published his book The Clash of Civilizations and theRemaking of World Order in which he elaborates on those theses that he couldonly mention briefly in his article. To intensify his statement, he also removedthe question mark in the title.

The clash of civilizations theory gained new topicality through actual events inthe political world climate against the background of 9/11, the US invasion ofAfghanistan, the Bali bombings, the invasion of Iraq, the cartoon crisis, thebombings in Madrid and London, the ongoing Iranian nuclear threat and theIsrael-Lebanon conflict. Along with those conflicts and crises, Huntington stheses are more current than ever before and became the focus of the publicdiscourse, in which - it seems - the gap between supporters and adversariesgets bigger every day.

By now, the term clash of civilizations is a fixed term within the debate aboutthe new world order after the end of the Cold War. Because of this, theinfluence in cultural variables on political and societal developments can nolonger be denied in the scientific discourse. Despite of this, Huntington s radicaltheory remains very controversial and is challenged not only by other scholarsand researchers, but also by international institutions like, e.g., UNESCO, whichlaunched a program called Alliance of Civilizations to encourage a cross-culturaldialogue.

1.1. Huntington s hypothesis

To summarize Huntington s work in a hypothesis one can say that Huntingtongave a definition of the new world order of world policy in the twenty-firstcentury. He understands the world policy after the end of the East-Westconflict, no longer, or at least not in the first place, in categories of politicalpower conflicts, or arms race, or fighting for scarce economic resources or asan ideological system antagonism. Instead, Huntington intended to introduceinto the analysis of international policy a completely new way of looking at it asa clash of cultures. Therefore, the future international system according toHuntington will be characterized by the clash of civilizations on the macro- aswell as on the micro- level. In other words, he defines the major future conflictsno longer between nation states but between civilizations, and defines Islam asthe most threatening possible future antagonist of the declining West. Followingin this study, it shall be examined if the clash of civilization constituted byHuntington really exists or is emerging and if his theory of this clash as wellas the attitude of Islam can be proven right or wrong by statistics.

1.2. Research questions and delimitation

The clash of civilizations thesis constitutes an attempt to formulate a newparadigm in international relations after the end of the Cold War, which couldbe helpful for politicians and scientist to understand and grasp the newdevelopments within the international system (Huntington, 1996: 13).

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Huntington s central thesis states that the bipolar age of ideology was displacedby the multipolar age of civilizations. Therefore, conflicts will not longer haveideological or economical reasons, but will arise out of cultural clashes betweennations and ethnical groups of different civilizations. Huntington assumes thatthe clash of civilizations has already started and that it will gain intensity in thefuture.

The questions, this paper aims to answer, will therefore be: What does theconflict situation look like in 2000 and 2006 according to the HIIK (HeidelbergInstitute for International Conflict Research) conflict barometer and are thereany changes in the world-conflict-climate between 2000 and 2006? What kindof variants can be detected? Is the immanent relation between civilization andconflict that Huntington postulates, provable by empirical means?

Regarding the time limitation, I have chosen to focus on the years of 2000 and2006. Huntington s theory predicts a new world order for the 21st century.Therefore I have chosen the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century,which seems to be a good starting point for my analysis. The second year,which will be analyzed is 2006. This is not only due to the fact that it is thelatest statistic available, but also because a period of 6 years is a suitable spanfor being able to identify possible changes and similarities. One will be in theposition to talk about variances during that period and might be able to give anoutlook for the future.

1.3. Comparative research design

As conceptual framework of this paper, a simple comparative research designwill be applied. We need such a roadmap because collected data evidencereclusively means very little until they are analyzed and evaluated (Bell, 2005:201).

Hall claims, that making comparisons, and tracking differences and similaritiesmeans moving from simply describing to looking at how several variables arerelated (Hall, 2004: 147). This brings us to one weakness of this experimentaldesign. It is not good at establishing why things have changed (DeVaus, 2002:315). The facts therefore have to be analyzed and interpreted.

By analyzing and comparing the conflict statistics of 2000 and 2006, this paperaims to identify possible changes in the world-conflict-climate over a period ofsix years. The thesis wants to determine to what extend this conflict-situationof the world is congruent with Huntington s prognosis regarding the futureconflict-situation. Observing and comparing the statistics of 2000 and 2006 istherefore considered to be an excellent means to combine Huntington s theorywith empirical findings.

Furthermore, the comparative design can encourage us to seek explanations forsimilarities and differences or to gain a greater awareness and a deeperunderstanding of social reality in different contexts (Hantrais, 1996: 13).

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To stress those differences, the intention is to use cross-cultural research(Bryman, 2004: 53) coming from an unusual direction. Instead of comparingtwo different regions at the same point in time, we will look at five differentregions all around the world in two different moments and circumstances. Thespecial criteria that will be used are going to be presented later on.

2. (Neo-)Realism as historical background

Samuel P. Huntington was influenced and embossed by the neo-realisticapproach, which emerged from classical realism. Hence, the neo-realistic theorycan be seen as the fundament of Huntington s clash of civilizations approach. Itis important for the further understanding of Huntington s train of thought, tobe familiar with (neo-) realism as a main theory in international relations.

The realist theories of international relations describe the international systemas anarchic and look at nation-states as the primary constituent units of thatsystem. J. Morgenthau one of the first scholars of the realistic approach - sawinternational politics as a struggle for power between states: the pursuit ofnational interests was a normal, unavoidable and desirable activity (Burchill etal, 2005: 80). That means that, from a realist point of view, states arefundamentally engaged in the struggle for survival through maximizing power.

The fact that there exist numerous states in this anarchic international systemrenders an acute problem of insecurity for each one of them. This phenomenonis described by the security-dilemma that leads to permanent threat for thenation-states. The security dilemma encourages a constant competition forpower, particularly between the great powers (Baylis, 2005: 162-165).

Since there is no effective authority, which acts as a mediator in conflictresolution between states in the international system, it is considered to be aself-help system. In the context of explanatory realism, this fact is seen as asecondary reason for the state of affairs (Sandole & van der Merve, 1993: 4).In general, realism wants to detect actual and concrete facts and phenomena ofinternational politics.

2.1. (Neo-)Realism and the clash of civilizations

After having understood Huntington s theoretical background, an importantquestion for this paper will be, where his theory ties with realism.

One of the most obvious points, which shows Huntington s relation with neo-realism is his claim that nation-states remain the main actors in theinternational system even after changes in the world order. However, he statesthat their interests, associations, and conflicts are increasingly shaped bycultural and civilizational factors (Huntington, 1996: 36). Thus, he predicts thatfuture conflicts will be between civilizations and not between nation states andthis is the point, where he differs from classical realism. In the realistic view,cultural factors are irrelevant, if not perturbing, when it comes to the definitionof state interest. In contrast to the political realistic belief, nation-states in the

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clash of civilizations are not longer considered to be rational actors in thatsense that they all act equally rational. In fact, Huntington s emphasis oncultural factors implies that different states react differently in the exact samesituation due to their specific cultural background. Considering the plurality ofcivilizations, this necessarily leads to a very complex sphere of interests in theinternational system. How to deal with this complex world - in which everycivilization considers its values as binding - and how to reach common decisionsis, however, not explained by Huntington.

Other statements from the clash of civilizations, however, can be clearly andeasily related to political realism. Huntington is concordant with the classicaltheory when he underlines that the structures in the international system areanarchic. Furthermore, his statement that the world is divided between aWestern one and a non-Western many reminds us easily of the formerbipolarity in the world system (Huntington, 1996: 36).

3. The HIIK conflict barometer

Following, this paper aims to detect, to what extend the de facto conflictsituation is congruent with Huntington s theory about future conflicts.The HIIK (Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research) conflictbarometer and its statistics from the years 2000 and 2006 will serve asfundaments, as they document all conflicts around the world (HeidelbergInstitute for International Conflict Research, 2000 & 2006).

In listing the conflicts, there will be a four-level distinction of conflict intensity.Level 1 of intensity concerns a latent conflict that is completely non-violent.Level 2 appoints predominantly non-violent crisis, whereas level 3 is aboutsevere crisis with reappearing use of violence. Finally, level 4 describes warswith systemic and collective dedication to violence and regular troops.

The charts are tabulated according to five geographical regions (Europe,America, Middle East and Maghreb, Asia/Oceania, Sub-Sahara Africa) and showin a chronological manner:

§ where the conflict takes place§ who the participating central actors are§ which intensity level can be allocated to the conflict§ which is the primarily conflict cause according to the Heidelberg

Institute for International conflict research§ if the conflict is occurring along the civilizational fault lines (as

defined by Huntington) or not.

Since Huntington did not define the borders between the civilizations explicitly,we will attempt to evaluate - in terms of Huntington s theory if it is a fault lineclash or not.

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3.1. Empirical conflict analysis of the year 2000

3.1.1. Armed Conflicts in 2000

The following chapter deals with all conflicts of level 3 and 4 from the year2000, because the primarily focus shall first be on those conflicts, which werecarried out in a violent way.

To summarize the empirical findings, one can state that in the year 2000, theworld had to face 36 violent conflicts (12 wars and 24 severe crises),whereupon already 25 of those conflicts occurred in Sub-Sahara Africa andAsia/Oceania. One can observe ten cases of civilizational fault line wars, whichis equal to a percentage of 27,8%. This statistical outcome does not show anytendency that the international system is dominated by clashes of civilizations.

Besides, there is no indicator or evidence for involvement of the core states inthe way Huntington postulated it. First of all, there was no clash between onecore state and another core state and secondly, those conflicts, where corestates were involved (Russia, India, USA) occurred exclusively due to ownnational interests. There are also no combat operations carried out for loyaltyreasons from core states or their fellows.

Moreover, it is remarkable that most conflicts were intrastate struggles andonly four out of the 36 severe and violent crises occurred between differentnation states. Thus, states or even civilizations are only marginal actors and themain actors are representatives of conflict groups of different civilizationalgroups.

A look on the conflict causes shows that the reasons are very variable andcomplex. The main emphasis however, is on attempting autonomy, nationalpower and territory. Additionally, one can identify that, even though religiondoes not dominate the conflict situation, it is nevertheless an important factorand contributes definitive to the extension and intensification of wars. Culturaland religious issues can however not be considered to be direct activators ofconflicts. In fact, it is more ethnical factors as well as authority- anddistributional injustice that play an important role herby.

3.1.2. Latent Conflicts in 2000

The conflict barometer documents in total 144 conflicts in 2000 (HeidelbergInstitute for International Conflict Research, 2000: 3) whereof 36 arecategorized as wars (level 4) and severe crises (level 3). By means of theremaining 108 latent conflicts and crises (level 1 and 2), this study aims now toillustrate what could be expected in the future regarding civilizational clashes interms of Huntington. Therefore, it is important to notice that the followingresults will show only those latent conflicts and crises, in which members ofdifferent civilizations are involved.

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This distinction is not easy since the index of European latent conflicts andcrises shows many struggles between members of the (Slavic-)Orthodox andthe Western civilization. To label those conflicts as clashes of civilizations,however, seems insofar problematic as Huntington defined the Slavic-Orthodoxcivilization as a civilizational group that is undetermined regarding the questionif it is a self-contained civilization or if it can be attributed to the West.

A similar problem occurs looking at the American continent because the LatinAmerican civilization has according to Huntington its roots in the Westerncivilization.

As a summary of the conflict situation, one can claim that among the 108 latentconflicts and crises in 2000, there were 24 cases with participants fromdifferent civilizations, which corresponds to 22,2 %.

Since, however, some conflicts on the European and American continent areproblematic to be classified as civilizational clashes (as pointed out before), onemust speak of a maximal percentage of 22,2 %. Not taking the latent conflictsand crises on those two continents into consideration would minimize thepercentage to 15,7 % in total.

Those numbers, which are supposed to give us a hint about the futuredevelopments regarding civilizational conflicts, lie below the percentage of 27,8%, which illustrates the actual clashes of civilizations in 2000, as we found outbefore. Hence, following those numbers, one could predict that there will beless civilizational conflicts in the future.

Having a closer look at the latent conflicts and crises in 2000, it is remarkablethat there occur more quarrels between different states, than it is the case inwars and violent conflicts, which emerge mostly within a single state.

Concerning causes for latent conflicts and crises, one can notice that even if thequest for autonomy is a very common reason to struggle, the fight for territoryand resources remarkable gains importance as a conflict cause in comparison tothe conflicts on the third and fourth intensity level.

3.1.3. Conflict-Summary of 2000

The following figure will summarize once more the overall conflict situation in2000 and the percentaged share, the members of different civilizations pertainin those conflicts.

CONFLICTSWith participants

from differentcivilizations

With participantsfrom onecivilization

Total

Number of Conflicts 34 110 144

Percentaged Share 23,6 % 76,4 % 100 %

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Wars and Severe Crises 10 26 36

Percentaged Share 27,8 % 72,2 % 100 %

Latent Conflicts andCrises 24 84 108

Percentaged Share 22,2 % 77,8 % 100 %

Latent Conflicts andCrises(allocating the Slavic-Orthodox and the LatinAmerican civilizations tothe Western)

17 91 108

Percentaged Share 15,7 % 84,3 % 100 %

As one can see in the table, more conflicts are fought within a civilization thanbetween different civilizations in the year 2000. Besides, most of the wars areintrastate wars and the only interstate war occurs between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Most violent conflicts (level 3 and 4) are carried out in Sub-Sahara Africa (13)and Asia/Oceania (12). By far the most wars eight out of twelve - can beobserved in Africa, whereas one can identify only a small number of violentconflicts in Europe and on the American continent.

The most common conflict causes for political clashes in 2000 are autonomy,national authority, and territory. The most violent conflicts, however, are foughtfor national authority, the political system, or secession. (Heidelberg Institutefor International Conflict Research, 2000: 3-5)

3.2. Empirical conflict analysis of the year 2006

3.2.1. Armed Conflicts in 2006

The following chapter presents all conflicts of level 3 and 4 from the year 2006,because this chapter shall follow the same structure as the chapter 3.1.1, inorder to be able to make a comparison of the two points in time.

In 2006, one can identify 35 violent conflicts worldwide, whereof 6 can beclassified as wars and 29 are severe crises. By far the most violent crises (15)occur in the Sub-Sahara Africa region. Both, Asia/Oceania and MiddleEast/Maghreb face each nine violent conflicts. The European and the Americancontinents are the most stable and peaceful regions. 11 of the 35 mentionedwars and severe crises can be classified as conflicts along civilizational faultlines. This corresponds to a percentage of 31,4 %. This means that 1/3 of allviolent conflicts in 2006 occur along civilizational fault lines.

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In 2006, one cannot observe any clash between two core states and those corestates that are involved in crises fight for national reasons only. Regarding thecombat operation in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom one couldclaim that it is a loyalty alliance of Western forces. The same could be saidabout President Bush s Coalition of the Willing in 2002 during the second Iraqwar. This fact supports Huntington s thesis about loyalty clusters within thesame civilization.

It is remarkable that in 2006 there is only one interstate conflict (Israel vs.Lebanon) worldwide and all other struggles are intrastate conflicts. This showsthat states become more and more insignificant as actors and that ethnical andreligious groups gain importance in the conflict context.

The main conflict causes for wars (level 4) are either power or system/ideology.When it comes to the reasons for violent conflicts in general, one can see astrong tendency to national and regional predominance and power as conflictreasons, followed by autonomy/secession ambitions and system/ideologyissues. Resources play a very marginal role in 2006.

Furthermore, even though religion still does not dominate the conflict situation,it gains however importance and contributes to a large extension to theintensification of conflicts. Nevertheless, ethnical factors as well as authority-and distributional injustice are still the dominant variables in this context.

3.2.2. Latent Conflicts in 2006

The conflict barometer documents in total 278 political conflicts in 2006(Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, 2006: 1), whereof 35are categorized as wars (level 4) and severe crises (level 3). By means of theremaining 243 latent conflicts and crises (level 1 and 2), this study aims now toillustrate what could be expected in the future regarding civilizational clashes interms of Huntington. Therefore, it is important to notice that the followingfigures will show only those latent conflicts and crises, in which members ofdifferent civilizations are involved.

To summarize, in the year 2006 the world has to face 160 latent conflicts and83 crises. Among those 243 level 1 and 2 conflicts one can identify 37 caseswith participants from different civilizations, which corresponds to 15,2 %. Thispercentage, however, includes also the clashes between the Western and theOrthodox as well as between the Latin American and the Western civilizations,which have been classified as problematic due to identical origins. Excludingthose conflicts the percentage of civilizational clashes decreases to apercentage of 11,9 %.

