Norway's Peace Policy

Soft Power in a Turbulent World

J. Taulbee, A. Kelleher, P. Grosvenor

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137481993
• eBook ISBN: 9781137429193
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The post-Cold War world allows space for less powerful states to develop influential roles in responding to specific international problems. Norway has focused on the persistent issue of violent ethno-political conflict. This book explains why Norway chose its peace policy and demonstrates what is has been able to achieve.

CHAPTER 1

Lesser States and Niche Diplomacy*

For why?—because the good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take, who have the power,

And they should keep who can.¹

—William Wordsworth

For many good reasons, international relations theory (and diplomatic history) has primarily focused upon the largest and most powerful states. Theorists have concisely stated the rationale:

The great powers have utility for the system–they define it and uphold it by their very existence. On the other hand, in functional terms the system has no particular use for the smaller units. Their survival is theoretically and perhaps ethically justifiable–but the international system has no function for them; it is indifferent to their presence or absence.²

During the evolution of the modern state system in Europe, the ambitions and demands of the large and powerful clearly structured the interactions in the international arena. Military power and access to the requisite resources to sustain it formed the essential elements of statecraft.³ Although the Peace of Westphalia produced a myriad of small, nominally independent entities—Germany alone encompassed almost 300 political units with some claim to sovereign status—these units seldom exerted influence beyond their immediate localities.⁴ The small and weak routinely fell prey to the ambitions of their larger and more powerful neighbors. Through the Napoleonic Wars, Wordsworth’s pithy summary presented above describes the lot of many smaller states within Europe and weaker entities elsewhere.⁵

After Vienna, lesser states had little influence because they were few in number, lacked resources, did not often enjoy the presumed benefits of full sovereign independence, and were primarily concerned with problems of internal consolidation and development.⁶ In 1880, for example, Europe, east and west, consisted of only 18 states. During this period, lesser states within Europe, apart from movements of national consolidation (Italy, Germany), enjoyed relative security in terms of external threats. However, excluding the Americas, outside of Europe many territories faced occupation in the wake of another wave of European colonial expansion. The Great Powers dominated the diplomatic stage throughout the various meetings that comprised the Concert of Europe.⁷ Even the advent of the formal conference diplomacy of the Hague conferences at the turn of the twentieth century did not create a mechanism whereby lesser states could play a greater role in issues that mattered to the great powers.⁸ Post World War I (WWI), while the state system expanded through the creation of new states from old empires, for many of the newly formed states, important domestic questions (e.g., treatment of minorities, institutional development) and the predatory actions of expansionist neighbors combined with limited resources and the worldwide economic depression during the 1930s to preclude an active international role for most smaller units. In sum, because lesser states did not command much concern, analysts did not systematically address possible roles they might play apart from traditional security issues.

Rationales for Focus

As the state system expanded post WWII, analysts made occasional attempts to examine and classify the behavior and options of “lesser states,” but these efforts have been both sporadic and sparse in comparison with other foci.⁹ After the end of the Cold War, many analysts have advocated broadening the scope of inquiry to capture the complexity of contemporary international politics. While a common theme, it does not rest upon the proposition that the role of the more powerful in constructing and maintaining a viable international order has become less important. It does assume that outcomes in many issue areas of concern cannot be fully understood without examining the interests and actions of those defined as secondary players with regard to traditional evaluations of attributes.

The idea that states other than major players can play important roles in many areas reflects some important changes in the international system post WWII. First, the development of international institutions, both in terms of functions and numbers, provided states that sought an international role with venues and issue areas in which they could maximize their influence in terms of both tangible and intangible (reputation, will) resources. Second, the emergence and expansion of the institutional framework reflected the evolving salience of issues beyond security (human rights, the environment, global poverty), particularly as the state system added new members. Unlike security issues where the definition of priorities and appropriate commitments clearly rested with the most powerful, these issue areas required developing a broad consensus through diplomatic coalition-building. The Great Powers could weigh in, and might be important in the long run in terms of providing necessary resources, authority, and support to guarantee initiatives and agreements, but they did not necessarily define the agenda. To use an analogy from the theater, the leading roles, the star players, carry the structure of the plot. The principal action revolves around those characters. Nevertheless, the lesser players, the character actors/actresses, contribute essential elements to plot development and resolution. Considering the expanding scope of international concerns, supporting and bit players have taken on increasing significance. Third, the end of the Cold War, as a dominant conflict that structured relations for 45 years after WWII, removed the immediate security fears of many states.

The end of the Cold War and many of the security concerns it generated had two other effects. First, it redefined policy options for many lesser states. For the wealthier, the new political landscape freed resources as governments redefined their priorities. The end of the Cold War meant that many states had both, greater freedom of action and, if they chose to do so, greater resources to commit to their international agendas. For others, primarily weaker, lesser developed states who had benefitted from exploiting the conflict between the two super powers, the evolving relationships actually reduced the policy options available to them. Rather than objects of a competition to secure their support, they became objects of concern.¹⁰ Second, the post-Cold War environment elevated issue areas heretofore considered “low” politics to more important positions in the hierarchy of concerns. In this sense, the end of the Cold War marks an important transition.

