The OSCE: Soft Security for a Hard World

Abbreviations

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Foreword

This book is a welcome addition to the international relations literature on international institutions and the role they can play in today’s world, where national sovereignty remains a dominating idea. The editor deserves credit for the structure of its design, which involves the use of different theories to study the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). These different theories all have something to say about the subject matter. The mosaic of different theoretical perspectives outlined in this book gives us a fuller understanding of the phenomenon under scrutiny.

Realism, arguably the dominant approach for many decades, has helped us understand why the OSCE did not become a collective defense organization. It put its focus on the role of the more powerful participating states, including Russia and the United States, and their different interests, even after the end of the Cold War. This book, from the theoretical standpoint, goes beyond Realism and offers a rich menu of approaches in order to understand the OSCE from a variety of perspectives.

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) played an important role at the outset of the 1970s in promoting détente between the East and West, getting the post-war borders in Europe accepted (an interest of the Soviet Union) and human rights acknowledged as international concerns. The end of the Cold War was an important event for the CSCE as well as the European Community (EC) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The missions of the CSCE and NATO, were, arguably, largely completed. The EC became the European Union, which now includes the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and which for the first time was extended to include defense policy. But both the CSCE and NATO adapted to the new situation, taking on new missions. In 1995 the CSCE became an organization, the OSCE, with its broad mission being to promote security, democracy and human rights among and within an increasing number of participating states, expanding from the original 35 states in the 1970s to 56 states. When the CSCE and the EU failed to deal with the emerging crisis in the former Yugoslavia in the early and mid-1990s, NATO stepped in with its hard power and US leadership, demonstrating that the limited soft power available to the former two organizations was insufficient. Although the EU eventually started to develop the capacity to deal with military ← 13 | 14 → conflicts, especially after the Kosovo conflict, NATO has remained an important security provider in Europe and beyond.

The OSCE has survived but has declined in importance. Its budget has also been reduced in recent years. It has the advantage in certain situations of having Russia as a member, but this also puts serious limits on what it can do due to the consensus approach of the organization. The current regime in Russia does not fully share the western commitment to democracy and human rights.

Most of the other theories applied in this book – except for rational institutionalism – move towards more sociological perspectives, with emphasis on norms, identity and ideas. The definition of security is widened and power becomes a more subtle concept. Clearly, after the end of the Cold War, many European conflicts were intra-state conflicts, taking place between different ethnic groups. Realism did not have much to contribute to the study of these conflicts and the new risks and threats that emerged from them. This is where other theories have more to offer: applying these other theories gives us fuller explanations.

The case studies cover different periods and different regions, with many dealing with or touching upon the situation in the Western Balkans. Although the OSCE has not questioned the Westphalian system of sovereign states, it has been able to use soft power in a number of situations and as such it remains a useful organization. One may hope that it can continue to contribute to dialogue, learning and the socialization of democratic norms, so that “good governance” can spread further east beyond the countries that have been able to join the EU as a result of the big enlargements in 2004 and 2007, or even those that may one day hope to join, as is the case of the countries in the Western Balkans.

Finn Laursen

Canada Research Chair of EU Studies and ad personam Jean Monnet Chair

Director, EU Centre of Excellence

Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
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