Those numbers, which are supposed to give us a hint about futuredevelopments regarding civilizational conflicts, lie below the percentage of 31,4%, which illustrates the actual violent clashes of civilizations in 2006, as wefound out before. It is remarkable how much the percentages regarding

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civilizational conflicts differ between level 3 and 4 (31,4%) and level 1 and 2(15,2 % or 11,9 %). This allows the interpretation that civilizational issuesmatter more in violent conflicts and wars than in latent crises. Latent conflictsand crises occur mostly within a civilization. This supports Huntington s theorythat civilizational affiliations and convictions can reinforce a conflict and thatclashes of civilizations are the most violent ones.

Furthermore, one can identify more interstate quarrels on level 1 and 2 than onthe violent levels. Having a closer look at the conflict causes for latent conflictsand crises, one can notice a clear tendency to fight for territory and powerreasons.

3.2.3. Conflict-Summary of 2006

The following figure will summarize once more the overall conflict situation in2006 and the percentaged share, the members of different civilizations pertainin those conflicts.

CONFLICTSWith participants

from differentcivilizations

With participantsfrom onecivilization

Total

Number of Conflicts 48 230 278

Percentaged Share 17,3 % 82,7 % 100 %Wars and Severe Crises 11 24 35

Percentaged Share 31,4 %68,6 %

100 %

Latent Conflicts andCrises 37 206 243

Percentaged Share 15,2 % 84,8 % 100 %

Latent Conflicts andCrises(allocating the Slavic-Orthodox and the LatinAmerican civilizations tothe Western)

29 214 243

Percentaged Share 11,9 % 88,1 % 100 %

In 2006 one can find a big number of conflicts, especially on level 1 and 2. Asone can see in the table, the percentage of clashes of civilizations in wars andsevere crises (level 3 and 4) is double as high as the percentage of civilizationalconflicts in latent crises (level 1 and 2).

One third of all violent conflicts are fought between members of differentcivilizations. This fact supports Huntington s theory that civilizational clashes

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tend to have a very violent character. However, one can claim that there arestill more conflicts fought within a civilization than between differentcivilizations in the year 2006. The big amount of latent conflicts in the worldcould be an indicator for a future intensification of the worldwide conflictclimate.

With a total number of 90 conflicts, Asia/Oceania is the region where the mostconflicts occur. Most wars (level 4), however, take place in the MiddleEast/Maghreb region. Even though, America is the most peaceful regionregarding political conflicts, it has to face an increase in violent criminality.Europe has to deal with a total amount of 45 conflicts, whereof most areintrastate struggles for autonomy and secession.

In general, one can identify 196 intrastate conflicts and 76 fights betweendifferent states (the other 6 states do not fit into this scheme).

The dominant conflict reason in 2006 is ideological differences between theseveral parties with the aim to change the existing political system. Anotherimportant reason to fight is the quest for national power. It is remarkable thatconflicts are often caused by more than one reason. Common combinations inthis context are resources with territory/authority as well as system/ideologywith authority.

4. Analysis and evaluation

In the following analytical part, the empirical research results shall be evaluatedwith special regard to Huntington s theoretical framework. In this context theanalysis will support the attempt to answer the research questions.

4.1. Variancies and similarities between 2000 and 2006

2000 2006Total Number of Conflicts 144 278Wars and Severe Crises 36 35Latent Conflicts and Crises 108 243Fault Line Conflicts (alllevels) 23,6 % 17,3 %Main Conflict Causes Autonomy, National

Authority, TerritoryIdeology/Political

SystemRegion with the mostconflicts Asia/Oceania /OceaniaRegion with the most violentconflicts Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa

Most Peaceful Region America and Europe America

Fault-Line Conflicts withIslamic Civilization involved 21 35

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As one can see in the table above, there was a remarkable increase in the totalnumber of conflicts between the years 2000 and 2006. This is mainly due to arise in the total number of latent conflicts and crises in 2006. The amount ofwars and severe crises however, remained constant during those six years. Thismeans that even though the world faces more non-violent struggles in 2006, amore responsible exposure to violent wars and crises is obvious. This claim issupported by the fact that the number of level 4 wars declined from 12 to 6between 2000 and 2006.

Although the number of latent conflicts increases, the amount of open andviolent wars is more or less stable and has even decreased a bit. The HumanSecurity Centre in Vancouver sees the explanation for this decline of violentwars not in the rise of peacemaking but in the descent of war-making. In otherwords, the experts do not see the aim for worldwide democracy, but the end ofcolonization as a reason (Hillenkamp, 2007: 45).

Even if one can identify an increasing total number of conflicts betweendifferent civilizations, it turns out to be a descent from 23,6 % to 17,3 % oncetaking into consideration the rising amount of conflicts in total. Thus, thefigures do not necessarily show any evidence of an imminent clash ofcivilizations. Moreover, there is no tendency of core states to fight other corestates, or solidarity combat operations, which is contradictive to Huntington sstatement about core states.

One can identify no changes when it comes to the region with the most conflicts(Asia/Oceania) and the region with the most violent conflicts (Sub-SaharanAfrica). America remains the most peaceful region over the years, whereasEurope has to deal with a slight increase in conflict numbers from 2000 to2006.

It seems remarkable that the main conflict causes change from autonomy,territory, and national authority towards ideology and political system, sinceHuntington predicted that the future conflicts will no longer include ideology asa primary reason to fight.

Another interesting point is the tendency towards intrastate conflicts, eventhought Huntington postulated that states will remain the main actors.

Regarding the involvement of the Islamic civilizations into conflicts, one canidentify a remarkable increase. In 2000 the Islamic civilization was involved in21 out of 34 struggles between different civilizations, which corresponds to apercentage of 61,8%. In 2006 the percentage rose to 72,9% (35 out of 48).This supports Huntington s predictions about Islam s bloody borders.

The most obvious difference occurs however evaluating the percentage ofcivilizational wars. In 2000 only 2 out of 12 level 4 wars were fought alongcivilizational fault lines, which corresponds to 16,7 %. In 2006, however, thepercentage increased to 50% since 3 out of 6 level 4 wars occur betweendifferent civilizations. This numbers support Huntington s claim that conflicts

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between different civilizations tend to have a more violent character. Thus,even if the former figures showed a decline in the total percentage ofcivilizational fault line conflicts, one can identify a remarkable percentualincrease when it comes to wars between different civilizations on the mostviolent level. However, one must see that many of those struggles, notably inthe Middle East region, began as secular tribal disputes and gained the religiouscomponent only after a while. Yet that they include this religious component,they are harder to solve.

5. Conclusion

Huntington postulates that the clash of civilizations is the latest phase ofmodern history. In publishing his thesis he is completely aware of the fact thathe will have to mention good reasons why this clash of civilizations will happenexactly in the present point in time. In this context, his assumption prevailsthat the ongoing globalization does not lead to a greater mutual interculturalunderstanding, but to a reinforced emphasis on the own civilizational values.Since this is a very complex assumption, it is hard to answer it in a sufficientway with the empirical findings of this study. Since there is a percentaldecrease of conflicts between different civilizations, however, one could claimthis statement to be wrong.

However, speaking about globalization as a source of conflict in general, onecould refer to the area of security policy where globalization is seen as a director indirect threat to national and international security and therefore a possiblesource of conflict. In the course of globalization, one can identify severalconcrete security risks, such as demographic, technological, and economicchanges. Demographic changes include for example an increasing urbanizationand the resulting imbalance through population clusters. The increased spreadof technology has also not just positive outcomes, since it facilitates networkingand transnational communication of terrorists and criminals.

The consequences of globalization can be noticed all over the world, but itseffects are stronger in those parts of the world, where phenomena, such asbetter technologies are newer. This leads us the Asia/Oceania and the MiddleEast/Maghreb regions, where we found the biggest number of fights and themost violent conflicts in the world. Europe and America are traditionally moremodernized regions, where urbanization and an increased spread of technologyare rather old phenomena. The claim that regions, in which globalization hasfurther reaching and more drastic effects on stability and security, are possiblemore susceptible to conflicts might therefore be right.

Moreover, Huntington analyzed the international relations in categories ofcooperation and conflict. According to the American scholar, future conflicts inthe international system will be fought for cultural and civilizational differencesrather than for ideological or economical causes. And in the same time,culturally similar actors show a stronger tendency to cooperation than culturallydifferent actors do. To put it in other words, it can be said that conflictsbetween groups and states of different civilizations will occur more often than

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struggles between members and groups of the same civilization. As mentionedbefore, a decrease in the percentage of intercivilizational conflicts proves thisclaim to be wrong and the shift towards ideology as the main conflict cause in2006 does not exactly support this statement either. However, one can identifya recent tendency towards religious wars and this is one of the importantreasons why a future clash of civilizations cannot be excluded per se.

Even though one cannot identify a remarkable increase of intercivilizationalconflicts since the Cold War era which means that Huntington s main thesiscannot be proven right by empirical means there are still some aspects of histheory that can be supported and proven to be right. As Henderson points out,it is true that the combatants belong to different religions surpassingly often(Henderson, 1997: 649-668). Fox (2001: 459-472) complements an interestingperspective to this discussion in claiming that, even if the occurrence ofcivilizational conflicts did not change significantly over the years, there ishowever a remarkable increase in conflicts between the Western and theIslamic civilization since 1989. This statement is supported by the statistics ofthis study as well, which show an obvious increase in the number of conflictswhere members of the Western civilization fight against members of the Islamiccivilization. According to Fox, those developments could have influencedHuntington when he launched his theory about Islam s bloody borders and theclash between the Western and the Islamic civilization. In this part of his theoryHuntington argued that the Islamic civilization has experienced a drasticpopulation explosion, which is encouraging instability both on the borders ofIslam and in its interior, where fundamentalist movements are becomingincreasingly popular. Besides he stated that civilizational conflicts areparticularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims and identified thebloody borders between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. As aconsequence, he claims that the current global war on terror between the Westand Islam is not a new outcome of the behavior of some radicals, but rather areflection of the problematic history between those two civilizations.

The new world order in Huntington s analysis is necessarily multipolar, sinceevery civilization has its own center of power and competence (usually the mostpowerful state of the civilization). This core state hold a crucial double role inthe international system: on one hand side, they represent the interest of theircivilization against extern powers, and on the other hand side they incur thepower function to control, order and organize. According to the empiricalfindings of this study, there is no evidence for the clash between different corestates or solidarity actions of other members of the same civilization that waspredicted by Huntington.

Another problem is Huntington s concept about the relation between state andcivilization and the obvious tense relation between both entities. To keep itshort, the problem is that the state is an actor within the international systemand the civilization not. Huntington claims that the nation state will remain thedominant actor in the international system in the future and will take over allthe interests of the civilization bit by bit. This process is difficult to imagine,however and seems rather impossible to realize. Additionally, there exist some

39

essential differences between the concepts of states and civilizations: stateshave borders, civilizations have frames; states are actors, civilizations areentities; states have interests, civilizations have cultural similarities.Nevertheless, it is not generally to doubt that nation states could also representthe interests of bigger entities such as civilizations.

A closer look at the present conflict panorama shows us that peace is prevailingmainly in industrialized areas and democracies. Susceptible for conflicts aredictatorships, states in which the public order failed, third world countries withbig raw material deposits, and regions along civilizational fault lines. This proofsthat civilization do matter when it comes to conflict issues, but there are stillother important conflict causes. Thus, although the clash of civilizations cannotbe totally excluded, it is definitely not necessarily imminent. The fact thatcomplicates foreign policy enormously these days is that culture wars are nowglobal (The Economist (special), November 2007: 12 ).

Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the rising number of religious conflicts allaround the world. After having played a rather marginal role in the 20th centurypolitics, religion holds a central role in the 21st century. Outside WesternEurope, religion has gained remarkable importance. An Islamist party rulesonce-secular Turkey; Hindu nationalists may return to power in India s nextelection; even more children in Israel and Palestine are attending religiousschools that tell them that God granted them the whole Holy Land and onpresent trends, China will become the world s biggest Christian country (andperhaps its biggest Muslim one too). How should those developments beevaluated? First of all (as The Economist claims), the idea that religion hasrecently re-emerged in public life is clearly wrong. It never really went away. Inthis context, one can state that the religion that influences public life the mostis Islam. At its most theocratic, Islam forces people to follow sharia laws,sometimes with cruel penalties. Yet, Islam can clearly co-exist with a modernliberal state, as the democracies in Malaysia and Indonesia show. Thus, onecould consider Turkey to be a test case since it is a secular state currently ruledby Islamists whose progress is being watched with nervous attention (Theeconomist, November 2007: 13).

As the previous chapters have shown, one could conclude saying that most ofHuntington s theses are disprovable. Furthermore, his theory reflects the realitysometimes in a blurry manner. Especially his concepts of culture, civilizations,core states and conflicts request further questioning and explanations.

Nevertheless, it seems that Huntington is well aware of the fact that his pictureof future world politics is not complete, and thus, a bit distorted. He actuallypoints out that his paradigm is not more than a framework for reflecting aboutinternational system. It is, in fact, a theoretical construct that cannot (and doesnot aim to, either) explain everything.

The reactions towards Huntington s theory vary from appreciating affirmation tocategorical refusal. There is, however, an accordance about the fact that it is

40

Huntington s credit to put the meaning, difficulties, and endangerments ofcivilizations into worldwide focus.

Another important term in this context is the new form of internationalterrorism. This international terrorism derives mostly from religiousfundamentalism. Noticing an increase in religious fundamentalism and thusinternational terrorism may, however, not be mixed up with civilizationalconflicts. Religious fundamentalism is not necessarily directed against anothercivilization, but happens also within the same civilizations (e.g. Islam). It istherefore important to keep these two terms separated. Having a closer look onthose conflicts in which the Islamic civilization is involved, one will notice thatthe statement that Islam is stuck in a clash of civilizations with the West israther unconvincing. One irony of the war on terror is e.g. that although GeorgeW. Bush has declared war upon jihadism, his enemies invest very little energyto fighting him. The jihadists fight their main war not against Westerners butagainst apostate Muslim regimes. In cases where they do fight againstoutsiders (America in Iraq, India in Kashmir, Russia in Chechenia, and Israel inPalestine), they fight mainly against occupying powers (The Economist(special), Nov 2007: 15).

Besides, one should pay more attention to the rather unexpected last part ofHuntington s book, where he advocates in a quite conciliatory way amulticultural world.

Since one of the most important outcomes of this paper is the tendencytowards intracivilizational conflicts, a suggestion would be, to have thoseconflicts on focus for future research. Are those wars compatible with theoriesabout the fragmented society or which other reasons and issues can bedetected? It therefore could be very interesting to have a closer look at specificintracivilizational conflicts in future research papers.

To conclude, it remains to say that the empirical analysis of this paper could notfind sufficient evidence for an imminent clash of civilizations. However, it isobvious that several aspects of his thesis could be proven right by the analysisof this study.

Nevertheless, one has to be aware of the fact that this paper examines a veryshort span of time only and that it would request a far larger and more detailedstudy to gain further reliable results.

Regarding future developments in the world system, one probably can neitherexpect the ultimate clash of civilizations nor a unique and unified worldcivilization. Thus, most likely the reality will lie somewhere in between.

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Bryman, A 2004, Social Research Methods, 2nd Ed, Oxford University Press, New York.

Burchill, S et al. 2005, Theories of International Relations, 3rd Edition, PalgraveMacmillian, New York.

De Vaus, D 2002, Analyzing Social Science Data 50 key problems in data analysis,Sage Publications, London.

Fox, J 2001, Two civilizations and ethnic conflict Islam and the West , Journal of PeaceResearch, 38, no 4, July 2001, p. 459-472.

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Hantrais, L 1996, Comparative research methods , Social Research Updates, Vol 13.

Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, 2007, Conflict Baromenter,viewed 15. October 2007, http://www.hiik.de/de/konfliktbarometer.htm.

Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, 2007, Conflict Barometer 2000,viewed 24. October 2007,http://www.hiik.de/konfliktbarometer/pdf/Konfliktbarometer_2000.pdf.

Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, 2007, Conflict Barometer 2006,viewed 31. October 2007,http://www.hiik.de/konfliktbarometer/pdf/ConflictBarometer_2006.pdf.

Henderson, E A 1997, Culture or contiguity: ethnic conflict, the similarity of states, andthe onset of war, 1820-1989 , The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 41, no 5, October1997, p. 649-668.

Hillenkamp, S 2007, Strategien für den Weltfrieden , GEO, August 2007, p. 44-48.

Huntington, S P 1993, The clash of civilizations? , Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, Vol.72, Issue 3, p. 22-49.

Huntington, S P 1993b, If not civilizations, what? paradigms of the post-cold war world ,Foreign Affairs, 72:5, p. 194.

Huntington, S P 1996, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,Simon&Schuster, London.

