Inter-organizational Relations in International Security

Cooperation and Competition

Stephen Aris, Aglaya Snetkov, Andreas Wenger, Stephen Aris, Aglaya Snetkov, Andreas Wenger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351671392
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the politics of the relationships between multilateral organizations that have come to play a major role in contemporary efforts to manage international security.

Drawing on concepts developed in Organizational Studies, the book starts from the assumption that inter-organizational relationships are the product of contested politics. Politics that may be either more cooperative or more competitive, but which always contains elements of both. This volume focuses on inter-organizational relations emanating from, through and towards the regional scale. The proliferation in the number of regional multilateral organizations in recent decades and their growing claims to represent effective and legitimate frameworks to address security threats and issues has been widely noted. The book is organized into four sections, covering all aspects of the inter-organizational relationships in which regional multilateral organizations are involved: global-regional, intra-regional, inter-regional, and multi-scalar. Each chapter addresses a distinct case study of inter-organizational relations (bilateral, trilateral or wider network), and examines the politics shaping these relations.

This book will be of much interest to students of international security, international organizations, global governance and area studies, more generally.

1 Cooperating and competing

Relations between multilateral organizations in international security

Stephen Aris and Aglaya Snetkov

Analyzing the role that multilateral organizations (MO) play in international security has long been a topic that occupies both scholars and practitioners alike. The vast majority of this analysis focuses on either the outward activities or the internal politics of an individual MO. By contrast, the relationships between these MOs – so called “inter-organizational relations” – is rarely considered as an object of study. Yet, during recent years, there has been a marked trend for MOs to emphasize their ties with one another, for politicians to speak of “networked” security governance and for scholars to use concepts such as organizational “overlap,” “nesting” or “interplay” in describing international security multilateralism. Against this background, Biermann and Koops (2017a, p. 1) have asked: “Are we currently witnessing an ‘inter-organizational turn’ in world politics and in the discipline of International Relations (IR)?”

This book’s answer to this question is in the affirmative. If we consider relations between states and other political actors as fundamental to understanding international security, then surely relations between MOs must also be of relevance. Or, to put it another way, we argue that – at the very least – there is a need to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge about the relations between, among and across the MOs with which we are all familiar. Taking this as its starting point, this book sets out to investigate some of the key relationships between MOs that shape and are shaped by contemporary efforts to manage international security.

This introductory chapter will endeavor to lay the ground for the subsequent empirical analysis of a wide-range of relationships between MOs, encompassing multiple scales of governance, areas of the world and functions of security multilateralism. It, first, situates the topic of inter-organizational relations, and introduces the book’s unifying heuristic of the cooperation-competition dialectic that animates all relations between, among and across MOs. Second, it details our argument as to why we begin our analysis from a focus on the inter-organizational relations of regional organizations (ROs), by suggesting that such relationships are embedded within the ongoing contested debate about global order change and evolving frameworks for governing international security. Drawing on the literature in Organizational Studies and other IR research on inter-organizational relations, it, third, outlines a conceptual vocabulary that will be subsequently utilized to analyze the book’s various empirical case studies. Fourth and finally, the structure of the book and a roadmap guide to the rest of the chapters will be detailed.

Between cooperation and competition: locating inter-organizational relations

It goes without saying that IR’s traditional concern has been the analysis of relations between states. Within this horizon, a central question is always whether and which interstate relations are cooperative or competitive, and how we can account for and investigate these dynamics. Analogously, the relations between organizations are also frequently studied according to the question of whether a relationship is cooperative or competitive, and how to explain this. As a 2010 Handbook of different disciplinary approaches to the topic highlights, “the field of IOR [Inter-Organizational Relations] includes inquiry into [both] competitive and conflictual relationships” (Cropper et al., 2010, p. 5). This may come as somewhat of a surprise to casual observers, who may expect that the study of inter-organizational relations is only about the analysis of agreements, partnerships and cooperation between organizations. It is, however, equally about investigating conflictual and competitive inter-organizational relationships. Indeed, in one of the earliest attempts to utilize an inter-organizational relations perspective to study international security, Biermann (2008, p. 155) notes that “rivalry is more widespread than the cooperation rhetoric of organizations makes us believe.”

While there are many divergent theories and tools for the study of inter-organizational relations, most agree that the underlying factor that animates this cooperation–competition dialectic is a MO’s simultaneous desire for both autonomy (independence) and interaction (interdependence). Here, it is again useful to return to the analogy with traditional accounts of interstate relations in IR. These perspectives assume that states are ultimately concerned with their own self-reproduction as political entities (independence), but find themselves embedded within a context in which they must engage in interactions with other such entities (interdependence). The latter imposition may either enhance or undermine the former goal. By extension, MOs operate according to a similar, and also sometimes contradictory, logic. As Franke and Koch (2017, p. 174) note “[o]rganizations only get involved with each other to (maintain their capability to) act alone.” Taking this into account, Cropper et al. (2010, p. 9) outline that, fundamentally, the study of inter-organizational relations is concerned with the investigation of “the properties and overall patterns of relations between and among organizations that are pursuing a mutual interest while also remaining independent and autonomous, thus retaining separate interests.”

