- 19 Kasım 2008
- 261
- 0
ÜNİVERSİTE HOCAMIZ ÇEVİRİ ÖDEVİ VERDİ
Sleeping hegemons: Third-party
intervention following territorial
integrity transgressions
Eelco van der Maat
Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University
Abstract
It is not clear why some territorial transgressions lead to intervention by the international community and others do
not. As most territorial transgressions lead to a reaction from the international community but a few, however, do
not, this study examines the main determinants for non-intervention by capable members of the international community,
following violation of the territorial integrity norm by a deviant state. This article focuses on which characteristics
of the norm-transgressing state, the conflict, and the state capable of enforcing the norm affect the
occurrence of non-intervention. This comparative study examines six major alleged transgressions of the territorial
integrity norm the occupation of Tibet, the Suez crisis, the 1967 six-day war, the Indonesian occupation of East
Timor, the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara, and the 1989 Gulf crisis using a multi-methodological
approach based on qualitative methods, most notably fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Analysis reveals
that the absence of high security costs to the hegemon in combination with (a) strategically important security relations
between the transgressor and the hegemon or (b) absence of military and economic vulnerability are generally
necessary and sufficient for non-intervention.
Keywords
causal complexity, fsQCA, territorial conflict, third-party intervention
Introduction
It is a commonly heard complaint that the USA or the
broader international community has a dual standard
when it comes to upholding its norms.1 This dual standard
seems to apply even to norms as strong and firmly
institutionalized as the territorial integrity norm, which
Zacher (2001) shows to have become a central pillar of
the international order, especially following the Second
World War. It is striking, for example, that in some
instances of territorial aggrandizement, such as when
Iraq forcefully invaded and attempted to annex Kuwait,
the international community reacted with a swift military
intervention in order to restore the prewar territorial
boundaries. Yet in other cases, for example when
Indonesia invaded would-be-independent East Timor
or when Israel occupied the Sinai, West Bank and Gaza
Strip, the international community seemed unwilling to
intervene. Why do capable members of the international
community sometimes go to great lengths to uphold
norms and at other times seem unwilling? This article
aims to present us with empirical insights into this question
by focusing on the firmly established territorial
integrity norm.
Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following
research question, Why do capable states intervene in
some instances of transgression of the territorial integrity
norm and not in others? and the sub-question, Which
characteristics of the norm transgressing state, the conflict
and the capable power affect the occurrence of (non-) intervention?. In order to answer these questions,
this study applies the relatively new method of fuzzy-set
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) to six major
transgressions of the territorial integrity norm. Following
Zacher (2001), this study describes the territorial integrity
norm as the growing respect for the proscription that
force should not be used to alter interstate boundaries.
Furthermore, territorial transgression will be used to indicate
the forceful occupation and subsequent annexation
of the contested territory by the transgressor (i.e. act of
aggression), whereas (non-)intervention will be used to
denote the reaction of the international community.
Moreover, particularly in the case of major territorial
transgressions, capabilities matter and few states are therefore
able to intervene as capable powers. Though intergovernmental
and smaller regional powers do intervene in
conflicts, this particular study is less equipped to examine
the role of these actors because of the specific nature of our
case population. Therefore this study focuses mainly, but
not exclusively, on the hegemonic power of the USA, not
only because it is the most frequent intervener with military
and economic instruments (Regan, 2000), but also
because it was capable, though not always willing, to intervene
in all the examined conflicts.2
Though some case studies touch upon the process by
which states decide to intervene, these arguments generally
lack empirical testing (e.g. Brands, 1987; Western,
2002). Moreover, even less is known about which factors
determine the decision of capable states not to intervene.
In addition to a better understanding of the territorial
transgression norm, explicit awareness of its limitations
is important for two reasons: (a) it will provide us with
insight into when third-party conflict resolution is
unlikely to succeed; and more importantly, (b) it may
actually strengthen the norm in the long run. Knowing
when an unwillingness to intervene makes third-party
conflict resolution likely to fail is especially relevant in
light of the possibility that poorly timed and failed mediation
attempts may actually hamper future resolution
attempts (see Regan & Stam, 2000).