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The Economist (author not mentioned) 2007, The new wars of religion, November 3rd,9th 2007, Volume 385, Number, 8553, London

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 46-60

The approach of moderate constructivismtowards international regimes1

Vladrin Graincavaldrin_gr@hotmail.com

This article adapts a theoretical approach toward explanations ofinternational regimes. The main point is to see how moderateconstructivism can contribute to the study of the internationalregimes. Since liberal institutionalism is the leading perspective oninternational regimes, this article defies its main theoreticalfoundations rather Prisoner s Dilemma and Market Failure . Afterviewing these explanations as not convincing we turn to themoderate constructivism by arguing that this perspective canprovide better explanations by focusing on identity theory. Byfocusing on identity theory this article argues that the strength ofinternational regimes depends on the identity of states. Thebehaviour of the great powers will take place as illustrations.

Introduction

From 1970s emerged theories focusing on interdependence and study ofinternational politics (Little 2005, p.370-371). These theories focused oninternational regimes in order to explain cooperation and institutions ofinternational politics. The interactions between states attracted attention of thescholars within the area of international regimes. One important aspect was therole of hegemonic power and its role on facilitating international regimes. Thisraises a question about other great powers and international regimes: if thehegemonic power established regimes for its interests then how do other greatpowers view international regimes? The aim of this article is to provide a criticalexamination of Prisoners Dilemma and Market Failure dealing with theconcept of international regimes. During the past many wars between powerfulstates occurred as a consequence of power quest of rising powers (revisionistidentity). Beside existence of international regimes, these great powers madewar as a normal tool towards the peak of international politics. France, GreatBritain, Germany, Japan etc., were using war as a means of progress ininternational affairs. International regimes that were created during this periodhad incorporated norms and principles to justify the gains of wars (Puchala &Hopkins 1982, p.257). After the Second World War (WWII), the emergence ofregimes became a fashion and, at the same time, there was no war betweengreat powers. Proliferation of international regimes continued while greatpowers such as China and Russia joined World Trade Organization (WTO) or

1 This article contains some parts of the master thesis Great Powers Behavior towardsInternational Regimes: introducing moderate constructivism .

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International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the Cold War. These organizations andregime that they promoted were biased because they served the interests ofthe United States of America (U.S.) (Puchala & Hopkins 1982, 260).Nevertheless, China and Russia joined these regimes advocated byabovementioned organizations. How this could happen? China and Russia madea step that leads to assumptions of compliance with the established rules, thus,making their power quest as a non-violent behavior. In sum, behavior ofpowerful states in search for power has changed, shifting from war tointernational regimes as a means of power projection. In this aspect, eventhough international regimes existed before WWII they didn t reduceuncertainty, as they didn t maximize benefits of concerned parties. This gapemerges by ignoring the contextual aspect of great powers their identity,indeed. The concept of international regimes is changing effectively as a resultof states identity. By adapting a theoretical approach we intend to understandthis change of behavior and a great help will be moderate constructivism ofAlexander Wendt.

The concept of international regimes

Toward the concept of international regimes Susan Strange brings a profoundcriticism. Her criticism is based on Marxist structuralism and economic aspectwhere she made some points. Strange (1982, p. 484-485) asserts (as ArthurStein does) that the concept of international regimes is so broad that whenused by international scholars it means different things and is used to analyzedifferent aspects of international politics, thus, being woolly . Moreover, theconcept of international regimes attempts to obscure the fragility ofinternational politics where disagreements are more usual than agreements (p.491). Her critique is elaborated further by accusing regime scholars to betending to assert that regimes are reducing uncertainty and bringing order,meanwhile many regimes brings disorder than order (p. 480-489).

States behavior, power and interests are important parts of the explanation ofinternational regimes. In this respect, liberal institutionalism gave profoundinsights on international regimes. On the other hand, constructivism dividedin two groups gave insights, too, but it substituted regimes for institutions. Inthis way, Wendt (1999, p. 96) views institutions made of norms and rules,which are ideational phenomena . Rationalists, too, substitute regimes forinstitutions only that there are different thoughts to what an institution orregimes are. Therefore, there is a need for a proper concept of internationalregimes that would have two elements: first, it would have elements ofmoderate constructivism or it wouldn t be in contradiction with this perspectiveand it would limit the concept of international regimes to certain institutionsthat are within regimes, thus, avoiding criticism of Strange.

Alexander Wendt reduced regimes to institutions and this represents theproblem underlined by Strange and Stein that the concept of regimes becamewoolly . But Wendt distinguishes these institutions in terms of incorporation of

them within the society as norms and principles thus using them also ininternational arena where these institutions became as shared ideas. In this

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way, we intend to combine the definition of Wendt and Stein. Arthur Stein(1982, p. 301) emphasized the most important element in regime formation byasserting that the facilitation of regimes takes place when behavior of states isconstrained by joint decision/action. Thus, conventions and agreements are thebasis to identify elements of a regime but not the only one. To translate this inconstructivist language and combine it with Wends understanding, regimesrepresents shared ideas incorporated within joint decisions of states, thus,constraining and establishing a certain behavior of states.

Liberal institutionalism

Another tradition of thought is liberal institutionalism (or neoliberalism). Theneoliberalist point of view accentuates that institutions exert a significantinfluence on international relations enabling states, as rational actors, to solvecooperation problems and realize what autonomy and self-help cannot provide(Reus-Smit 1997, p. 560). Neoliberals propose to analyze regimes as a strictlyinterest-based phenomena the creation, maintenance, and demise of which canand must be accounted for from the perspective of strategically rational butotherwise mutually indifferent actors (Hasenclever, Mayer & Rittberger 1996,p. 26). A leading thinker is Keohane who relying heavily on modern economictheories of institutions , proposes a contractualist approach of internationalregimes (p. 27). The main function of regimes is described by the Prisoner sDilemma, where the role of regimes is to serve as a means of cooperation, andmarket failure that gives a functional attribute to regimes (1996, p. 27).Moreover, actors interests or values are not changed by international regimes,these regimes alter the incentives for action, thus changing the calculations ofadvantage that governments make where, as Keohane points out, regimes arethe cause while cooperation is the effect (Keohane in Hasenclever, Mayer &Rittberger 1996, p. 32).

International regimes have an advantage because states are provided with anenvironment where they can cooperate through agreements (Keohane inHasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger, p. 37). But, what about the role of sharedideas? Do regimes serve as a place where states can share ideas on interestsand power? Moreover, do these ideas have any role at all in states interactions?These are cognitivist questions that will bring insights on the role of the stateand international regimes meanwhile stressing the limits of liberalinstitutionalism.

Robert Keohane as a leading thinker of liberal institutionalism, from thebeginning of 1990s turns to the study of the role of ideas in foreign policy.Keohane, in this respect, introduced new insights in the role of ideas betweenstates and within international regimes. In his book, a co-editor with JudithGoldstein, he asserts that ideas, which are defined as beliefs held byindividuals , help to explain outcomes particularly those related to the foreignpolicy (eds Keohane and Goldstein 1993, p.3). Nevertheless, since politics is arealm where states are faced with continuous uncertainties, ideas can serve asroadmaps in maximizing interests of the actors (p. 16). Accordingly, ideas guidethe behavior by stipulating causal patterns or by providing compelling ethical

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or moral motivations for action (p. 16). The role of ideas as roadmaps is veryprofound but nevertheless, ideas are not limited only to the causal factor. As itwill be mentioned below, Wendt pointed out that interests, beside theirmaterialistic part, are constituted by ideas.

Later, Keohane (2002, p.1) asserted the principal motor of action in this viewis self-interest, guided by rationality, which translates structural andinstitutional conditions into payoffs and probabilities, and therefore incentives .How can states share ideas within a certain regime when they are self-interested entities? The generated behavior that derives from the self is verylimited, since the state would be interested to realize its own goals. Liberalinstitutionalism shares rationalist framework of studying international regimes.Liberalists ignore identity issues of states and as a consequence they cannotexplain why regimes serve as means of advancing interests in present-day anddidn t provide same opportunities before the WWII. This is the reason why inthis thesis liberal institutionalism is considered as a non-comprehensiveperspective.

Market failure

In his explanation of market failure, Keohane (1984), takes the explanationmarket lemons provided by George Akerlof where institutions are needed toreduce uncertainty. Arrow, examining this market failure, asserted that theproblem here is not the buyers (actors) but the problem is at the products(Arrow in Keohane 1984, p. 96-97). Translated into the international politics,this means that, as Arrow notices, actors are not the problem because they arerational utility-maximizers but the problem is the structure of internationalsystem (which is anarchic) and the absence of institutional arrangements thatwould determine the price of lemons (Arrow in Keohane 1984, 97). Therefore,the key element is the uncertainty that we face in international politics. In thisway, states do not have same opinions during their interactions. And thisresults to the market failure. To escape the market failure, international systemneeds international regimes (institutional arrangements) to reduce uncertaintyand to have coordination in order to maximize interests.

Market failure is the concept that, provided by liberal institutionalism, explainsthe reason why international regimes exist and are beneficial. According toRichard Little (2005, p. 80), the decline of state authority expressed the needfor regime formation in the international arena. In this way, internationalregimes emerge as a consequence of states self-interests because theseregimes provide cooperation and beneficial agreements that may maximizetheir gains (Keohane 1984, p. 27). As a result, great powers enter regimesbecause these regimes provide cooperation amongst them and may advancetheir interests. Here after, we cannot argue why regimes did not have this rolebefore WWII. During that time, international regimes existed but neverthelessthey were not seen as the means to maximize interests. In sum, we cannot becertain that by establishing a regime the uncertainty of the anarchic world willbe reduced.

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Robert Keohane (1984, p. 96) pointed out that interactions are with sub-optimal outcomes and these interactions are mediated by market thus givingthe utility functions of actors and the resources at their disposal . In the same

section, Keohane asserted the asymmetry of relations where not all statesbenefit equally from agreements. Therefore, the probabilities of the greatpowers to benefit are greater than the other states. Moreover, stressing therole of hegemony, liberal institutionalism claims, actors being investigatedare rational and that the institutions and the social practices to be explainedwere designed to fulfil anticipated functions (p. 95). As an illustration heprovides the formation of International Energy Agency, where the interests ofUnited States was to promote its ambitions on the field of energy.

But viewing actors as egoistic, how cooperation can prevail? To this questionKeohane (1984, p. 97) answers by explaining how egoistic actors do cooperate.He asserts that egoistic actors are always interested in each other s behaviourand how this behaviour would influence the interests of the egoistic actor. So,for their own sake, these actors cooperate by adjusting or modifying behaviourin order to cooperate since these actors are self-interested and rational. As wecan infer if great powers do not comply with this schema then market failurewould emerge and actors wouldn t be rational. Therefore, regimes/institutionsprovide great powers with cooperation and uncertainty reduction. In this way, ifthere is a market failure it is because of the lack of the institutions thatfacilitate coordination. Once again, we have problems to put these explanationsin the historical context. Anterior WWII, there were regimes and institutionalarrangements but these states didn t see these arrangements as lucrativebecause they didn t maximize interests by these regimes. For instance, afterFirst World War (WWI) Germany and Japan sought to maximize their gains bywar and not international regimes (cooperation). In this way, this situation canbe explained by revisionist identity theory. More argument and illustration willbe provided in the section of revisionist states and international regimes wherethe analogy of market failure has limited explanations.

Prisoner s dilemma

Prisoner s Dilemma represents a situation where two prisoners are caught andthey cooperate in strategic way. This game theory explains how actors canmaximize their gains. In Prisoner s Dilemma, individuals are foreseen to berational where by cooperating they achieve a maximum outcome. What we seehere is that parties are not interested in maximum gains (that would be if oneof the actors confess thus not being prosecuted at all), because the bestoutcome would be neither of prisoners to confess and be detained only forthirty days. As a result, Keohane asserts that Prisoner s Dilemma helps toexplain strategic interaction between actors and it explains why cooperationbrings collective goods. As we explored above, institutional arrangements helpsactors to carry out this cooperation and strategic interaction. Nevertheless,relying on Hardin and Taylor, Keohane (1984, p. 83) asserted that in multi-casePrisoners Dilemma concept of practice, or better to say repeating (not learning)takes place where actors conclude better calculations. Thus, Keohane refusesthe role of the learning ability. Referring to Haas concept of learning, Keohane

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(1984, p. 83) asserted that this concept is not possible in a political context,since there are structural constraints, thus, actors have to stay close to theboundaries of political action within international regimes. Therefore, here areobvious limits of institutional liberalism when it comes to the change ofinterests.

In this way, we understand that great powers by joining or forminginternational regimes, seek to reduce uncertainty and cooperate to makebeneficial outcomes. And here the concept of actors as egoistic and maximizersof gains, is not convincing since the Prisoner s Dilemma is about actors whocare for others. This care is manifested by the action not to get releasedimmediately, but by willing to take thirty days in prison and granting the otheractor with the same benefits. As we mentioned above, Keohane (1984) fills thisgap the care for others by asserting that the concept of self-interest isvery broad and doesn t exclude the other in order to achieve better results forparties. Nevertheless, it is not convincing, since a rational-egoistic actor wouldchoose to maximize its own gains. This means that prisoners are interested onmaximizing gains for their Self. This dilemma can be fulfilled by moderateconstructivism where it introduces the collectivist identity of states. In thisidentity great powers care for each other since they have learned each other sinterests during interactions. The decision of China to buy Boeing airplanes, inorder to reduce its own benefits of trade with the USA, shows how the greatpowers are not maximizers of interests.

Moving towards reflexivism

Later, by the beginning of 1990s, liberal institutionalism moved towardsreflexivism. They turned to the role of ideas and how these serve toinstitutions. Nevertheless, the meaning that liberals gave to ideas is far fromthe constructivist thought. Keohane and Goldstein asserted that ideas have onlycausal impacts (eds Keohane & Goldstein 1993, p. 13-14). This means thatideas serve as a tool or means to reach better outcomes, in this way serving asstrategies that are incorporated into institutions. Liberalists claim, that war isan obsolete means and that trade is the tool of maximizing interests, it is notnew. As the classical liberalist Norman Angell (in Nye 2005, p. 43) asserted acentury ago, war became too expensive therefore trade makes states merely tobe determined for trade rather than conduct wars. Nevertheless, two worldwars occurred. As it will be argued below, trade always enables major powersto advance their interests but the exclusion of war as a tool of advancinginterests happens only when states abandon revisionist identity. Before theSecond World War, nothing stopped Germany or Japan to advance theirinterests by existing institutions. Here it is obvious that liberal institutionalismmakes the assumptions as the realist tradition concerning the origins ofinterests. Conceiving ideas and interests as exogenous, liberalists seeinternational politics as material and not social, thus, giving to institutions amaterial purpose and not conceiving them as shared beliefs that constitutepower and interest of the great powers (Wendt 1999, p. 34). Therefore, themain dilemma is that liberal institutionalism cannot provide an answer for the

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role of international regimes in historical context.

Moderate constructivism

As a grand theory, constructivism is a very broad approach. Within this broadapproach is moderate constructivism endorsed by Alexander Wendt in his bookSocial Theory of International Politics . Having in mind Wendt s approach

toward international regimes, he is considered as a strong constructivist(Hasenclever, Mayer & Rittberger 1996, p. 167). Accordingly, Wendt doesn tview regimes as a sufficient external element in constraining the behavior ofother states unless there is not internalization of norms/institutions by states(Wendt 1999, p. 359). As a result, it allows focusing in the internalization ofnorms and regime robustness. A hypothetical claim would suggest that the lackof internalization of norms by states caused the weakness of internationalregimes before the end of WWII, while the internalization of these norms (suchas the norm/institution of sovereignty) after WWII led to the robustness ofregimes. This is what Wendt argued in his above-mentioned book only that heviewed the internalization of institutions in different periods of time than theone we tend to have in our study and he spoke in terms of peace and notregimes.

Moderate constructivism, as Wendt (1999, p. 47) claims, is a via mediaapproach. He applies a constructivist ontology and epistemology of scientificrealism , thus representing his methodology of moderate constructivism.Guzzini and Leander (2001, p. 324) called this a dualist ontology since itimplies holist and individualist elements. But actually we can call it as dualistonly the origin of this ontology because Wendt integrated individualism andholism in a unique form. In our study, this ontology will inform about constrainsand possibilities of states behavior and regimes. For instance, this ontologicalposition would suggest that shared ideas contain the concerns for the self andthe other. In this way, if there is empirical ground, we could argue that statesquest for power concerns the first element (the self) while multidimensionalityof power would argue that power is not for the egocentric state only, but alsoabout later concerns (the other). As it will be argued below, both modalities ofconcerns are embedded in international regimes. In sum, Wendt (1999, p. 372)represented an ontology of ideas that has two elements: social andconstructionist. The former one represents ideas since these serve as a bridgebetween states and the later constitutes the identity of states. This discerns theidentities of states and the concept of international regimes by studying theideas that states have in their pockets . As Joseph Nye (2005, p. 6) pointedout, for constructivists ideas and culture shape international politics, in thisconstructing identities where states converge. The overall picture of Wendt stheory relies on culture that is constituted by structural facts and statesidentities. In this ambient, power and interests have different meanings fromassumptions of rationalism and (strong) constructivism. As scholars haveasserted, when studying regimes is mandatory to explain interests and powerof states in the context of international politics (Krasner 1982, p. 193). In thisway, to understand international regimes we have to explain what doesmoderate constructivism means by power and interests.