Within IR research on interstate relations – with the exception of the most extreme realist or liberal positions – scholars tend to take the view that most relationships have elements of both cooperation and competition. And, that it is this dialectic between cooperation and competition that accounts for the evolution of a particular interstate relationship. Again, this standpoint has a parallel to inter-organizational relations. As Biermann and Koops (2017a, p. 24) note, “most processes related to inter-organizational relations occur in the context of cooperation or rivalry.” However, as with interstate relations, relationships between MOs are rarely constituted exclusively by cooperative or conflictual dynamics, but rather according to a mix of both. In other words, “patterns of cooperation and rivalry … are prevalent in all inter-organizational relations” (Biermann, 2008, p. 155). Therefore, it is the job of the analyst of inter-organizational relations to investigate how this dialectic between cooperation and competition is orientated, functions and is produced. As such, this book uses the dialectic of cooperation–competition as the heuristic frame for the analysis of all of its varied case studies of relationships between MOs.

Multilateral relations in International Security

The proliferation of MOs in the latter part of the twentieth century has been widely noted by scholars (Haftendorn, Keohane and Wallender, 1999; Karns and Mingst, 2010; Keohane, 1990). MOs have been established to address a wide variety of tasks, issues and functions. While some operate as functionally comprehensive actors, such as the United Nations (UN). Others are more narrowly focused on a particular function, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Health Organization (WHO). MOs also differ from one another with regard to the scope of their national memberships and their expected zones of responsibility, most commonly in terms of being global or regional. In this way, MOs operate in an environment that is constituted by the general scalar imaginary of international politics.

As highlighted by various scholars concerned with IR’s “level of analysis problem” (Buzan and Albert, 2010; Sjoberg, 2008; Temby, 2015), efforts to conceptualize and govern that space of international politics and security are structured by a widely recognized scalar imaginary. In this imaginary, the international space is broken up into four scales of magnitude, from the global to the local, through the regional and national (Buzan, 2008). While these four scales are commonly evoked, in the context of MOs, only the global and regional have tended to be considered as relevant. Due to the primacy of the nation-state as the organizing principle of international multilateralism, by definition MOs are composed of nation-state memberships. In connection with a general process of expanding governance arrangements beyond the nation-state, MOs are increasingly entering into partnerships and other relationships with non-state actors, such as private companies, NGOs, consultancies and sub-national public institutions. At the same time, while their operations often involve engagement with and impact on the local and national scales, MOs tend to only be identified as global and regional in nature, because they remain formally wedded to nation-state memberships as their core principle.

During the early to mid-Cold War periods, international multilateralism was largely concentrated on the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions, reflecting a choice “to opt for a universal and global focus” (Felicio, 2009). However, since the mid-1960s, a growing number of regional MOs have been established. This has been further supported by a trend towards promoting greater regionalism since the end of the Cold War (Acharya, 2012; Breslin and Croft, 2013; Buzan and Waever, 2003; Godehardt and Nabers, 2011; Lake and Morgan, 1997; StewartIngersoll and Frazier, 2012). This confluence of developments means that many MOs are expressly “regional” in nature and composition, with these MOs seen as an important factor in establishing the voice, authority and legitimacy of a particular instantiation of a regional governance arrangement (Aris and Wenger, 2014a; Kirchner and Dominguez, 2013; Tavares, 2009). Against this background, the relationship between global and regional MOs has become a key question for the governance of international security. As Brosig (2011, p. 147) notes, MOs are usually “not operating in isolation from each other but have to coordinate with other IOs at the global and regional level in order to operate.” Therefore, the politics of how to manage the global–regional relationship is an increasingly important and contested one (Aris and Wenger, 2014a; Cooper, Hughes and Lombaerde, 2007; Crocker, Hampson and Aall, 2011; Farrell, Hettne and Langenhove, 2005; Godehardt and Nabers, 2011; Langenhove, 2011).

Taking this into account, and in contrast to similar studies centered on the global scale (Biermann and Koops, 2017b), this volume addresses the topic of interorganizational relations by emphasizing the regional scale as its starting point. Indeed, the regional scale is viewed by many as the most active, significant and contested in contemporary international security (Aris and Wenger, 2014b; Godehardt and Nabers, 2011; Kirchner and Sperling, 2007; Langenhove, 2011; Buzan and Waever, 2003). In our view, the positionality of regional MOs as “in-between” the traditional scalar foci of IR and Security Studies – the national (state units) and the global (system structure) scales – offers an analyst the best vantage point from which to assess the cooperation–competition dialectic dynamic animating international security multilateralism.