Zacher (2001) shows that in cases of territorial transgression
the international community generally attempts
to intervene to restore the prewar borders. However, to
better understand in which cases the international community
will intervene and in which cases it will not, we
should turn to the broader intervention literature. Most
of the empirical studies of intervention focus on the determinants
for success, which lie outside the scope of the current
study (e.g. Regan, 1996; Fisher, 2007; Ang&Peksen,
2007). Fewer studies, however, are directed at the conditions
under which intervention is (un)likely to take place.
Moreover, the few studies that do address the conditions
under which a party intervenes commonly suffer from
selection bias, due to a selection on the instances of intervention
(e.g. Brands, 1987; Western, 2002; Regan,
1996). Two studies deal specifically with intervention in
civil strife, in which intervention is assumed to end ongoing
hostilities between the parties. With respect to intrastate
conflict, Regan (1998) finds that conflict intensity, humanitarian
crisis, and the Cold War make intervention more
likely, whereas a greater number of bordering countries
makes intervention less likely.However, these findings are
less relevant to the current study, seeing that in the case of
major territorial transgressions the transgressor has already
defeated the weaker party; conflict intensity and refugees
are therefore less of an issue.
In a large-N study of US interventions in internal
wars during the Cold War period, Yoon (1997) examines
the effects of strategic, economic and domestic factors on
the probability of US intervention in internal conflicts
during the Cold War and finds that domestic factors and
Cold-War-specific factors are especially relevant for
explaining intervention. Following Yoon (1997), possible
explanations for non-intervention seem to fall into
three general categories: (a) strategic costs and benefits,
(b) economic relations, and (c) domestic factors. More
specifically, we can embed these explanations in the
broader theoretical debates of the International Relations
(IR) field; from the theoretical approaches of realism,
neoliberal institutionalism and domestic level theories,
several relevant explanatory variables can be distilled to
be tested. Broadly speaking, all three approaches aim
to explain how states act and offer perspectives that provide
insight into the determinants of non-intervention.
When taken together, their variables form expected causal
patterns that can be matched to causal patterns in the
data in order to allow the testing of the explanatory
power of these approaches. Before turning to the operationalization
of the distilled variables and the expected
causal patterns, it seems to be in order to discuss the
most relevant characteristics of each approach.
Variables based on realism
According to realism, states may pay lip service to norms
like the territorial integrity norm, but norms do not influence state behaviour, since states are primarily
interested in power and relative security gains (Grieco,
1988, 1990; Morgenthau, 1973; Waltz, 1979). Relative
security gains refer to the central concern of the state to
increase and maintain its security above those of other
states. Therefore, from a realist perspective, we would
expect that states are not willing to intervene following
a transgression of the territorial integrity norm, unless
intervention is expected to generate relative security
gains (Morgenthau, 1967; Bueno de Mesquita, 1981).
From this assumption we can derive an expected causal
pattern based on four explanatory variables, which are
expected to make the capable power more or less likely
to intervene, namely, (a) high security costs of the transgression
or gains of intervention to the capable power;
(b) the presence of important security relations or alliances
between the transgressor and the capable power; (c) the
military vulnerability of the transgressor; and (d) the economic
vulnerability of the transgressor.
Two of these factors relate to the willingness of capable
powers to intervene. High security costs refers to the relative
security costs and/or benefits that the power can expect if
it intervenes in the conflict. These may be determined by
the relative costs and benefits of the transgression on the
one hand and by the relative costs and benefits of the
intervention on the other hand. Possible costs of the
transgression include regional instability and threats to
the geostrategic interests (Morgenthau, 1967; Waltz,
1979).3 From this point of view, we can expect that the
capable (hegemonic) power will behave as a rational
security-maximizing actor in its decision to intervene.
Important security relations refers to the strategic
importance of the transgressor to the capable power.
Some quantitative realist scholars, such as Altfeld &
Bueno de Mesquita (1979) and Kim (1991), argue that
states with similar alliance portfolios are less likely to go
to war, owing to similar strategic preferences, which
would also affect the willingness to intervene. Note that
it is not the existence of an alliance or security relationship
as such, but rather the strategic importance of this
relationship that determines whether the capable power
intervenes. Qualitative research allows an in-depth examination
of the actual strategic importance of security relations,
irrespective of the presence of a formal alliance.