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Power

Wendt (1999, p. 97) asserts that not only realists write for power and use it asa concept to explain international politics. Nevertheless, there is a differencebetween theories by asking how power is constituted (Wendt 1999, p. 97).Writing for power doesn t make you a realist because it depends from theexplanation of power that a scholar is using. In order to explain power Wendt(p. 109) refers to interests since [t]he explanatory significance of thedistribution of power depends on historically contingent distributions of stateinterests , thus, power has a meaning taken from interests. The highestconcern of states is even when they calculate their goals the survival.Wendt agrees with this concept if we are talking for revisionist states. Wendt(p. 262) explains that [s]ince the enemy's revisionist intentions are "known,"the state can use the enemy's capabilities to predict his behavior, on theassumption that he will attack as soon as he can win and it is this moment thatpower takes a determining role in the survival. Wendt explains power politics interms of Weberian concept of social by referring to the Self and Other. Viewingthe power also as social phenomenon, interactions can succeed since actorsbring their beliefs enough into line that they can play the same game, each sidetries to get the other to see things its way (Wendt 1999, p. 331). Concerninginternational regimes, the conception of power provided by Wendt is importantsince it allows distinguishing the role of these states and how regimes can beaffected.

In sum, it matters how power is constituted and what explains. In this way,power is dependent from the context whether we have to deal with revisionist,status-quo, or collectivist identity of the great powers. Wendt s assumptionrelies on the functionality of power in the meaning that what constitutes thatpower material interests or social interests? Therefore, to understand via mediaconception of power we have to understand the interests of actors since asmentioned above power depends from the states interests. Are theseinterests constituted by motivation of survival or other factors too? Wendt stheoretical claims bring also insights on constitution of interests.

Interests

Interests, like power, depend from the context, too. Concerning interests,Wendt (p. 123-124) assumed that states have desires . Nevertheless, itdepends for which states we are talking about. Are we considering desires ofstatus quo, revisionist, or collectivist states? According to Wendt, status quostates in contradiction with revisionist one do not have interests inconquering other states, redrawing boundaries, or changing the rules of the

international system , thus these beliefs are not merely about an externalworld: they also constitute a certain identity and its relationship to that world,which in turn motivates action in certain directions (123-124). Different fromstatus quo states, revisionist states are interested in conquering and changingrules of the interactions. Third category of states is collectivist one, collectiviststates have the desire to help those they identify with even when their ownsecurity is not directly threatened (123-124). Thus, here we have to do with

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identities of states and socialization of states. Before the WWII we had manyrevisionist states such as Germany and Japan, and this is their identity whereinterests were materialistic in the meaning that these states had somematerialistic needs while in the same time they had an idea (war) ofmaximizing their interests. We have to bear in mind that these materialisticneeds are not given exogenously but are determined by human nature so it isdifferent from realist conceptualization. Therefore, a conclusion is the formulaof desire plus belief plus reason equals action (125-126). Portraying powerand interests in this way it is important for our understanding of great powersbehavior toward international regimes in different contexts.

Identity theory

Identity theory, which is represented by Wendt, will be as a distinguishingfactor of interests during contexts. To summarize, identity theory representsthe state itself with ideas about the world where this identity is constituted byinteractions (Wendt 1999, p.224). In this way we will be able to notice theidentity of great powers and to reveal reasons how a certain state such asJapan behaves in different ways in historical contexts. One determining elementof the certain identity is interest. Here we can assume the nature of interests ofstates thus serving as a roadmap to study empirical findings and interpret themin relation to international regimes.

Maja Zehfuss (2001), by taking the example of Germany, suggested that usingidentity to describe world politics is a dangerous liaison. This liaison underminesWendt s constructivism because we are not able to calculate whether a certainstate is bounded with a certain kind of identity. As an argument he takes thecommitment of Germany to the basement of foreign policy never again in war .The author explains that as a consequence of history, Germany used thisphrase to abolish the use of force in foreign policy. Nevertheless, during theKosovo War and other conflicts, Germany abandoned that phrase and used thewar (violence) as a means of foreign policy. In this context, we cannotdistinguish between the identity of the Third Reich and nowadays Germany. ButZehfuss s argument is not representative. The German use of war as a meansof foreign policy is not the same as it was during the Third Reich. As theWendian identity theory is developed, it is obvious that within identity theoryit s important to know the purpose and means of war. If it is used for territorialpurposes or it is a regular (normal) means of realizing shared beliefs(humanitarian intervention). If the first one takes place, then we have to dowith a revisionist identity. Otherwise, if that war is meant to be for collectivepurposes (such as the intervention in Kosovo) where a particular state (forinstance Germany) doesn t benefit solely, then we cannot identify revisionistideas. In sum, we have to attach the ideas of a particular state that it has in acertain action. Moreover, in this article we concentrate on identity of greatpowers and relations between these great powers. However, Zehfuss argumentis valid, to some extent, when it comes to describe a certain great power as acollectivist or a status quo. Since there are no strict and ad hoc shifts from oneidentity to another one, as nowadays identity of the great powers is mixedbetween status-quo and collective one. This is the reason why we asserted that

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in this study after Second World War, world politics contains great powers withstatus quo and collectivist one. But, when it comes to revisionist identity, thedifference is obvious.

In his book Social Theory of International Politics, Wendt analyzed three typesof state identities: revisionist identity, status-quo, and collectivist one. Thesetypes of identities are the one that bounded international politics. This identitytheory is important for international regimes because it asserts what kind ofinterests Great Powers have. What follows is a summary of these identitytheories that Wendt represented in his book.

Revisionist states

The concept of international regimes before the Second World War can beanalysed in terms of the great powers behaviour. To analyse this behaviour wewill concentrate in a particular form of the identity theory. This form isrevisionist states. According to this theory, states will try to conquer eachother, territorial property rights will not be recognized, and weak states willhave a high death rate (Wendt 1999, p. 105). In this way, interests andshared beliefs are not embedded within the international regimes but they willbandwagon with other great powers to change the system (p. 105). Here

we can put states such as Germany and Japan, but also empires of XIX century.This identity theory is compatible with constructivism since here interests andshared beliefs, defined as in moderate constructivist framework, will be helpfulin determining the role of international regimes.

According to Wendt (p. 269), revisionist states are encircled by norms that aresimilar with Hobbesian culture where interest of these states is in conqueringeach other, at the limit in creating a world empire, and as such they are notbetter off cooperating . Interests of these states are from human nature andnot in the meaning of shared ideas (p. 286-287). Moreover, here shared ideashave different connotation representing the commonly known", for instance,

the institution of sovereignty is not shared in the sense of "accepted" byrevisionist states (p.286-287). In this way, regimes had an informal role sincethey were constituted only through practices of the great powers and not byframeworks of deliberation where regime creation would take place anddifferent agreements would serve long term interests. In general, beliefs andinterests of revisionist states can be explained under the anarchic culture ofHobbes (p. 124). Wendt (p. 124) asserts that under this culture, these stateshave desires of conquering and changing the rules of the game. These desiresand beliefs are a culturally constituted cognitions and to explain these aspectWendt (p. 124) turns to the socio-psychological aspects of states like the beliefof being a victim or the passions for glory .

Richard Rosecrance (in Nye 2005, p. 5) identified two ways of increasing power.First, power can be increased by territorial conquest (revisionist states), as anillustrative example is Japan and Germany. Second is by peaceful means(status quo and collectivist states), where major powers can gain power withoutwaging wars. Here as examples are Japan and Germany again, where the

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former became the second largest economy in the world. As it is mentioned inthe power/interests section, revisionist states are not attached to jointinstitutions to advance their interests. This is because they are interested interritorial gains, since powers and interests are mainly based on human nature(Wendt 1999, p. 105). This human nature makes great powers to view powerand interests only for the materialistic Self and here the concept of self andother , as it is in status-quo and collectivist identity, it is not present.Therefore, the great powers were not interested in advancing their interests byinternational regimes. Instead, they viewed regimes only as joint impacts tohalt their ambitions. The assertion of realism that powerful states use regimesas means of power projection in this context, fails. Beside the existence ofthese regimes, as we notice in illustrations, great powers didn t use regimes aspower projection. The revisionist beliefs are the reasons why Japan andGermany didn t advance their interests primary by international regimes. AsWendt asserted (see above), in revisionist identity ideas among countries (readgreat powers) are not shared as accepted but as commonly known. In this way,these ideas in an easy fashion can be rejected. To illustrate these theoreticalexplanations of moderate constructivism, we described three samples ofregimes anterior WWII, where the role of revisionist great powers towardinternational regimes is discerned.

Status quo and collectivist states

From the end of WWII, no war between major powers has occurred. In thissense, new theories of international relations emerged to explain this situation.While liberal institutionalism offered interdependence, Alexander Wendt focusedon identity theories. As we mentioned above, revisionist theory of state isintended to explain the occurrences of politics before the end of WWII since thisperiod was identified with many great wars. But the period after WWII is muchcomplicated and it has no clear boundaries in states behavior. Therefore, hereare represented two identity theories of state: status-quo and collectivism one.

According to Alexander Wendt s thought (p. 105) represented in Social Theoryof International Politics, the status-quo states are the one who doesn t fight andthey get along with each other with the formula Live and let live . In ananarchic situation they possess a culture that is called the Lockean one. Anattribute of this theory is the fact that states may get into security dilemmasand arm races (Herz and Jervis in Wendt 1999, p. 105) but interests of thisculture are of that kind that no war occurs. According to Wendt, these statesare interested in material force, capabilities, therefore engagement in powerpolitics is obvious but their behavior doesn t degenerate in armed conflict sinceshared ideas of these states (such as accepted institution of sovereignty) dolimit the behavior (Wendt 1999, p.269). Keohane (1984) representedinternational regimes as a way of reducing uncertainty but this thought ignoresthe fact represented by Wendt (1999, p. 108) that history exists and stateshave knowledge about each other s interests and intended behavior by creatingan idea on the identity of a state whether it is a revisionist or status-quo.

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This Lockean culture suggests that status quo states have self-help elementsbut in the same time other-help because here states are not seen as enemiesbut as rivals (p. 296). This type of identity theory allows us to explain theconcept of international regimes. In this way we claim that internationalregimes became more important since great powers are advancing theirinterests through peaceful manner. In this respect, theory of status quo stateswill enable to see the attributes of great powers where these states areinterested on their own gains but not being warlike. But this theory alone willnot be helpful to explain ongoing politics. Thus, another state identity theorywill bring complementary insights.

Collective identity asserts that Self and Other are identified with each other byaccepted shared ideas (Turner in Wendt 1999, p. 229). Here states, throughhomogeneity, are identified as a group (Wendt 1999, p. 352). States create agroup identity where self-restraint helps in creating common goals between Selfand the Other (p. 344). With other words, the Other is not a threat or risk ofSelf. In this way states see themselves as encircled not by enemies (revisionist)or rivals (status-quo) but by friendly states. As an example of this identity,Wendt (p. 359) describes pluralistic security communities such as NATO. Byreferring to individuals, Wendt (p. 163) asserts that states have commitment totheir group as individuals have commitment to the group they belong to sincethere is a collective memory that generates patterns of behavior.

Combining collective and status quo identity, we can represent a betterillustration of states behavior and why they act in a different way in comparisonwith revisionist states. Also, when we introduce the analogy it will be noticed aprocess of socialization. In turn, this makes great powers to be more cautiouswith each other s needs. For example, China decided to spend billions of dollarsto buy few Boeing planes in order to reduce the gap of trade imbalance with theUSA. Therefore, this form of identity will supplement status-quo identity sincethere are some phenomena in international regimes that rivalry cannot explain.

Concluding remarks

In conclusion, we argued that to understand the approach of moderateconstructivism towards international regimes, we have to give a primaryconcern to identity theory. Liberal institutionalism is constrained by theirontological and epistemological assertions, thus not giving a proper concern tothe role of ideas and identities that states may have during the history. Toovercome these gaps, moderate constructivism offered explanations that areable to identify these ideas in different contexts. Analogies provided by liberalinstitutionalism have ignored contextual aspects of states and their identities.Great powers with revisionist identity were not interested in advancing theirinterests by international regimes. Instead, they preferred war andrevolutionary change. This ended in the great wars and the meaningless ofregimes. And since history exists, these great powers have been able to learnfrom the past and changing their behaviour towards international regimes, theyalso began to socialize with the rules of regimes while constantly trying tochange prospects. These great powers, such as China, joined the trade regime

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that is evolving from WTO because interests and power, as are defined bymoderate constructivism, exclude the narrow egoistic behaviour of the greatpowers. Therefore, there is always possibility for change.

Trying to escape from this pessimistic view, liberal institutionalism asserted amore adequate approach towards international regimes. With market failure,Prisoner s Dilemma , and later incorporating a causal function of ideas liberal

institutionalism, stressed the ability of the great powers to cooperate. As Nyehas mentioned, liberals tend to write about trade regimes and they neglectother regimes. And this is true because all analogies derive from economictheories and these analogies tend to explain reasons of why egoistic statescooperate to maximize interests. Nevertheless, liberalism does not answer ourquestions such as why the existing regimes before Second World War failed toperform their functions as uncertainty reducer. Moreover, introduced analogiesignore contextual factors, learning, and the identities of the great powers. Aswe mentioned, from classical liberalism to liberal institutionalism, trade andemergence of regimes is seen as a way of avoiding war. But WWI and WWIIargued that even though regimes may exist, they do not prevent theoccurrence of war. Another argument against liberal institutionalism is themaximization of interests. As Wendt mentioned, when states are in interactionthey cannot maximize interests. The only way of maximization of interests iswar where a state may impose to the defeated states unconditional requests.This is the reason why the word advance suits better in analyzing the greatpowers interests. A valuable critique is the concept of trade and issue.Dunnoff (1999) argued that liberal institutionalism cannot explain more thantrade issues. Nowadays, many trade issues are related to other issues, such asenvironment and in this context we can not speak for pure trade issues only. Insum, by ignoring contextual factors, ideas and the concept of learning, liberalinstitutionalism fails to see the difference between regimes before and after theend of Second World War and identities of the Great Powers.

Finally, we offered an explanation of moderate constructivism. Constructivismignores the study of regimes respectively, transfers the study of internationalregimes to social institutions. Nevertheless, conceptualizing in this way,constructivists cannot escape from the profound criticism of Susan Strange oninternational regimes. In this way, assertions of moderate constructivism had tobe accommodated in a proper way in order to make comprehensive theoreticalframework of regime analysis. This accommodation is enabled by Arthur Steinsconcept of regimes and Alexander Wendt´s writings on the identity theory.

The concept of international regimes was designated to explain the cooperationof states. Nevertheless, Susan Strange (1982) criticized this concept calling itas woolly . Arthur Stein (1982) made the same criticism where the concept ofinternational regimes meant to explain all of international politics. Steinformulated some principles when certain cooperation can be seen as a regime.Also, Wendt, as other constructivists, views international regimes in terms ofinstitutions. Nevertheless, when he introduces the identity theory, he is writingabout specific institutions that are embedded in the identity of a statedepending on whether it is a revisionist, status quo, or a collectivist identity.

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From combining Wendt s assertions with Stein s conceptualization of regimesemerges a comprehensive conceptualization of regimes. In this way, we arguedthat from moderate constructivism perspective we can explain the concept ofinternational regimes.

REFERENCES

Dunoff, J L 1999, The Death of the Trade Regime, European Journal of InternationalRelations, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 733-762.

Guzzini, S and Leander, A 2001, A Social Theory for International Relations: An appraisalto Alexander Wendt s Theoretical and Disciplinary Synthesis, Journal of InternationalRelations and Development, December no. 4, pp. 316-338.

Hasenclever, A, Mayer, P & Rittberger, V 1996, Theories of International Regimes,Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.

Goldstein, J & Keohane, R O (eds) 1993, Ideas and foreign policy: beliefs, institutions,and political change, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

Keohane, R O 2002, Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World, Routledge,New York.

Keohane, R O 1984, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World PoliticalEconomy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, at www.ebrary.com

Krasner, S D 1982, Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes asIntervening Variables, International Organization, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 185-205.

Little, R 2005 International Regimes , in The Globalization of World Politics: Anintroduction to international relations. Third Edition, eds J Baylis & S Smith, OxfordUniversity Press, London, pp. 369-384.

Nye, J. S. Nuclear Learning and U.S. Soviet security Regimes, InternationalOrganization, 41 (3): Summer 1987: pp. 371-402.