The Importance of Being Classified

Oscar Wilde gives us an informative lesson on classification (names).¹¹ Who you are may count for some, but, for others, it may make little difference. Sometimes, your name is what you make of it. That, perhaps, is the theme of this book. From the outset, we acknowledge that terminology poses a problem in discussing the activities of less than great powers. Over the last 50 years, analysts have suggested a myriad of terms to create categories that have sufficient coherence to define behavioral patterns of interest and meaning. Among the many characterizations, “small states,” “middle powers,” “regional powers,” “weak states,” and “niche states” have been used. We can note other passing references to groups of smaller states with some influence/impact, such as “oil rich,” those characterized as “like-minded” for their commitment, to and promotion of certain economic development goals, those with membership in the European Union or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or states that pose special problems—rogue or pariah states. Although a considerable literature exists dealing with “middle powers,” the authors readily admit that the category lacks precision.¹² Moreover, Hey notes that, beyond the problem of coherent categorization, these studies tend to draw conclusions based upon intra-group attributes, thereby limiting their applicability across categories.¹³

Admittedly, the contemporary system has very few states that aspire to exert more than a regional presence across a broad spectrum of interests. The greatest majority of contemporary states qualifies as small or, at best, as “middle powers” by application of some combination of traditional attributes such as territory, population, or size of the economy (national income, gross National Product (GNP), etc.). Even excluding the microstates as a category leaves numerous questions. While numbers alone might provide some justification for a focus, needless to say, any effort directed at analyzing the behavior(s) of less than great powers faces formidable problems of definition and categorization simply because of the diversity of attribute combinations that might be used to define smaller units.

In this sense, the word “power” seduces us. As a term that seems essential in the analysis of contemporary international relations, it cannot help but color most of our perceptions about states. Using the term in any classification generates default assumptions about attributes. We have chosen to avoid using the term “power” as a descriptor of status because many different classifications exist geared to many different parameters defining power. For example, as a “power” as traditionally defined, what did Norway, with its small population, add to NATO other than strategic position? What set of parameters might meaningfully encompass Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Norway, all of which qualify as “small” in terms of various measures. Consider the disparities between Namibia and Norway, both of which have very small populations inhabiting very large land areas.

Consider as well that the greatest majority of states that might fall into any category of lesser states do have a low level of international involvement in the sense of engaging in sustained policy action beyond that essential to deal with their own necessarily limited security and economic interests. Notwithstanding the policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program by North Korea and Iran, the actions of smaller units seldom generate major security concerns for other states in the system, although increasingly, events that flow from the lack of institutional development and capability in “weak” or “failed” states have become a salient part of contemporary concerns. Lack of material resources, lack of appropriately trained human resources in sufficient numbers, fragile and weak internal systems of governance, and cleavages based upon race, language, religion, or ethnicity plague many smaller units in the contemporary international system. Azar’s observation from the mid-1970s still holds true: “two-thirds of the world’s nation-states are small and poor.”¹⁴ On the other side of the spectrum of capability, several of the lesser states that potentially have the resources and internal coherence to play a meaningful independent role have chosen options such as membership in the European Union that have severely constricted their ability to do so.

Developing a Focus

These observations simply illustrate the fact that the expansion of the state system has immensely complicated the problem of classification because of the range and diversity of attributes among states that might fall into any of these categories. For this reason, category definitions have tended to be arbitrary and intuitive. To say this, is not to say anything new.¹⁵ We do not argue that defining relevant categories is an impossible or fruitless task, but only wish to note the limitations of past efforts in attempting to generate general propositions about the behavior of lesser states based upon broad categories.

In particular, trying to define relevant categories for lesser states using traditional system-level theories provides little insight into the possible range of activities open to lesser states, simply because the crucial test becomes the impact of particular behaviors on the structure and processes associated with the system. Hey notes:

If there is one piece of conventional wisdom about how best to explain small state behavior, it is that the answer lies at the system level of analysis. That is, because of their relatively weak power base within the international system, small states will act in passive and reactive modes, rather than as proactive agents for international change.¹⁶

Robert Keohane has suggested that a useful classification might be derived from defining potential roles in terms of system impact: system-determining, system-influencing, system-affecting [in groups, through intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), etc.], and system-ineffectual (policy involves adjusting to reality, not the re-arrangement of it).¹⁷ Intuitively, the categories roughly correspond to “great,” “secondary,” “m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Lesser States and Niche Diplomacy
• 2 The Peace Engagement of a Peace Culture: Observations on the National Identity Foundations of Norwegian Foreign Policy
• 3 Norway’s Approach to Achieving Peace: Structure and Agency
• 4 Parallel Peace Processes in Achieving Sudan’s CPA
• 5 Sri Lanka: A Bridge Too Far?
• 6 Successful Local Peacebuilding in Macedonia
• 7 Contributions and Challenges
• Notes
• Bibliopgraphy
• Index