The strategic importance of these security relations is
expected to influence the willingness of the capable
power to intervene.
Military vulnerability is determined by the relative
military strength of the transgressor with respect to the
capable power. Material capabilities are based on population
size, productivity measured in GDP, military
expenditure, army size, nuclear weaponry and economic
resources such as steel and coal production (Singer,
Bremer & Stuckey, 1972; Singer, 1987). In line with
realist theory, it is expected that the relative capabilities
of the transgressor state are decisive in determining
intervention; the higher the costs the transgressor state
could induce upon the intervening powers, the less likely
intervention would become (Regan, 1998; Bueno de
Mesquita, Morrow & Zorick, 1997).
Economic vulnerability refers to the vulnerability of the
transgressor to economic pressures and sanctions. It is a
qualitative measure based on a variety of characteristics
of the transgressor state (e.g. the nature of its economy,
its reliance on foreign trade with the capable power and
the presence of economic crisis) that is part of both the
realist and neoliberal institutionalist expected causal patterns.
Both from the realist assumption that economy is a
strategic asset and the neoliberal institutionalist assumption
that economy is a central drive for states, two expectations
follow that are relevant to our research questions.
First, it is expected that a vulnerable economy would
make the transgressor likely to yield to economic pressures,
and second, this would lower the costs of intervention,
making intervention more likely (Regan, 1998).
Variables based on neoliberal institutionalism
Where realism assumes that states are concerned with
relative and security gains, neoliberals argue that states are
more concerned with absolute and economic gains.
Another contrast is that neoliberal institutionalism is less
state-centred than realism and perceives a far greater role
for institutions, such as the United Nations (Keohane,
1982, 1989). The expected explanatory pattern of neoliberal
institutionalism is constructed from three potential
explanatory variables: namely, (a) the aforementioned economic
vulnerability of the transgressor; (b) the interdependence
between the transgressor and capable power; and
(c) the relative institutional capabilities of the transgressor.
Interdependence focuses on the capable power and
refers to the extent of trade relations between the transgressor
and capable power. Though criticism has been
expressed by realist scholars,liberal theory asserts that there exists a negative correlation between
interdependence and conflict.
Sleeping hegemons: Third-party
intervention following territorial
integrity transgressions
Eelco van der Maat
Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University
Abstract
It is not clear why some territorial transgressions lead to intervention by the international community and others do
not. As most territorial transgressions lead to a reaction from the international community but a few, however, do
not, this study examines the main determinants for non-intervention by capable members of the international community,
following violation of the territorial integrity norm by a deviant state. This article focuses on which characteristics
of the norm-transgressing state, the conflict, and the state capable of enforcing the norm affect the
occurrence of non-intervention. This comparative study examines six major alleged transgressions of the territorial
integrity norm the occupation of Tibet, the Suez crisis, the 1967 six-day war, the Indonesian occupation of East
Timor, the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara, and the 1989 Gulf crisis using a multi-methodological
approach based on qualitative methods, most notably fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Analysis reveals
that the absence of high security costs to the hegemon in combination with (a) strategically important security relations
between the transgressor and the hegemon or (b) absence of military and economic vulnerability are generally
necessary and sufficient for non-intervention.
Keywords
causal complexity, fsQCA, territorial conflict, third-party intervention
Introduction
It is a commonly heard complaint that the USA or the
broader international community has a dual standard
when it comes to upholding its norms.1 This dual standard
seems to apply even to norms as strong and firmly
institutionalized as the territorial integrity norm, which
Zacher (2001) shows to have become a central pillar of
the international order, especially following the Second
World War. It is striking, for example, that in some
instances of territorial aggrandizement, such as when
Iraq forcefully invaded and attempted to annex Kuwait,
the international community reacted with a swift military
intervention in order to restore the prewar territorial
boundaries. Yet in other cases, for example when
Indonesia invaded would-be-independent East Timor
or when Israel occupied the Sinai, West Bank and Gaza
Strip, the international community seemed unwilling to
intervene. Why do capable members of the international
community sometimes go to great lengths to uphold
norms and at other times seem unwilling? This article
aims to present us with empirical insights into this question
by focusing on the firmly established territorial
integrity norm.
Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following
research question, Why do capable states intervene in
some instances of transgression of the territorial integrity
norm and not in others? and the sub-question, Which
characteristics of the norm transgressing state, the conflict
and the capable power affect the occurrence of (non-) intervention?. In order to answer these questions,
this study applies the relatively new method of fuzzy-set
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) to six major
transgressions of the territorial integrity norm. Following
Zacher (2001), this study describes the territorial integrity
norm as the growing respect for the proscription that
force should not be used to alter interstate boundaries.
Furthermore, territorial transgression will be used to indicate
the forceful occupation and subsequent annexation
of the contested territory by the transgressor (i.e. act of
aggression), whereas (non-)intervention will be used to
denote the reaction of the international community.
Moreover, particularly in the case of major territorial
transgressions, capabilities matter and few states are therefore
able to intervene as capable powers. Though intergovernmental
and smaller regional powers do intervene in
conflicts, this particular study is less equipped to examine
the role of these actors because of the specific nature of our
case population. Therefore this study focuses mainly, but
not exclusively, on the hegemonic power of the USA, not
only because it is the most frequent intervener with military
and economic instruments (Regan, 2000), but also
because it was capable, though not always willing, to intervene
in all the examined conflicts.2
Though some case studies touch upon the process by
which states decide to intervene, these arguments generally
lack empirical testing (e.g. Brands, 1987; Western,
2002). Moreover, even less is known about which factors
determine the decision of capable states not to intervene.
In addition to a better understanding of the territorial
transgression norm, explicit awareness of its limitations
is important for two reasons: (a) it will provide us with
insight into when third-party conflict resolution is
unlikely to succeed; and more importantly, (b) it may
actually strengthen the norm in the long run. Knowing
when an unwillingness to intervene makes third-party
conflict resolution likely to fail is especially relevant in
light of the possibility that poorly timed and failed mediation
attempts may actually hamper future resolution
attempts (see Regan & Stam, 2000).
Zacher (2001) shows that in cases of territorial transgression
the international community generally attempts
to intervene to restore the prewar borders. However, to
better understand in which cases the international community
will intervene and in which cases it will not, we
should turn to the broader intervention literature. Most
of the empirical studies of intervention focus on the determinants
for success, which lie outside the scope of the current
study (e.g. Regan, 1996; Fisher, 2007; Ang&Peksen,
2007). Fewer studies, however, are directed at the conditions
under which intervention is (un)likely to take place.
Moreover, the few studies that do address the conditions
under which a party intervenes commonly suffer from
selection bias, due to a selection on the instances of intervention
(e.g. Brands, 1987; Western, 2002; Regan,
1996). Two studies deal specifically with intervention in
civil strife, in which intervention is assumed to end ongoing
hostilities between the parties. With respect to intrastate
conflict, Regan (1998) finds that conflict intensity, humanitarian
crisis, and the Cold War make intervention more
likely, whereas a greater number of bordering countries
makes intervention less likely.However, these findings are
less relevant to the current study, seeing that in the case of
major territorial transgressions the transgressor has already
defeated the weaker party; conflict intensity and refugees
are therefore less of an issue.
In a large-N study of US interventions in internal
wars during the Cold War period, Yoon (1997) examines
the effects of strategic, economic and domestic factors on
the probability of US intervention in internal conflicts
during the Cold War and finds that domestic factors and
Cold-War-specific factors are especially relevant for
explaining intervention. Following Yoon (1997), possible
explanations for non-intervention seem to fall into
three general categories: (a) strategic costs and benefits,
(b) economic relations, and (c) domestic factors. More
specifically, we can embed these explanations in the
broader theoretical debates of the International Relations
(IR) field; from the theoretical approaches of realism,
neoliberal institutionalism and domestic level theories,
several relevant explanatory variables can be distilled to
be tested. Broadly speaking, all three approaches aim
to explain how states act and offer perspectives that provide
insight into the determinants of non-intervention.
When taken together, their variables form expected causal
patterns that can be matched to causal patterns in the
data in order to allow the testing of the explanatory
power of these approaches. Before turning to the operationalization
of the distilled variables and the expected
causal patterns, it seems to be in order to discuss the
most relevant characteristics of each approach.