Puchala D J and Hopkins R F 1982, International Regimes: Lessons from InductiveAnalysis International Organization, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 245-275.

Reus-Smith C 1997, The Constitutional Structure of International Society and theNature of Fundamental Institutions International Organization, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 558-589.

Stein, A A 1982, Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,International Organization, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 229-324.

Strange, S 1982, Hic Dragones! A Critique of Regime Analysis, InternationalOrganization, vol. 36, no. 2, pp.479-496.

Wendt, A 1999, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

Zehfuss, M 2001, Constructivism and Identity: A Dangerous Liaison. European Journal ofInternational Relations, vol. 7, no. 3, pp.315-348.

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 61- 74

Understanding the “EU democratic deficit”.A two dimension concept on a three level-of-analysis.

Dorian Janodorian.jano@unimi.it

This paper acknowledges the still unsettled debate on the EUdemocratic deficit by arguing that divergences among thescholars emanate from the methodological and the conceptualdifficulties that the concept itself have when applied to the caseof EU. Given the lack of a common ground for understanding theEU democratic deficit debate I propose an all-inclusive model

Democratic Deficit Space ) of how to understand the EUdemocratic deficit arguments in the enormous already existingliterature. As a last but not least point this paper will suggest howwe need to look at the EU democratic deficit, putting theemphasis on the deficit term rather than on the democracyterm.

Introduction

It was David Marquand who originally coined the famous phrase democraticdeficit as a term to underline the weakness of the democratic components inthen European Community Institutions (Bouwen, 2003, p. 3, footnote 4; Mény,2002, p. 8). Since then the debate started to be a more vibrant topic ofdiscussion as it links up with very real concerns about the future of the EU inlight of enlargement fatigue and constitutional rejection (Schmidt, 2007). Butdespite the importance of the issue and the vast literature written on the EUdemocratic deficit we still have a perplexed rather than an illuminatedunderstanding on the topic. This is because the democratic deficit literature notonly encompasses great disputes about whether there is a democratic deficit ornot, it rather has created more ambiguity and confusion on what the concept isreally referred to. Such confusion is primarily and foremost a matter ofmethodological and conceptual difficulties. If the former difficulty is relatedmore to the preferences and viewpoints on EU, the latter problem is more aresult of the undefined character of the concept of democracy itself adding herealso the impreciseness of the deficit magnitude .1

1 First, the democratic deficit is a powerful catchword, which can be easily manipulated by all thosewho are not fully satisfied with the working of European institutions (Mény, 2002, p. 8), a secondproblem stems from a false conception of what democracy is (Mény 2002, p. 9). Mény (2002, p. 9)puts also forward the argument of the imprecise character of the deficit concept that can be foundin the literature.

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Many of the scholars recognizing such shortcomings have return over and againto the debate of EU democratic deficit. Most of them tackle the issues ofconceptualization as a second order concern; while even fewer stress theimportance of methodologically correctness (Majone 1998 is an exception)2.The main concern and importance of this enormous literature seem to be theoutcome (the what question) rather than the process to arrive at it (the howquestion). Scholars are preoccupied and concentrated more on refining and\oradding more other arguments in support or against a democratic deficit in EU.But as Majone stresses out regardless of their substantive merits, all proposedsolutions are methodologically flawed because they take for granted what is, infact, contestable and in need of justification (1998, p. 6). Given the state ofart, adding other arguments on whether EU suffers from a democracy deficit ornot seems worthless discussing unless the methodological and conceptualissues have been primarily clarified and looked up in details.

Speaking of a democratic deficit we need to understand firstly, what theconcept means since only few clarify what exactly constitutes a democraticdeficit in their opinion (Crombez 2003, p. 103) and secondly but also equallyimportant is to clarify the context in which such concept is applied. That is whyin this paper I focus mostly on what democratic deficit does mean per se andin the EU context. To be more specific, what scholars refer to when they speakfor or against an EU democratic deficit? This paper will have fulfill its aim if itgets to help the reader direct on how one need to read and understand thealready existing literature and arguments put forward so far on the EUdemocratic deficit debate.

Acknowledging that consensus remains obscure at the level of diagnosing ifthere is or not a real democratic deficit in the EU I will suggest that we betterreject this white or black portrait and rather look at the democratic deficit as aterm conceptualizing the need for improving the institutions and polity buildingin EU.

The challenges and how to deal with the issue

Dealing with the democratic deficit question two issues need to be highlightedand explicitly said. The first concerns the concept itself and the later refers tothe meaning and characteristics attributed to the European Union. Reading theliterature on democratic deficit these two issues seems to be widely open andproblematic. From the one hand, there is the conceptual problem of whatdemocratic deficit is itself. On the other hand, there are methodologicaldifficulties, related to the unit of analysis, on how to assess this concept in thecase of EU. Unless these two crucial issues are settled and get a wide scholarlyconsensus we may endlessly debate on the issue losing the point. In order toaddress these challenges I will unfold the concept of democracy into its

2 The key question which has been raised in [his] paper is whether it is realistic andmethodologically correct to assess the legitimacy [(democratic deficit)] of present institutions andpolicy-making processes with reference to norms that are largely irrelevant today and may notbecome relevant in the future (Majone 1998, p. 27).

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compound elements as well as distinguish between different levels-of-analysisEU is approached. For doing so I review and make use of the already existingliterature with a final aim at mapping the debate into a three-dimension model,which I will call the democratic deficit space in the EU context. The democraticdeficit space in the case of EU is nothing but a simplified representation of boththe academic and political debate focusing on the two main elements of theconcept of democracy (institutional and socio-cultural dimension) and on thethree levels-of-analysis EU has been considered (state-like, sui generis orinternational organization-like). In order to picture the complexity of the issue Iwill begin by discussing separately each term of the democratic deficit concept.The first task will be to analytically distinguish the two dimensions of thedemocratic concept found in the academic literature while the second will be toargue on the term deficit. Then I will move to relate this two terms in agraphical representation, that of a democratic deficit space . The subsequentstep will be to put the concept into the context of European Union sinceacademics have been referred to EU in many different ways.

Two dimensions of democracy and the meaning of deficit

As Føllesdal and Hix (2006, p. 534) have observe there is no single meaning ofthe democratic deficit . That is why to decipher the claims and counter-claimsof the debate one has to go beyond the label and observe the content behindthese claims. Mény (2002), in trying to provide an understanding of thedemocratic deficit concept makes a useful distinction between demos andcheck-and-balance element. As he has argued, these two elements are the twofundamental pillars of democracy as all of the today s democracies are madeup of a mix of popular and constitutionalist elements (Mény, 2002, p. 3).Pointing to these elements of democracy may be a useful starting tool to mapthe already existing literature into two main categories since the debate on theEU s democratic deficit has usually centred on the absence of a Europeandemos and [or] the shortcomings of its institutional arrangements (Bellamy,2006, p. 725). From the one side there is the institutional approach stressingthe institutional imbalance of the EU institutions and from the other side it isthe socio-cultural approach pointing the absent of a European demos. Althoughit has to be admitted that the arguments on both, demos and check-and-balance element sometimes are mingled and do not always have a clear cut. Atthis present time I prefer to portray them separately, re-taking them at a latermoment where I will build the democratic deficit space model as a trade offbetween the two (institutional and socio-cultural) dimensions.

Institutional dimension of democracy

Scholars that have employed in their analysis the institutional dimensionparticularly argue on the (non)weakness of the structure and\or the functions ofthe EU institutions. The structure of EU institutions and the way they functionhas raised the concern about the transparency, accountability and legitimacy ofEU itself.

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The argument about the structure of the EU institutions refers to the balance ofpower between the EU Commission, Council and European Parliament. Theoverall question is if the present balance of the three EU institutions leavesenough room for the citizens voice to be heart since, democracies are, aboveall, the expression of popular will and choice (cited in Mény, 2002, p. 3). Thosewho support the present EU configuration have been arguing that all EUinstitutions are under direct or indirect democratic control (Moravcsik-ECSAReview 2000). The will of the peoples can and is expressed, indirectly andstrongly through the national executives sitting in the Council of Ministers anddirectly, although much more weakly, through the elected members of theEuropean Parliament (Schmidt, 2004, p. 983). On the whole, the mostdisputable issue centers on whether European Parliament should take a greaterrole or not. The present deficit of EU institutional structure refers to the partialintegration of the European Parliament in legislative decision making sincedespite the numerous procedures EU uses, the European Parliament onlyparticipates in a few of them and is not the decisive legislator in the proceduresin which it does participate (cited in König, 2007, p. 422). Some scholars arguethat the limited ability of the European Parliament to legislate and to control theexecutive powers of the Commission and the Council of Ministers leaves EU lackelectoral accountability (cited in Bellamy, 2006, p. 725).

Other scholars admit that the problem of the democratic deficit may rest not onthe institutional setup of the EU but rather on the functioning of its institutions(Crombez, 2003, p. 115). Such arguments focus more on the proceduralaspects of the EU institutions which bears a set of problems. Many scholarshave noticed that EU institutions, especially the Council of Ministers, sufferfrom too much secrecy (Sbragia cited in Zweifel, 2002, p. 817). Thetransparency on the decision-making process or an excess of delegation in thelegislative process has been a strong critic showing that a democratic deficit ofthe EU may exist precisely owing to these problems (Crombez, 2003, p. 101).It is the complexity and distance of European decision-making that at minimumweakens the potential for EU-wide democracy.

But to a deeper critic, beyond the weaknesses of the EU procedures rest theargument of the EU legitimacy, both procedural and substantive since there isinsufficient trust in EU institutions. This legitimacy is being question both on theinputs and the outputs of the Union. Those arguing that EU lacks legitimacy inits output (effectiveness) see this primarily because of its failure to providesocial justice (cited in Majone- ECSA Review 2000). While those who see EUlosing legitimacy in the input rather than in the output speaks primary aboutthe lack of more EU democratic institutions.3

Socio-cultural dimension of democracy

Beside the institutional dimension the concept unfolds another majordimension, that of socio-cultural factors. Employing such an approach the

3 Traditionally [what EU lacks is] the need to justify the EU through more democratic institutions(Moravcsik- ECSA Review 2000).

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analysis have put the stress mostly on (the lack of) demos, public sphere andfew on community-building (see for example Etzioni 2007)4. Such literaturesuggests that the EU does not function well as a democracy because there isno European public opinion, no European electorate and no European demos(cited in Crombez, 2003, p. 105 and Bellamy, 2006, p. 725). The attributes ofthe socio-cultural dimension range from the simplest to more complex elementsof socio-cultural cohesion

It has been argued, that demo-cracy as a term in itself implies the presence ofa demos otherwise the term would be meaningless. The no-demos assumptionholds that the lack and more the potential impossibility of a demos in Europe -since demos is not a given, but historically constructed (Zweifel, 2002, p.819), - is in fact enough to speak of a democratic deficit in EU. In the absenceof demos, that is of people who do not belong to a political constitutedcommunity, it has been argued that there can be neither a democraticsovereignty (cited in Cohen & Sabel, 2003, p. 703) nor a democraticlegitimacy (Offe and Preuss, 2006). Such arguments have been widelycriticized as being traditional and populist, pointing so to the new, more liberalcomponents that we need to look at when evaluating if there is a democraticdeficit or not (Mény, 2002, p. 11).

On more sophisticated arguments the issue of demos is related to the relationsbetween citizens and EU institutions since a bigger problem is the lack of aconnection between the growing democratic politics inside the EuropeanParliament and EU Council and the views of the public (Føllesdal and Hix,2006, p. 553). It has been argued that public have very little influence andinvolvement on the decision-making process creating so an insufficient trust inEU institutions (Zweifel, 2002, p. 818). This mistrust is observed in thesteadily decline of the European parliamentary elections turnouts (Cohen andSabel, 2003, p. 697) as well as on the unhappiness expressed byEurobarormeters polls (Offe and Preuss, 2006).

A second reading on the socio-cultural dimension of the democratic deficitrefute to talk of demos, it rather prefers to argue by a more ambitious idea ofdemocracy, that of polity-building as the EU political entity. This new vision isbased, rather than in homogeneity, in the idea of solidarity grounded in themutual recognition of otherness (Offe and Preuss, 2006, p. 31). Thispresupposes that the EU polity has achieved a considerable degree of maturityas a political system that has come to exercise classical functions of politicalsystems, (such as the production of public policy) with regulatory politics as thecentral pillar of the EU s political activity (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2006, p.35). But the questions arising here is if we can speak of a polity without acoherent public space and a lack of community building.

Although there is a widely accepted view that indeed there is a developingEuropean public sphere, this is seen skeptically since it is made of European

4 Etzioni (2007) argue that European Union is suffering not just from a democratic deficit, but acommunity deficit .

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Member State publics rather than some idealized single public (Risse cited inSchmidt, 2004, p. 992). EU beside the formal engagements in EU election doesnot go further to build a polity. EU has not encouraged, beyond the formalitiesof elections, the creation of an engaged European public sphere debating thefuture of a European polity (Cohen and Sabel, 2003, p. 697). In an Europe thatis becoming with time ever wider it is more easily to see a heterogeneous publiccomposition across an European space rather than a compact polity. Theproblem that arises here is that such incompatible (divergent) polity has littleability to engage at EU issues and on the other side EU have little opportunityto speak directly to its polity.

More advanced arguments are put forward arguing on a lack of affinity with EU.It has been notice that EU citizens lack a feeling of belonging to a (single)community (Moravcsik, 2004, p. 361). Føllesdal (nodate) argues that presentdomestic democratic arrangements (that is, European-wide Political Rights andEU citizenship) are insufficient. He also finds that Europeans share thick valuesand sense of community, and often carrying several loyalties arguing that suchbroad more universally shared values does not necessary build a community.The point of a community deficit - that is, the lack of shared values and bonds-will be stressed by Etzioni (2007) as an important factor that will contribute to amore democratic and stable EU. It is necessary to invest in the civic dimensionof community-building, giving so importance in the we-feeling and thecommunity argument, in order to give individuals a reason to care about EUpolitics (Moravcsik, 2004, p. 361). The existence of minimum level of we-feeling seems important since citizens with some sort of distinctive sharevalues and sentimental bond will give much substance and validity to the EU.

The deficit meaning of democracy

If this first dichotomy explains the content of the concept of democracy itcannot capture the notion of deficiency. As it can be observed from theliterature and is also mentioned by others (Crombez, 2003, p. 103) all scholarsin a way or another imply the presumed existence of a democratic deficit aspart of their arguments but nobody really dared to discuss the magnitude ofthis gap (Mény, 2002, p. 9). The debate has been and still remained normativewith quite divergent interpretations concerning the nature and the quality ofthe deficit (Gianfranco, 2001). Although the discourse tries to put emphasesmore on the deterministic nature of the problem, a yes or a no answer, it stillindirectly points on a number of elements characterizing the deficit concept.Zweifel in his article tries to build on these elements and set up a measure ofdemocracy but which he himself recognize that this scale do not measure thereal issue (2002, p. 834). At best its purpose has been a comparison betweenother polities and the EU (Zweifel, 2002) not if the EU suffers from ademocratic deficit per se. That is why there is no given all-encompassing scaleto measure this deficit rather than there are normative assessments. But eventhese standards for a norm deficit's assessment are diverse and yet unsettled.Although Majone (1998) wrote on the issue of standards, Føllesdal and Hix willre-assess them with the aim to bring a contemporary standard version of the

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democratic deficit (2006, p. 533). So what we are left here are only disputablemodels to which we can at best refer to.

Democratic deficit space : a trade off between the institutional andsocial-cultural dimensions

So how can we at least understand what the literature in EU democratic deficitis all about? Is there a way to map all these argument into a single model? Atthis point what may be helpful is to graphically represent the normative(qualitative) evaluation of the two previous dimensions where deficit is nothingbut a matter of degree 5 of the two dimensions.

The magnitude of the deficit (that is the range of characteristics of each of thetwo dimensions) graphically is represented in the longitude of a vector, whereeach (horizontal and vertical) vectors embody cumulatively adding each of theelements discussed (institutional and socio-cultural) while the space in betweencan capture the democratic deficit debate which is nothing but any degree ofcombinations of the two elements (See figure 1). The assumption here is thatany polity can suffer of a democratic deficit (Radu, 2006, p. 3) and this

democratic deficit can be graphically represented by the area in the democraticdeficit space . Any other point falling out of this bounded space does not sufferfrom a democratic deficit. An ideal democracy type still makes part of the modelof democratic deficit space but out of the bounded space created by combiningany two critical (minimal) points a dimension may have. In such case thecombination of dimensions elements depends on ones own evaluations, that is,where one puts the critical points on both of the dimension. An ideal democracymodel should be rather a system overcoming both of the minimum institutionaland socio-cultural thresholds (in the figure 1, showed as I* and S*). Asatisfactory equilibrium between these two points is not yet fixed. Differentauthors discuss and argue precisely on this point of equilibrium. Some believethat the problem rest on the institutional dimension and some on the politydimension. While there are also others who see both of these dimensioninterchangeably. What is even more within a dimension is that there is a widerange of elements being argued to lack in the EU case creating so the spacedeficit composed of combining elements. This deficit spoken by the scholarsregards any or both of the dimensions and it is amplified across the twodimensions regarding different attributes that compose each dimensiondepending on one s normative standpoint of what constitute a democracy. Thedemocratic deficit space is not a deterministic concept but at least it can map

the scholarly argument in a qualitative way (virtually) catching all thearguments. The answer rest on whether there will be a consensus on how muchthe institutional balance and to what degree polity-building is needed for EU.