An example of the contested role of ROs between nation-states and global MOs is the dispute over the international intervention in the 2011 Libyan civil war to impose a no-fly zone. Following the established path of global multilateral governance, several nation-states, most prominently France and the UK, tabled a resolution to create a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace to the UN Security Council (UNSC). By so doing, they sought to gain broad international support and legitimacy for carrying out what would be a NATO operation. In making the case for this resolution, its proponents emphasized that they had received regional support for the resolution, by virtue of the Arab League’s endorsement. Hence, connecting a regional MO to their national position to win support from a global MO. However, the African Union (AU) also claimed to represent the voice of the region and argued against the resolution and in favor of their own peace plan. China and Russia, two veto-wielding powers in the UNSC, seemed to come out in favor of the AU. Ultimately, China and Russia choose to abstain in the vote, and the resolution was passed. Subsequently, many interpreted NATO as having acted beyond the mandate given by resolution 1973, leading the AU to restate its dissatisfaction that its voice had been ignored by the UN. This case emphasizes the way in which regional MOs are now an important meeting point for the interaction and contestation between nation-states and global multilateral governance.

As the above example of the Libya 2011 crisis illustrates, “[a]n important aspect to keep in mind is that inter-organizational relations take place at and across different levels” (Biermann and Koops 2017a, p. 4). In this way, MOs have relations with and to one another that extend beyond their immediate scale of operation, and thus it is both unproductive and unempirical to bracket off inter-organizational relations as taking place at only one scale. In this book, we, therefore, embrace the multi- and cross-scalar nature of relations between MOs. To this end, we foreground the regional scale as the scale through which actors operating at different scales are connected in contemporary international security multilateralism. We have, therefore, organized the book into four sections, covering different aspects to the scalar relationships between MOs: global–regional, intra-regional, inter-regional, and multi-scalar.

Global–regional inter-organizational relations

Although regional MOs may be increasingly important, the UN remains the foremost MO in international security. The UNSC retains its position as the primary site for debating and addressing international security crisis (Thompson, 2009) and is invested with “unique legitimacy … to decide and to direct the use of force” in response to crises (Boyer, Sur and Fleurence, 2003, p. 282). Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has expanded the scope of its mandate and operational capacity into a wide-range of other security provision functions. At the same time, it is widely acknowledged that the UN is struggling to meet an ever greater and more varied set of demands for it to manage international security, with a common refrain being that it is “overburdened, underfunded and overstretched.” Among its responses to this challenge, the UN has over the last two decades made efforts to develop more active relationships with regional MOs, in order to share some of this burden (Felicio, 2009). In an influential 1992 report, the UN Secretary-General stated that more usage of Chapter VIII to this end “could not only lighten the burden of the Council but also contribute to a deeper sense of participation, consensus and democratization in international affairs.” This has manifested itself in, for example, joint peacekeeping activities, in which the UN increasingly pursues “‘subcontracting’ and ‘partnering’ modes of global–regional cooperation in peacekeeping” (Yamashita, 2012, p. 165), utilizing ROs capacities to enact operations (Gowan, 2012).

Yet, as Cooper et al. (2008 p. 1) note, the “relationship between global governance and regionalization is fraught with ambiguity.” The nature of the engagement and interaction between the UN and ROs has largely been ad hoc and on a case-by-case basis, without any formal clarification of the terms of this relationship. Furthermore, it is often unclear with which RO the UN is and should be engaging, as illustrated by the above-mentioned example of the 2011 Libyan crisis. In this context, inter-organizational relations between the global and the regional have emerged as one of the foremost areas of debate in contemporary international security: How can ROs support the UN in its goal to deliver “international security and stability”? How should this relationship be governed? Is it a hierarchical or egalitarian relationship?

Intra-regional inter-organizational relations

Although ROs are frequently keen to stress their role, relevance and influence as global players by pointing to their global ties, often their most extensive interorganizational relationships are with other MO operating in the same or an overlapping regional space. Due to overlapping memberships, functions and goals, such intra-regional relationships are usually more intense than the global–regional ones. Indeed, most areas of the world have something akin to a regional multilateral architecture (Acharya, 2007), whereby more than one MO is active and tasked with addressing security functions for the said region. Sometimes this manifests itself in a multi-scalar relationship between macro-scale pan-regional and micro-scale sub-regional MOs. Such an arrangement is seen in the case of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), which acts as a framework for coordinating the interorganizational relationships between the pan-regional AU and sub-regional MOs, such as the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) (Engel and Porto, 2010; Franke, 2008; Nieuwkerk, 2011). Others forms of intra-regional multilateral contexts are less defined by scalar differentiation, and more by functional differentiation. An example being the “interlocking” inter-organizational relationships between NATO...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Cooperating and competing: relations between multilateral organizations in international security
• PART I The global–regional relationship
• PART II Intra-regionalism
• PART III Inter-regionalism
• PART IV Governing security issues
• Index