Variables based on realism
According to realism, states may pay lip service to norms
like the territorial integrity norm, but norms do not influence state behaviour, since states are primarily
interested in power and relative security gains (Grieco,
1988, 1990; Morgenthau, 1973; Waltz, 1979). Relative
security gains refer to the central concern of the state to
increase and maintain its security above those of other
states. Therefore, from a realist perspective, we would
expect that states are not willing to intervene following
a transgression of the territorial integrity norm, unless
intervention is expected to generate relative security
gains (Morgenthau, 1967; Bueno de Mesquita, 1981).
From this assumption we can derive an expected causal
pattern based on four explanatory variables, which are
expected to make the capable power more or less likely
to intervene, namely, (a) high security costs of the transgression
or gains of intervention to the capable power;
(b) the presence of important security relations or alliances
between the transgressor and the capable power; (c) the
military vulnerability of the transgressor; and (d) the economic
vulnerability of the transgressor.
Two of these factors relate to the willingness of capable
powers to intervene. High security costs refers to the relative
security costs and/or benefits that the power can expect if
it intervenes in the conflict. These may be determined by
the relative costs and benefits of the transgression on the
one hand and by the relative costs and benefits of the
intervention on the other hand. Possible costs of the
transgression include regional instability and threats to
the geostrategic interests (Morgenthau, 1967; Waltz,
1979).3 From this point of view, we can expect that the
capable (hegemonic) power will behave as a rational
security-maximizing actor in its decision to intervene.
Important security relations refers to the strategic
importance of the transgressor to the capable power.
Some quantitative realist scholars, such as Altfeld &
Bueno de Mesquita (1979) and Kim (1991), argue that
states with similar alliance portfolios are less likely to go
to war, owing to similar strategic preferences, which
would also affect the willingness to intervene. Note that
it is not the existence of an alliance or security relationship
as such, but rather the strategic importance of this
relationship that determines whether the capable power
intervenes. Qualitative research allows an in-depth examination
of the actual strategic importance of security relations,
irrespective of the presence of a formal alliance.
The strategic importance of these security relations is
expected to influence the willingness of the capable
power to intervene.
Military vulnerability is determined by the relative
military strength of the transgressor with respect to the
capable power. Material capabilities are based on population
size, productivity measured in GDP, military
expenditure, army size, nuclear weaponry and economic
resources such as steel and coal production (Singer,
Bremer & Stuckey, 1972; Singer, 1987). In line with
realist theory, it is expected that the relative capabilities
of the transgressor state are decisive in determining
intervention; the higher the costs the transgressor state
could induce upon the intervening powers, the less likely
intervention would become (Regan, 1998; Bueno de
Mesquita, Morrow & Zorick, 1997).
Economic vulnerability refers to the vulnerability of the
transgressor to economic pressures and sanctions. It is a
qualitative measure based on a variety of characteristics
of the transgressor state (e.g. the nature of its economy,
its reliance on foreign trade with the capable power and
the presence of economic crisis) that is part of both the
realist and neoliberal institutionalist expected causal patterns.
Both from the realist assumption that economy is a
strategic asset and the neoliberal institutionalist assumption
that economy is a central drive for states, two expectations
follow that are relevant to our research questions.
First, it is expected that a vulnerable economy would
make the transgressor likely to yield to economic pressures,
and second, this would lower the costs of intervention,
making intervention more likely (Regan, 1998).
Variables based on neoliberal institutionalism
Where realism assumes that states are concerned with
relative and security gains, neoliberals argue that states are
more concerned with absolute and economic gains.
Another contrast is that neoliberal institutionalism is less
state-centred than realism and perceives a far greater role
for institutions, such as the United Nations (Keohane,
1982, 1989). The expected explanatory pattern of neoliberal
institutionalism is constructed from three potential
explanatory variables: namely, (a) the aforementioned economic
vulnerability of the transgressor; (b) the interdependence
between the transgressor and capable power; and
(c) the relative institutional capabilities of the transgressor.
Interdependence focuses on the capable power and
refers to the extent of trade relations between the transgressor
and capable power. Though criticism has been
expressed by realist scholars,liberal theory asserts that there exists a negative correlation between
interdependence and conflict.