5 Here we have to acknowledge, as Sartori has pointed out, that the use of it is a matter of degreephraseology and of the continuum image leave us with qualitative-impressionistic statementswhich do not advance us by a hair's breadth toward quantification (1970: 1036).

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Figure 1: Democratic deficit space as a trade off between theinstitutional and social-cultural dimension

Democratic deficit space in the EU context: the three levels ofanalyses

Adding to the conceptualization problem the term democratic deficit embeds,we have to consider also the methodological difficulty we face when applyingsuch (democratic deficit) concept into a particular context (the EuropeanUnion). The problem becomes more acute in the EU context because one had todeal with a fuzzy object under investigation. The ever-long disagreements onwhat the EU itself is still exist because there is no academic consensus overthe EU s elusive ontology (Chryssochoou, 2002, p.1). What we are being lefthere is only a term which unfortunately, does not help us to understand thegenuinely political character of the EU. In such a case any researcher that dealswith EU issues has firstly to resolve the puzzle of whether and if EU is or atleast resembles more a state-like entity or an international organization; orrather considering it an entity in its own. Different from the previousdiscussions, what is at stake here is not the presence or absence of a givendimension of the concept but it is more a matter of establishing the unit ofanalysis. The EU being an unidentified political object - as claimed once byJacques Delors,- have left open choices to the researcher to choose from whichangel to approach. This raised the level-of-analysis problem6 that is why beforeevaluating any argument we first have to identify at what level the scholars aremaking their case.

6 The level-of-analysis problem is concerned with the choice and limitations of particular units ofanalysis (Moul, 1973, p. 494).

Notes:The vector Institutional dimension representsthe democratic degree of the EU institutions

The vector Socio-cultural dimensionrepresents the degree of Polity-building.

I* is the minimal institutional threshold oneputs on Institutional characteristicsS* is the minimal socio-cultural threshold oneputs on polity characteristics

Any combination below the two threshold fallsinto the democratic deficit space which is farfrom any ideal democratic type one putsforward.SSoocciioo--ccuullttuurraall ddiimmeennssiioonn

DDeemmooccrraattiicc ddeeffiicciitt ssppaacceeaass aa ttrraaddee ooffff bbeettwweeeenn tthhee ttwwooddiimmeennssiioonnss:: ((iinnssttiittuuttiioonnaall aanndd

ssoocciiaall--ccuullttuurraall))

II nnss tt

ii tt uutt ii oo

nn aall dd

ii mmee nn

ss iioo nn

I*

S*

65

The argument and counter-argument speaking rather in favour or against ademocratic deficit has been developed at three major levels-of-analysis; namelystate-like, sui generis and international organization-like approach. ForMoravcsik the EU is merely an international organization and he analyses EU assuch. While Majone does accept the state-like analysis only by analogy (1998)but he do this because to cite him we are still groping for normative criteriaappropriate to the sui generis character of the European Community (1998, p.6). Føllesdal and Hix on their response to Majone and Moravcsik, have raisedthe concerns about their level-of-analysis arguing that Majone s views of theEU democratic deficit are logical extensions of his general regulatory politicstheory of the EU, while Moravcsik s views of the democratic deficit areextensions of his liberal-intergovernmental theory (2006, p. 541). On theother side, Zielonka s main critics on Føllesdal and Hix arguments rest preciselyon the same issue, that of the level of analysis, arguing that they try to applystate-like democratic recipes to a polity that is not a state (2007, p. 203). Hehimself prefers to take a sui generis approach where the union is seen as aprototype of post-modern, multi-level, polycentric governance that isdecentralized, flexible, deliberative, informal, inclusive and non-territorial(Zielonka, 2007, p. 187). But the sui generis level-of-analysis does not restunproblematic. As Zweifel argues, seeing the EU as sui generis has stillshortcomings since such an approach treats EU in a vacuum and fail to compareit to other polities (2002, p. 812), turning us once more to the state-like level-of-analysis. This brings us back to where we started, at both Majone andMoravcsik first arguments. Such controversies are close cycle where everyonebrings its counter-arguments which, in many cases, more than frontal try toconfront the scholars choice level-of-analysis, that is if what they are refereeingis a state-like, sui generis, or international organization.

It is to be noticed here the double-side argument. Although they argue aboutthe EU democratic deficit they still need a second ideal or relative democraticmodel to compare at. These later depend still on the authors choice. It isprecisely the choice and the approach (state, sui generis, internationalorganization) that has raised so many disputes. One may find them disagree onwhich level should EU be compare rather than on the essence of if there is ademocratic deficit or not. Just to mention one, for example Marovcik andZweifel both agree that there is not a democratic deficit on the EU but theydisagree on the level-of-analysis. Most of the discourses and divergencesamong the scholars are not about EU democratic deficit itself, they are ratherrelated to the model one is refereeing to. My point here is that one has to becareful in accepting or rejecting any argument since they are contextual-embedded on the level-of-analysis one has chosen. The point here is that oneshould be, if possible, explicit about his choice on the type of polity he isrefereeing to EU and the model comparing with. How EU would be depicted andwith what it will be compared will have an effect on whether we can speak ornot about a democratic deficit. Gerring s proposition seems to perfectly fit here,reminding us that what one finds is contingent upon what one looks for, andwhat one looks for is to some extent contingent upon what one expects to find(2004, p. 351).

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At the current stage, since EU remains still a disputable political entity (in thescholarly debates) it seems plausible that either of the approach may beemployed. Figure 2 graphically represent the democratic deficit space modelseparately at the three levels-of-analysis EU can be conceptualized. Thisdistinction between different levels-of-analysis suggests explicit referent (stateor sui generis or international organization) which may be used for the purposeof comparison by analogy. Presenting the issue this way will help us betterknow how to appraise the arguments on the democratic deficit on the bases ofthe level-of-analysis one has selected.

Figure 2: Democratic Deficit Space in the EU context

A graphical representation of the debate on EU democratic deficit comprising the democraticdeficit space (institutional and polity dimensions of democracy) separately at the three levels ofanalysis (State-like, Sui Generis and International Organization)

Suggestions on what the Democratic Deficit argument can stand forin the case of EU

Unless we want to speak of a democratic deficit we need to compare it tosomething. The question is compare to what? First of all we miss an ideal-typeof democracy, and what is more although scholarly literature provide us withsome minimal criteria, they are questionable. Secondly, given the undefinedcharacter of EU what we can do at best is compare by analogy. The divergencesfound in the literature rises precisely on these two points: what standard andwhich analogy best fit our case?

SSoocciioo--ccuullttuurraall ddiimmeennssiioonn

DDeemmooccrraattiicc ddeeffiicciitt SSppaacceeaass aa ttrraaddee ooffff bbeettwweeeenn tthhee ttwwooddiimmeennssiioonnss:: ((iinnssttiittuuttiioonnaall aanndd

ssoocciiaall--ccuullttuurraall))aatt tthhee tthhrreeee lleevveellss--ooff--aannaallyyssiiss

II nnss tt

ii tt uu tt

ii oonn aa

ll ddii mm

ee nnss ii

oo nnI*

State-like level

InternationalOrganization-like level

Sui Generis level

S*

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Since the mid-1990s when Weiler and his colleagues set out what they called astandard version of the democratic deficit (cited in Føllesdal and Hix, 2006, p.534) many other scholars had return to them aiming at re-viewing. Even afterMajone s (1998) standards re-setting, the debate on the democratic deficitcontinued with the latest Føllesdal and Hix (2006) upgrading standard versionof the democratic deficit. As Majone has pointed out to speak of re-setting thestandards is to suggest that the debate about Europe s democratic deficit is stillin the standard-setting stage (Majone, 1998, p. 6) that is we still are in thenormative type of analysis and arguing. This has left behind the empiricalanalysis (with few exceptions, see Zweifel 2002). Such a lack of empiricalmeasurements is legitimized since as Sartori suggests we cannot measureunless we first know what it is that we are measuring (Sartori, 1970, p.1038).But is it useful to endless continue with this re-assessment debate or shouldwe, as Mény (2002, p. 11) suggests, turn to a new concept of post-nationaldemocracy ? Before any term abandonment may be helpful that once more werefer to the origin from were the term came. That is, Marquand analysis of thefunctioning of the EU (then EC) institutions in order to underline the weaknessof their democratic components; since then the EU - a political entity in motion- has increasingly taken measures to rectify the democratic deficiencies(Eriksen, 2006, p. 20). Pointing to the weakness or gap and to the expectationsor requirements for improvement may be more useful. Rather than stressing onthe democratic term we better stress the deficit term, meaning somethingrequired or expected 7. As such, democratic deficit in the case of the EuropeanUnion should be conceptualized in the broad context as a term assessing theEuropean Union's performance not the EU democracy. This seems to be acharacteristic shared also by the literature since almost all use the presumedexistence of a democratic deficit as part of their arguments (Crombez, 2003, p.103). Even those that does not find a democratic deficit in the European Unionfind problems and speak of a need for an improvement of the actual status quo8

either through reforming the institutions or by bringing more communityintegration. Picturing the debate more as the half-full or half-empty glassargument doesn t change the real essence, that of the need for improvement.

Conclusion

In this paper I had required to bring some clarity to the debate on the EUdemocratic deficit by trying to map up the already existing literature on EUdemocratic deficit issue. What I have tried to do is utilizing the enormousliterature thus to unfold the concept of democracy. Both, the institutionalapproach that stresses the institutional imbalance of the EU institutions and thesocio-cultural approach that points at the absent of a European demos have

7 This is one of the meanings of the term deficit in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary.8 The authors that argue that there is no democratic deficit admit that there are still problems andthere is a need for improvement. For example Zweifel (2002, p. 812) admits that there is muchroom for improvement ; while for Crombez (2003, p. 117) the democratic deficit is, in the firstplace, a problem of lack of information and excess of delegation ; such statements enforce more andmore Mény s idea that nobody can deny that there is a real problem (2002, p. 11) in the EU.

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been considered. I accept these two different interpretations as two elements ofthe term democracy which if mingle together portray us the democratic deficitspace . The logic behind this democratic deficit space is that we need to relayon a number of elements (institutional and socio-cultural) when speaking of a(democratic) deficit. This model is still a normative representation and dependson scholars assessment. Furthermore, when it has been applied into the EUcase it has become even more contextual depending on the level-of-analysisone has chosen since scholars approach EU differently; some consider it anentity in its own while others more a state-like entity or even an internationalorganization.

As outlined here, the issue remains still open and very broad without a definiteanswer on whether we can speak of an EU democratic deficit. But what we canpropose at this stage, which is also a shared characteristic of the existingliterature, is the need for improving the institutions and polity building in EU.

REFERENCES:

Bellamy, R 2006, Still in Deficit: Rights, Regulation and Democracy in the EU , EuropeanLaw Journal, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 725-42.

Bouwen, P 2003, The Democratic Legitimacy of Business Interest Representation in theEuropean Union: Normative Implications of the Logic of Access , Max Planck Institute forResearch on Collective Goods, Bonn 2003/8 Available at<http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2003_8online .pdf>

Chryssochoou, D 2002, Europe in the Republican Imagination , Constitutionalism Web-Papers, ConWEB No. 3, available at <http://les1.man.ac. uk/conweb>

Cohen, J & Sabel, Ch 2003, Sovereignty and Solidarity: EU and US , in Governing Workand Welfare in a New Econony: European and American Experiments, eds. J Zeitlin & DTrubek, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Available at<http://web.mit.edu/polisci/research/cohen/sovereignty_and_solidarity_EU_and_US.pdf>

Crombez, Ch 2003, The democratic deficit in the European Union , European UnionPolitics, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 101-120.

Eriksen, E 2006, Deliberation and the problem of democratic legitimacy in the EU: Areworking agreements the most that can be expected? , Arena Working Papers 08

Etzioni, A 2007, The Community Deficit , JCMS, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 23-42.

Hooghe, L 2002, The Commission and The Integration of Europe: An Analysis of TopOfficials Preferences , Chapter 6 in Principal or Agent: Crisis in Spring: CommissionResigns En Masse, L Hooghe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.213-253.Available at <http://www.unc.edu/~hooghe/downloads/ chapter6.doc>

Føllesdal, A & Hix S 2006, Why there is a Democratic Deficit in the European Union. AResponse to Majone and Moravcsik , JCMS, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 533-62.

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Føllesdal, A nodate, Citizenship and Political Rights in the EuropeanUnion: Consensus and Questions . Available at <http://www.ihs.ac.at/public_rel/kbericht/ak1/fo.html>

König, Th 2007, Divergence or convergence? From ever-growing to ever-slowingEuropean legislative decision making , European Journal of Political Research, vol. 46,pp. 417 444

Kohler-Koch, B & Rittberger, B 2006, Review Article: The Governance Turn in EUStudies , JCMS, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 27 49.

Majone, G 1998, Europe's Democratic Deficit : The Question of Standards , EuropeanLaw Journal, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 5-28.

Mény, Y 2003, De la démocratie en Europe: Old Concepts and New Challenges , JCMS,vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 1-13.

Moravcsik, A 2004, Is there a Democratic Deficit in World Politics? A Framework forAnalysis , Government and Opposition, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 336-363.

Moravcsik, A 2002, In Defence of the Democratic Deficit : Reassessing Legitimacy inthe European Union , JCMS, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 603-24.

Moul, W 1973, The Level of Analysis Problem Revisited , Canadian Journal of PoliticalScience / Revue canadienne de science politique, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 494-513.

Offe, C & Preuss, U 2006, The Problem of Legitimacy in the European Polity. IsDemocratization the Answer? , Constitutionalism Webpapers, ConWEB No 6. Available at<http://www.bath.ac.uk/esml/conWEB/Conweb%20papers-filestore/ conweb6-2006.pdf>

Radu, B 2006, Euro-optimism, Euro-pessimism and Democratic Deficit: An Analysis ofPro-European Attitudes - East and West , International Conference on EuropeanConstitution and European Integration, Available at <www2.tku.edu.tw/~tiexm/conference_paper/session2/Radu.pdf>

Sartori, G 1970, Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics , The American PoliticalScience Review, vol. 64, no. 4, pp.1033-1053.

Schmidt, V 2007, The EU and Its Member-States: From Bottom Up to Top Down ,Paper prepared for presentation at the UACES Conference: Reflections on EuropeanIntegration: 50 Years of the Treaty of Rome , London: March 23-24, Available at<http://www.uaces.org/D410702Schmidt.doc>

Schmidt, V 2005, Democracy in Europe: The Impact of European Integration ,Perspectives on Politics, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 761-79.

Singer, D 1961, The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations , World Politics,vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 77-92.

Zielonka, J 2007, Plurilateral Governance in the Enlarged European Union , JCMS, vol.45, no. 1, pp. 187 209.

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Zweifel, Th 2002, ...Who is without sin cast the first stone: the EU's democratic deficit incomparison , Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 812-40.

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 75-85

Minority rights in world politics:group or individual rights?

Corina Rebegeacorinarebegea@yahoo.com

Minority rights are a very sensitive issue for the internationalcommunity in the context of the recognition and protectionafforded to human rights. As the only internationally recognizedrights-holders are the states, the recognition of minority groups asrights-holders would challenge the established principles ofsovereignty, territorial integrity and statehood. Consequently,minority rights are constructed through international and regionaldocuments from an individualistic perspective in order to project acertain notion of citizenship, sovereignty, nationhood or autonomy.International and regional documents deal with the rights ofpersons belonging to minorities, rather than with minorities assuch, a concept still in search of a clear-cut definition.

Introduction

Human rights can be considered to have a subversive force on the establishedprinciples of state sovereignty. International recognition of human rights brokethe exclusive tie between the individual and the state in that the way in which astate treated its citizens became a matter of international scrutiny. On the otherhand, minority rights movements (especially powerful after the end of the ColdWar) challenged state pre-eminence once more by bringing into discussionprinciples such as self-determination, territorial integrity and again sovereignty.The idea of minorities as groups seeking recognition on the international arenaraises very interesting issues regarding the type of entities which are entitled torights and the types of rights they may possess. What kind of rights areminority rights, group or individual rights?

