Studying small states in international security affairs: a quantitative analysis

Abstract

Todays’ international security architecture composed of international security treaties and international security norms has been established and formalized by negotiations. Owing to the great importance of international security negotiations for international security practices, this paper sheds light on negotiation activities. A study of 100 different international security negotiations shows that states vary considerably with respect to their negotiation activity. Some countries voice positions very often, while others remain completely silent. This is puzzling, as active negotiation participation is an expression of state sovereignty and a means to influence the shape of the international security architecture. The article distinguishes between capacity and incentives as driving forces of state activity in international security negotiations. The analysis reveals that, next to political and financial capacities, states that place high priority on military matters are more active, while smaller and poorer states are more likely to shelter under the security umbrella of larger counterparts.

Notes

¹ The other principle organs are the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, the Trusteeship Council and the International Court of Justice.

² Or up to four per year for those IOs and regimes in which meetings did not take place as frequently.

³ For example: Katzenstein 1985; 2003; Hey 2003; Maes and Verdun 2005; Ingebritsen et al 2006; Lee and Smith 2008; Steinmetz and Wivel 2010.

⁴ For example: Baillie 1998; Goetschel 1998; Hanf and Soetendorp 1998; Arter 2000; Bunse et al 2005; Maes and Verdun 2005; Sepos 2005; Thorhallsson and Wivel 2006; Tiilikainen 2006; Bjoerkdahl 2008; Panke 2008; 2010a; 2010b; 2011b, 2013c; Schure and Verdun 2008; Steinmetz and Wivel 2010.

⁵ For example: Rothstein 1963; Vital 1971; Sutton and Payne 1993; Goetschel 1998; Hey 2003; Srebrnika 2003; Ingebritsen et al 2006; Rickli 2008.

⁶ The findings remain robust if the models are run with Poisson instead of nbreg regressions (see Appendix).

⁷ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook

⁸ http://www.un.org/

⁹ International negotiation processes are capacity intensive and require experts and administrators. For example, a diplomat explained. ‘So you get a general instruction in the beginning but you get a final instruction for the vote. So you cannot get a very firm instruction at the beginning of negotiations because the nature of negotiations is to negotiate, to change the positions, to try to trade. This is important, we are not going to give up but if this is important for you and not for me then ok we can try to empathize but nobody at home can foresee, so we have our instructions on time, we’re proud of that but you cannot have very firm instructions before you see the final text and that’s our responsibility here, to be during the meeting, during the informals, during bilateral negotiations or to have personal context and to come up and say, listen tomorrow we’ll be facing a new proposal, completely new draft, so let’s abandon this one, you’ll see in the morning they’ll have new text. That’s why you must have experts who have colleagues who they can call or they call them and that’s how it works. Otherwise you’re an outsider, you just come and vote; that’s not diplomacy.’ (interview#134, 30–11-11).

¹⁰ Another interviewee reported, ‘I think the bigger countries will always have an advantage in a better overview of what is going on in a very complex negotiation setting at the UN. They will have the advantage of presence in all the different meetings that take place, whereas a small country will have to prioritize where to send their diplomats because they cannot be in all of the rooms at the same time’ (interview#103, 14–07-11). Similarly: ‘manpower is also very important because bigger states who are rich, they have large embassies, they have large representations in New York, and therefore they're able to cover more ground’ (interview#154, 26–01-12). The same interviewee also reported. ‘if you're on the Security Council you can't afford to miss one committee meeting, you have to know what's going on because people are demanding your influence and your lobbying and support for certain issues. So you have to be, you have to be there. That’s why certain countries were turned down to be on the Security Council. They just don't have the manpower’ (interview#154, 26–01-12).

¹¹ For example, diplomats made statements such as ‘the first priority is prioritization’ (interview#10, 15–11-10) or ‘small states can’t be everywhere, it is impossible … one has to … try to get priorities in line’ (interview#24, 02–12-10) or ‘Even for United States everything is not of interest, particularly for small countries and for very small countries no way. You must prioritize what really is your interest’ (interview#134, 30–11-11) or ‘We are a peacekeeper country, so we will be following peacekeeping-related meetings but then there will be a whole other range of things, that are priorities of other countries so we let those countries shepherd the processes or be active in those processes’ (interview#160, 15–03-12).

¹² Diplomats indicate that preference-setting matters especially when states encounter resource-related bottlenecks: ‘there are so many meetings going on, that most delegations have to triage to a certain extent and say ok, I am going to be able to make it to this meeting, but I will not be able to make it to this one and I have to decide which one is more important’ (interview#3, 08–09-10). Moreover, a diplomat from a country with very limited military spending stated, ‘Prioritization helps as well. If you are a small country, we have seven diplomats here, we can’t cover everything but we have neighbours here who have only one member. Marshall Islands for example, they have one person. He can’t cover everything so he must set priority. For my country it’s climate change … I don’t care about Sudan or responsibility to protect, I don’t care about anything else’ (interview#134, 30–11-11).

¹³ In line with this a diplomat from a smaller country emphasized that groups such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are important in international negotiations under the UN umbrella: ‘in this world in the twenty-first century still there's no way of dealing with foreign policies without working as closely as you can with all of your allies and partners’ (interview#12, 23–11-10).

¹⁴ For example, a diplomat from a smaller, very vocal state explained, ‘security is the number one, human rights, millennium goals, climate change, these are some of the priorities that guides the [country name omitted by the author] policies towards the UN’ (interview#12, 23–11-10).

¹⁵ For example, Uruguay was more active than its population or economic size would have led one to expect, not least because the positions voiced by Uruguay included speaking on behalf of Mercosur (Southern Common Market) in the UNGA in 2009.

¹⁶ For example, Singapore and Luxembourg both have effective governments and the national diplomats therefore obtain instructions in time for the start of international security negotiations, which contributes to the relatively high negotiation activity of both these population-wise rather small states.