In a world in which precedents make the rule while the established norms arehailed, the question above reaches beyond the purely theoretic conundrum. Therapid multiplication of collectivities claiming to be right-holders and theincreasing importance of identity place both recognized minority groups andstates in a complex and problematic circumstance. The clash of identities andthe quest for recognition demands increased attention and a new type ofmanagement of minority issues especially in the historic context of emerginggroup identities and maybe even new nations. It becomes apparent not only ininternational law, by which only states can be considered legitimate rights-holders qua groups, but also in theoretical circles that the central problem iswhere to place minorities on the axis from individual to state, if ever shouldthey take a position between the two.

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Given the political and normative complexity of minority issues, exploring theproblem of the type of rights that should be accorded to minorities becomesextremely cogent. From the perspectives of both political theory and politicalpractice, the question regarding the entities that should possess rights and thetypes of rights that should be recognized remains unaddressed with respect tominorities despite this flux of normative instruments. The importance of normsand legal instruments is not only given by their regulative meaning, but also bytheir political implications and the maintenance of a certain stability or status-quo. Nevertheless, this regulative meaning of norms impacts on the formationof identities and interests, individual or group ones.

This article will approach the problem of minority rights as reflected ininternational documents and practices and it will show that minority rights areconstructed within these documents through the perspective of individualhuman rights so as to preserve a certain political status-quo. More preciselyminority rights are not considered group rights, as the only authenticinternationally recognized group rights are those of states. This means thatinstead of really addressing the problem of minorities by offering a frameworkof defining and interpreting the nature of minority rights, the practice ofinternational politics and the norms governing it frame minority rights in such away as to preserve the current understanding of basic principles of internationallaw: self-determination, territorial integrity, sovereignty. The basicconstructivist assumption utilized in this paper is that norms have an importantrole in consolidating the structures of political order and that the socialenvironment and its collectively shared systems of meanings define behaviourand identities (Wiener 2003).

In order to show that minority rights are constructed within international normsin such a manner as to respond to sovereignty concerns of states this articlewill follow a triple strategy. First of all it will address definitional issuesconcerning minorities, groups and their rights. Secondly, it will identify themain problems for the principles of sovereignty that are attached to theinternational recognition of minority rights as group rights. Thirdly, theperspective on minority rights as constructed in international instruments willbe analyzed from the point of view of individual-centred approaches.

One more specification is necessary at this point. In this essay the concept ofminority is understood in its broadest sense without addressing issues ofdifferent types of minorities and their different entitlements. However, theinternational documents seem to leave the interpretation of the concept ofminority to national governments (taking mainly a historic stance). Theemergence of new groups claiming the status of minorities (such as life-styleminorities or people with disabilities) poses further problems for the existinginterpretations of minority rights, already contested and very problematic. Theissue of definition is controversial and remains largely un-addressed ininternational documents, as will be shown later in this article, despite the factthat giving a clear-cut definition of minorities would clarify not only whichgroups are minorities, but also to what types of rights they are entitled.

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Minority rights - a definition bid

There are several components of a possible definition of minorities that can beidentified notwithstanding the different typologies: a numerical component, anidentity component, a sense of self-preservation, a non-voluntary character, atemporal and sometimes territorial component. There is another generalcharacteristic of minorities, the relational component, which complicates theidea of minority rights in that it can only be understood by opposition withsome other groups. This relational component can either be a numericaldisproportion between two or more groups of people (Vizi 2002, p. 40), apolitical imbalance or ethnicity issue. A widely accepted definition of minoritygroups is that offered by Francesco Capotorti, a Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in1977, but it s a working definition not one agreed upon in a binding document:

A group which is numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a State andin a non-dominant position, whose members possess ethnic, religious orlinguistic characteristics which differ from those of the rest of the populationand who, if only implicitly, maintain a sense of solidarity, directed towardspreserving their culture, traditions, religion or language. (Lerner 2003, p. 8)

The definition is formulated widely enough to include the basic characteristicsso that a group could be considered a minority whether in terms of ethnicity,race, culture, or religion. It does however leave a lot of room for interpretationsas to the number of people who can form a minority or what does a non-dominant position presuppose (it may well be applicable to some majorities,such as women). A further question would be whether the criteria arecumulative or just some of them would do for a group to be considered aminority. Moreover, the definition leaves aside the issue of territorialconcentration which is one of the most problematic aspects in dealing withminority rights.

Thus recognizing minority rights raises many difficulties because on the onehand it is not readily obvious which types of collectivities constitute minorities,and on the other hand, it is extremely problematic to establish on the basis ofwhich moral or legal considerations we should give rights to minorities/groups.We can t explore all the facets of this issue, but it s worth pointing at therelevance of having all these problems in mind when addressing minority rightsin world politics.

Group rights within the theoretical debate

Minority rights have either been seen from an individualistic point of view, or acollectivist one, a theoretical duality with broad political implications. Theformer sees individuals as the only possible right-owners due to their moralcapacity (for instance Carl Wellman) or inherent worth (from a Kantianperspective). Mainly focused on the moral standing of right-owners Peter Jonessees the rights of a group qua group only making sense because of the

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individuals who form the group and their eventual need for protection againstvulnerability due to group membership (Jones 2000, pp. 202-203).Consequently groups or group rights can only have an instrumental value foradvancing individual rights. However, Jones seems to agree that there aregroup rights but with a necessary clarification between what he calls collectivegroup rights and corporate group rights. The collective approach promotes theidea that individuals enjoy their human rights collectively but the individualsmoral standing grounds the allocation of group rights.

The second understanding is that of corporate group rights, by which the grouphas an identity and moral standing independent from its members which is notbased on the individual identity, but on that of the group (Jones 1999, pp. 86-87). This brings us to the second perspective on minorities and groups, with farless adepts (Vernon Van Dyke), which sees groups as entities entitled to havedifferent sorts of rights that are both different from and non-reducible toindividual rights. He claims that group rights should be the foundation of anytheory of the state and that when we talk about the rights of representation orto self-determination of a certain community we are committing ourselves tothe position that groups have moral rights (Van Dyke 2000, pp. 34-45). Thishowever does not explain the nature of group rights. This debate betweenindividual and group rights informs (and is informed by) the political debatesand has an obvious impact on the implementation of minority rights.

Whatever the perspective, there is a certain number of rights associated withminorities: a right to existence, to representation, to preserve its traditions,culture, language and identity, to internal self-determination (Lerner 2003, pp.39-41) and very rarely to form their own states.

Group rights in international documents

The discussion of minority rights in international politics is extremely importantbecause giving rights to groups other than states, but which might have similarclaims, such as self-determination, would completely change the principle ofinviolability of the states territorial and political integrity. But before turning tothese problems, it is worth pointing out that there is a noticeable increase inthe attention towards minorities and their rights in international politics,especially after the end of the Cold War.

Under the UN system, the idea of minority protection reflected the impact of theSecond World War and a first concern for the treatment of minorities appears inthe Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,which addresses expressly in article 2 the importance of group membershipfrom the perspective of human rights and rights violations. This idea of groupmembership and its repercussions on the exercise of rights is on the other handinherent to all UN documents under the general clause of non-discrimination.

The first direct reference to minority groups and their rights appears in article27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Only in 1992, aDeclaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious

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and Linguistic Minorities was adopted, although it hasn t constituted a majorimpact on the existing understanding of minority rights. To these we can adddocuments adopted by regional organisations, such as the OSCE (minorityclauses appear in all its working documents) or the Council of Europe (the 1995Framework Convention on Minorities), as well as instruments concerning non-discrimination. However, although the importance of group/cultural belonging isrecognized, the individual (and not groups) remains the right-holder. Moreoverthese documents fail to give a clear definition of minorities and minority rightsand thus avoid a commitment towards minority claims. In what follows we willlook at the construction of minority rights within these international documents.

Minority rights as group rights raise difficult problems for the world of sovereignstates which can be addressed at several levels. First of all there is afundamental principle of self-determination to which only peoples are entitled.Secondly, the distinction between minorities and nations or peoples is not clear-cut. Thirdly, states are already facing problems of domestic jurisdiction in thefield of human rights (Pentassuglia 2002, p. 303) with the creation of supra-national human rights organizations and courts and minority rights put morestrains on the existing understanding of sovereignty. All three aspects areinterrelated and have serious repercussions on the practice of internationalrelations and interpretation of international law (for instance the problem ofdouble standards) at least at three levels: recognizing minorities as such,protecting individuals and groups from massive abuses of their rights,recognizing a right to external self-determination and the formation of newsovereign states.

The principle of self-determination is inscribed in article 1(2) of the UN Charterand the two International Covenants and it is seen as a right of a community toconduct its own business without interference. By guaranteeing this principlethe UN took a slightly different approach than the way self-determination wasunderstood under the League of Nations. While after the First World War thisprinciple was meant to contribute to the formation of new independent statesand was strictly connected with the idea of minority rights, both the rights tohave their own nation and that of being protected inside a newly created state(Kovacs 2003, p. 436), self-determination had to do more with non-interferencein internal affairs of states after the Second World War. Thus, it meant anabsence of outside constraints (external self-determination) and the possibilityto make collective choices concerning the form of government or politicalsystem, i.e. internal self-determination (Preda 2003, p. 206). Article 1(1) of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: All peoples have theright of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine theirpolitical status and freely pursue their economic, social and culturaldevelopment .

The danger of supporting the creation of collective rights for national minoritieswould be the reinterpretation of this principle as to mean a trespass on theright of states to choose their own form of political organisation (JacksonPreece 1997, p. 354) by giving certain rights of self-government to minorities,on the internal dimension, but also a possible claim to secession, which is not

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recognized by international law. Moreover, there is a general acceptance of thenotion of statehood which emphasizes the loyalty of citizens (includingmembers of minorities) towards their state (Vizi 2002, p. 41). Obviously this isincompatible with the existence of groups claiming rights that interfere with thisunitary state doctrine. The (probably deliberate) lack of an agreed definition ofminorities leaves the interpretation of self-determination to the will ofgovernments representing the whole people belonging to its territory withoutany distinctions (Jackson Preece 1997, p. 348). This brings us to the secondproblem of group rights for minorities: the differentiation between minoritiesand peoples.

Sovereignty v. minority rights

The theoretical approaches concerning terms like nation, nationality, people etc.are extremely vast and definitions are not clearly cut and generally agreedupon. Some authors see no inherent difference between national minorities andnations, which can be defined as historical communities, more or lessinstitutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland, and sharing adistinct language and mass culture plus an element of self-definition (seeingthemselves as nations). National minorities are nothing more than statelessnations (Kymlicka and Norman 2000, pp. 18-19). Notably, it seems thatdictionary definitions in different languages bring no clarification as to thedistinctions between ethnic groups and nations except for the level of theirpolitical organization, which for nations is the state (Bauman 1999, p. 31). Ifthis description of minorities were agreed, the entire system of nation-states weknow now would be put under a big question mark. As we can see, the onlyapparent difference between nations and national minorities is statehood andthis poses interesting problems to the idea of self-determination and nationalsovereignty. It is interesting that external self-determination is seen as thebasis of group rights for independent nations, when in fact it is more aconsequence of independence. On the other hand, in the absence of definitionsand of an acknowledgement of the nature of group rights the status-quoremains relatively untroubled. Sovereignty, however elastic, remains animportant line for demarcating a large range of issues in global politics.

Sovereignty issues were first raised by the recognition that individuals possessrights which overflow national borders both through the establishment ofregional (for instance the European Convention or the Inter-American systems)and international (the procedure of individual communication under the FirstOptional Protocol to the ICCPR) mechanisms of judicial or quasi-judicialenforcement of human rights, and through the norm of humanitarianintervention.

Secondly, minority rights made room for a reconsideration of the principle ofsovereignty primarily for international security concerns. These concernsenvisaged not only the possibility of inter-ethnic wars and of intervention of aninternational organization to protect a minority group, but also the possibility ofinvolvement of the kin-state of the respective minority (Vizi 2002, p. 43).Internal ethnic conflicts risk not remaining internal and producing a spill-over

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effect, but the idea of international security risks is an elastic one and is usedfor political purposes (sometimes a conflict is an international problem,sometimes it s an internal affair). To give just an example of the malleability ofconcepts, the beginning of the 1990s with the inter-ethnic conflicts in Europeled to a temporary re-interpretation of self-determination, sovereignty andstatehood. On the one hand the international community gave way to therecognition of a right to secession in the case of the former Yugoslav republicsof Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia (Kovacs 2003, p. 434). On theother hand however, in dealing with the situations in Kosovo or Chechnyaamong others the same principle did not apply. But even in the absence ofconflict, the idea of separate nationhood inside a sovereign state may constitutea serious challenge to the world-order. Minority rights and other concepts arethus constructed in such a way as to respond to the existent or desiredcharacteristics of the international state-system.

Minority rights as individual rights

While group rights for minorities remain somehow a taboo for international law,the rights of persons belonging to minority groups are internationallyrecognized. This individualistic picture of minority rights takes the form of twoprotection models: the first one is the anti-discrimination model and the secondis the positive action model. The former presupposes the neutrality of the statein relation to its citizens and the equality of rights. The latter requires theinvolvement of the state in protecting and promoting minority identities.

The principle of non-discrimination touches every aspect of human rights lawand thus it falls under the monitoring mechanisms established under differentUN bodies. There are also several conventions regarding the principle of non-discrimination and usually this provision is attached to the enjoyment of everyrecognized human right. The problem of discrimination is seen as one affectingindividuals, as a result to their belonging to a certain category or group, but notas one possibly affecting groups as such. As Natan Glazer observes the issue isone of making justice for individuals, rather than for groups (Glazer 2000, p.124). As for the second model, interpretations of recognition and positive actionare more complicated. Some of these interpretations are dealt with in thefollowing section.

Article 27 of the ICCPR is considered to be a major step in the protection ofminorities, probably because it is the first to deal directly with this issue, butalso because it shows that minority problems are of legitimate internationalconcern and need to be considered as such. However, when analyzing theindividualistic wording of this article it may seem superfluous to guaranteerights that are already contained in other articles of the Covenant. Although thisarticle frames minority rights as individual rights the persons belonging tominorities have rights, not minorities as such it also points to the importanceof group identity. This is an obvious progress from the Genocide Conventionwhich only envisaged a right to existence (Thornberry 1992, p. 141). Moreover,despite the implicit negation of group rights for minorities, article 27 makes theobject of the individual communication procedure established under the First

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Optional Protocol and thus, through the affirmation of individual rights, minorityrights can permeate the system of international protection. On the other hand,article 1 (self-determination) of the same Covenant can not make the object ofthis procedure and no group can claim a violation of their right to self-determination (Verstichel 2005, p. 27).

Furthermore, the 1992 UN Declaration on Minorities brings no newdevelopments on the conception of minority rights. As seen from the titleminority rights are still to be understood in terms of individual rights. The onlyarticle that mentions minorities without attaching an individualistic sense isarticle 1, but it gives no definition of minorities and thus increases theambiguity surrounding the application of these rights. The element ofinnovation is that it establishes positive rights and obligations upon states toensure the enjoyment of rights by the members of minorities. Article 4 makesreference to the possibility of enjoying minority rights both individually and incommunity with others, but this is far from recognizing any group right. Itshould be noted that article 8(4) of the declaration reassures states of theprimacy of sovereignty and related principles. On the other hand, by doing thatit implicitly acknowledges the need to contemplate the idea of group rights forminorities and the danger it may pose to the existing order of sovereign states.While the Declaration lists very important rights and somehow brings them tothe mainstream human rights, it didn t produce any development to thetraditional understanding of minority rights. Minority rights are constructed as aspecial category of individual rights.

On the same frame of mind, regional documents are equally cautious inrepresenting minority rights as group rights for the same reasons of preservinga certain political balance. More than that, they make the recognition ofminority status conditional upon citizenship of the state of residence. Thepreference for individual rights as opposed to group rights is often motivated bya concern regarding the proliferation of groups and of their claims that wouldlead to the piracy of minority discourse by any kind of self-proclaimed group,to inter-minority competition and even to a certain homogenization betweenminorities (Joppke and Lukes 1999, p. 13). This concern reveals how thedefinitional indeterminacy creates further problems for decision-makers, but forgroups as well. Moreover, it is difficult to separate different characteristics ofminorities from their territorial disposition and this is a major challenge for anyminority protection regime. In the absence of standards by which to giveminorities rights, the existing individual rights system seems safer.

In a nutshell, while constructing minority rights as individual rights may servefor protecting minority groups, as well as for keeping minority rights protectionat an acceptable level for states, this does not solve the problem of ethnicconflicts. It is still unsure whether individual rights suffice to prevent massiveviolations of rights and conflicts from occurring. Furthermore, by constructingminority rights as individual rights the international community seeks to avoidproblems of definition and re-ordering of principles so as to preserve the fragileinternational equilibrium and internal political arrangements. But as far asethno-cultural conflicts are concerned, in the absence of accepted principles,

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these conflicts are often decided on the basis of brute power (Kymlicka 2000,p. 3).

Final remarks

One last point about minority rights in international politics should touch uponthe value of discourse and official documents that regulate the relationsbetween states. Talking about the EU, Andrew Williams explains that itcontinuously constructs its identity through textual projections and thusbecomes a print community (Williams 2003, p. 8). Similarly, other regionaland international organizations can be said to affirm their existence mainlythrough the documents they produce. It is a matter of justifying andlegitimating themselves, as well as ensuring their self-preservation. By definingminority rights as individual, rather than group rights, the internationalcommunity commits itself to a certain notion of the nation-state. It not onlyconstructs minority rights by emphasizing the individual, but in a certain way itre-constructs minority identities by putting them in the context of global politicsdominated by the existent state-units. The wording of norms and documentshas not only a regulatory meaning, but also an identity-building value andconsequences in the sphere of recognition. In the case of minority rights, theirframing points more to state affiliation and individual value, rather than groupmembership.

All in all, the problem of minority rights which minorities, which rights isextremely difficult both from a theoretical point of view and a political andpractical one. While individual rights adepts see group rights as morallyunsustainable and as possible encroachments on a person s human rights, theadepts of group-based perspectives show that there are identities and valuesthat are not based on individuals, but which nevertheless need the protectionoffered by rights. To a certain extent both categories of rights have aninstrumental value: the recognition of individual rights may ensure theprotection of minority groups, while the protection of groups may be absolutelynecessary for human rights to be respected. As seen in recent cases of ethnicor religious conflicts, such as those in Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Palestine etc., bynot granting rights to groups, individuals find their human rights violated.However this is not an answer to the question whether minority rights aregroup rights and whether they should be recognized as such.

What this article has tried to show is that the problem of minority rights is dealtwithin international documents from an individual rights perspective and thatthe indeterminacy of minority status serves particular political interests.Minority rights are constructed by international norms not to exceed the alreadyheavily contested framework of human rights. Considerations of sovereignty,territorial inviolability, self-determination of (existing and recognized) peoplesare still taking precedence in world politics. But the very fact that minorityrights have penetrated international politics and the discourse on rightsdemonstrates the importance they retain both for safeguarding rights and forpreventing conflicts. Taking into account all the difficulties raised by therecognition and application of minority rights, recognizing and responding to

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minority claims should be a matter of balancing between individual and group-based approaches.

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Bauman, Gerd. 1999. The Multicultural Riddle. Rethinking National, Ethnic and ReligiousIdentities. Oxford University Press, New York.

Declaration on Principles of International Law Friendly Relations and Co-operationAmong States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,<http://www.hku.edu/law/conlawhk/conlaw/outline/Outline4/2625.htm>.

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Green, Leslie. 2000. Internal Minorities and Their Rights , in The Rights of MinorityCultures, ed. Will Kymlicka, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.257-272.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,<http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b3ccpr.htm>.

Jackson Preece, Jennifer. 1997. National Minority Rights vs. State Sovereignty inEurope: Changing Norms in International Relations? , Nations and Nationalism vol. 3,no.3, pp. 345-364.

Jones, Peter. 1999. Human Rights, Group Rights, and Peoples Rights , Human RightsQuarterly vol. 21, no.1, pp. 80-107.

Jones, Peter. 2000. Individuals, Communities and Human Rights , Review ofInternational Studies, vol. 26, Special Issue, pp. 199-215.

Joppke, Christian, and Lukes, Steven. 1999. Introduction: Multicultural Questions , inMulticultural Questions, eds. Christian Joppke and Steven Lukes, Oxford UniversityPress, New York, pp. 1-24.

Kovacs, Maria. 2003. Standards of Self-Determination and Standards of Minority Rightsin the Post-Communist Era: A Historical Perspective , Nations and Nationalism, vol. 9,no. 3, pp. 433-450.

Kymlicka, Will. 2000. Introduction , in The rights of Minority Cultures, ed. WillKymlicka, Oxford University Press,Oxford, pp. 1-27.

Kymlicka, Will, and Norman, Wayne. 2000. Citizenship in Cultural Diverse Societies:Issues, Contexts, Concepts , in Citizenship in Diverse Societies, eds. Will Kymlicka andWayne Norman, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 1-41.

Lerner, Natan. 2003. Group Rights and Discrimination in International Law. MartinusNijhoff Publishers, Hague.

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under International Law , International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, vol. 13,no.1, pp. 69-93.

Pentassuglia, Gaetano. 2002. State Sovereignty, Minorities and Self-Determination: AComprehensive Legal View , International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, vol. 9,no.4, pp. 303-324.

Preda, Adina. 2003. The Principle of Self-Determination and National Minorities ,Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 27, no.3-4, pp. 205-226.

Thornberry, Patrick. 1992. International Law and the Rights of Minorities, OxfordUniversity Press, New York.

United Nations Charter, <http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/>.

Van Dyke, Vernon. 2000. The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in PoliticalTheory , in The rights of Minority Cultures, ed. Will Kymlicka, Oxford University Press,Oxford, pp. 31-56.

Verstichel, Annelies. 2005. Recent Developments in the UN Human Rights Committee sApproach to Minorities, with a Focus on Effective Participation , International Journal onMinority and Group Rights, vol. 12, pp. 25-41.

Vizi, Balazs. 2002. Minority Groups and Autonomy from an International PoliticalPerspective , Local Government and Public Service reform Initiative, Open SocietyInstitute, viewed 4 May 2007, <http://lgi.osi.hu/publications/2002/213/Mg-P1.pdf>.

Wellman, Carl. 2001. Alternatives for a Theory of Group Rights , in Groups and GroupRights, eds. Christine Sistare, Larry May, Leslie Francis, University Press of Kansas,Lawrence, pp. 17-42.

Wiener, Antje. 2003. Constructivism: the Limits of Bridging Gaps , Journal ofInternational Relations and Development, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 252-275.

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 87-89

Defending liberty – The core task a government muststrive to accomplish

Lucian Bogdanlbogdan@go.com

Reviewed book: Norms of Liberty. A Perfectionist Basis for Non-perfectionistPoliticsAuthor: Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl,Print house: Pennsylvania State University Press,Year of publication: 2005.Format: Paper, 380 pp.

For long have political regimes tried to shape society according to what theyhave deemed as the most appropriate values their citizens (or, rather, subjects,if we embrace the Tocqueville-ian distinction) should embrace. This meant thatsociety was not necessarily directed towards the goals citizens had in mind, butrather towards those envisioned for them by the state and we need not thinkof extreme examples as the new man communists and fascists alike had triedshaping, but simply of strikingly obvious ones, from practically every collectivistsociety (Rand, 1967, 202-220).

Rasmussen and den Uyl support more appropriate an alternative. Instead ofendorsing a specific view and promoting a single set of virtues recognized asparamount by the government, it should simply promote freedom, of whichevery actor in society will do his/her very best to the advancement of his/hergoals.

The key concept at the groundwork of the authors demonstration is theAristotelian eudaimonia (Greek, happiness , well-being StanfordEncyclopedia of Phyloosophy, 2003; also translatable as human flourishingthe acceptation used by Rasmussen and Den Uyl). Following Aristotle sargumentation, the authors agree human flourishing cannot be achieved merelyby possession of goods or undertaking a specific action, but has to result fromfactors within one s control and from his/her acts of will (p. 86). Consequently,for one to flourish, it is imperative that he/she is a free person.

Moreover, since [o]ne must be active, not passive, to discover the goods andvirtues of human flourishing as well as to achieve and implement them (p. 87),it would be impossible for one s real happiness to stem from someone else s willimposed unto him/her. Though supporters of collectivism may claim that itwould be possible for the state to devise the best conditions for one sflourishing, actually this would be nothing more than a surrogate which onlypersons not accustomed to living in freedom would content with.

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Conversely, the authors argue, one s life is best lead according to one s (andnobody else s) thought, practical reason [being] the intelligent management ofone s life sothat all the necessary goods and virtues are coherently achieved, maintainedand enjoyed in a manner that is appropriate for the individual human being (p.147). Therefore, one may choose utterly different priorities for his/her life thanany other person, precisely because humans are different and perceive thingsin different manners. This, in turn, leads them to the establishment of differentconvictions.

Thus, a government willing to serve its constituents best should refrain itselffrom imposing a certain version of human flourishing upon them. Contrarily,acknowledging that everyone is his/her best policy planner for his/her future,the government must do its best (or, actually, to do is its least, by refrainingitself from overextended action, in a laissez-faire manner), not to infringe one sliberties.

Moreover, the authors argue (pp. 158-160), human flourishing is agent-neutral,in the acceptation that it would be preposterous to think of human flourishingas providing the basis for a unified race, with a single standard ; there is nosingle panacea, but simply versions of human flourishing. Basically, we couldsay that accepting the existence of diversity and securing liberty go hand-in-glove.

Accepting the aforementioned statements leads us to the conclusion that oncemore contrary to what collectivists claim the best for a liberal (or, at least,liberty-friendly) regime, is to promote non-perfectionist politics (p. 284),meaning assigning the first priority to freedom, while not submitting thecitizens to any other line of conduct deemed as paramount.

Therefore, argue the authors, who obviously defend the liberal approach,governments ought not overextend themselves and overregulate every aspectof society, but should rather stick to a metanormative approach (pp. 286-288).This supposes simply devising the general rules, principles everybody shouldfollow, establishing the legal and constitutional framework and not interferinganymore in the most mundane aspects of everyday s life, as champions of biggovernment would like.

By not actually guiding the individual in any way, but by offering his/her thebest possibly framework for him/her to use his/her creative potential to itsfullest extent, it becomes possible for citizens to improve their lives materially,while simultaneously making them aware it is their decision and not anyoneelse s that matters most for their lives.

Therefore, we may conclude the authors have supported their caseconvincingly, successfully defending the reasons liberty constitutes a key virtuein any democracy s existence and, at the same time, pleading for a governmentas warrant of freedom, practically the best one for its constituents.

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Though the argumentation line is obviously inspired from the liberal doctrine,the tone is definitely not biased, the text being appealing not only to staunchliberals, but practically to everyone who accepts liberty as a key-value inhis/her life.

REFERENCES

Rand, Ayn 1967, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, New York: Signet Books.

Rasmussen, Douglas & Den Uyl, Douglas 2005, Norms of Liberty. A Perfectionist Basisfor Non-perfectionist Politics, Pennsylvania State University Press.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy July 18th 2003, Virtue Ethics , viewed January 17th

2008, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/

Tocqueville, Alexis de 1997, Democracy in America, Charlottesville: University ofVirginia.

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Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 14, No 1, 91-93

The break-up of communism –between myths and reality in Romania

Milena Marinmarin.milena@gmail.com

Reviewed Book: The Romanian Revolution of December 1989Author: Peter Siani-DaviesPrint House: Cornell University PressYear of publication: 2005Format: paper, 315 pages

After almost 10 years since the Romanian revolution of December 1989, boththe academic community and public opinion of Romania, have still many doubtsregarding the nature and the exact unfolding of those events. Peter Siani-Davies, one of the few western researchers involved in the study of theRomanian society, through his excellent work The Romanian Revolution ofDecember 1989 , offers a detailed account of the Romanian revolutionaryupheaval and of the difficult birth of democracy in Romania, giving at the sametime an important contribution on the elucidation of the myths and realities ofthe Romanian revolution.

Following a linear and chronological structure, the author begins by analysingthe causes of the Romanian revolution of December 1989, identifying groundslike the extreme food rationing that kept for years the population to the limit ofstarvation, the persistent human rights abuses with a particular focus on therestriction of abortions that determined the highest rates of maternal mortalityin Europe, the rigidity of command economy, the peculiarities of Ceausescu sneo-Stalinist coercion-based regime, the lack of an organised dissidencecorrelated to the general popular discontent and the changed internationalcontext.

The author emphasises that this hardship of life conditions and the brutality ofthe communist regime in Romania was not a novelty in 1989, and seeks in-depth explanations of why the country erupted in revolution in December 1989analysing the mechanisms of revolt and using detailed examples in connectionto a solid theoretical foundation.

The following chapters provide the reader with a descriptive, but also analyticalperspective of the events of December 1989, dividing it in two phases, priorand post December 22nd, the date of the capture of Nicolae Ceausescu and theestablishment of the new leadership. With regard to the first phase, the authorpays a particular attention to events like the eruption of the revolution inTimisoara, the escalation of the crisis through the spreading of revolts all overthe country and the succession of events in Bucharest, describing it literary

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hour by hour. As for the second phase, the author concentrates on thedescription of the general chaos generated by the fear of the so calledterrorists and on the active role played by the television in the shaping of the

events. The establishment of the new structure of power was based mainly onthe removal of the twin pillars of the old regime, namely the Ceausescu familyand the Securitate, the political police of the communist rule.

A particular emphasis is given by the author, in a separate chapter, to thecounter-revolutionary forces who were responsible for the impressive numberof victims, for the general confusion during the second part of the revolutionand for the violent character of the revolution. As this book brings out, many ofthe above mentioned terrorists were part of the Securitate units, but theirimportance was generally exacerbated, being manipulated by the new formedgovernment in order to gain legitimacy and to justify the unnecessary victims.Regarding the central argument of the role of the Securitate forces in theRomanian Revolution, the author also takes into account the conspiracytheories about certain plotting inside the system against the rule of Ceausescu,but concludes that the importance of such conspiracy prior to the overthrow ofthe communism should not be over exacerbated.

The book under review also offers a concise and well documented account ofthe formation of the new state administration under the leadership of IonIliescu and the National Salvation Front (NFS) and examines the matrix of ideastaken up by the Front. Beside giving a detailed picture of the structure andcomposition of the Council of the National Salvation Front, the author putsforward solid arguments for fact that even though apparently the generalplatform of the NFS was based on a reformed socialism associated to a socialistmodel of the market economy, in reality it was a non-ideological partyappealing only to the creation of a general consensus and an organic solidarity.

The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 has an excellent theoreticalbackground, examines the most notorious revolution theories and analyses in-depth the events in 1989 in accordance to them. Moreover, it brings a valuablecontribution to the elucidation of the myths and realities of the Romanianrevolution, by analysing different perspectives on the events such asrevolution , coup d état and popular uprising , and by giving space for a

fierce polemic over the nature of the revolutionary act.

It is important to notice that even if it takes into consideration the hypothesis ofcoup d état or coup de palace , widely debated among the international

academic community, the book under review concentrates strictly on therevolutionary perspective of the analysed events, concluding that it was aviolent and involved mass mobilisation , which led to the storming of the

institutions of the old regime, followed by the establishment of revolutionarycouncils . Hence, the author provides us with a very prudent conclusion andleaves the debate open. We consider important to point out that, event if thereviewed book is based on excellent sources, it fails to bring into discussion thedocuments of the communist archives, relying mainly on academic books andon journalistic sources. This is a fundamental aspect considering that the very

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truth about the Romanian revolution of December 1989 can be known onlywhen the entire archives will be available to the researches, fact that can onlyoccur when all the ones accountable for the violent events will leave thepolitical scene of Romania.

To conclude, we can certainly argue that many of the unanswered questions onthe events of December 1989 can find their response in Peter Siani-Davies sbrilliant work about the Romanian revolution.

REFERENCES

Gabanyi, A.U (1999) Revolu ia neterminat [The Unfinished Revolution ], Bucharest:TheRomanian Cultural Foundation Press;

Green, T.H (1984) Comparative Revolutionary Movements. Search for Theory and Justice,Englewood Cliffs;

Brown JF (1991) Surge to Freedom. The End of Communist Rule in EasternEurope, Duke University Press.

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The Editorial Board of Politikon, the International Association for Political ScienceStudents Academic Journal, invites graduate and undergraduate students to submitpapers for review and possible publication.

Founded in 2001, the journal is published twice yearly and distributed in hard copyand online to more than 10,000 IAPSS members in more than 40 countries on everycontinent. Politikon publishes the best in undergraduate and graduate studentscholarship from around the world. Politikon is recognised globally for its position asone of the leading academic journals publishing the work of students from acrossthe fields of political science and international relations. The peer-review andrefereeing process involves full Professors, leading academics and experts fromacross the world and abstracts from Politikon are included in the InternationalPolitical Science Association s (IPSA) Annual International Political ScienceAbstracts.

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political economy, public policy or a related field.

From the issue 14, volume 1, the Politikon Editorial Board also welcomes bookreviews. Reviewed books should not be older than two years from the date of thearticle submission. All articles should be encompassed between XXXX and XXXXwords. For all other features the previous outlined standards apply.

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the Editorial Board 2007-2008would like to thank

the Faculty of Social Sciencesof the University of Ljubljana

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