Persistence and Change in Regional Security Institutions: Does the OAS Still Have a Project?

Abstract

This article follows the recent trend of bringing the Organization of American States (OAS) back into the debate on regional security, previously dominated by the accomplishments of European institutions and the shortcomings of their Asian and African counterparts. The study of the OAS is advanced here through application of an analytical framework derived from institutionalist theory. A security organization may change its form during its lifetime and pursue different kinds of tasks. The oldest regional security institution, the OAS was designed for collective security. This yielded to collective defence during the Cold War, and to cooperative security in the 1990s. After 11 September it returned to collective defence, but the contradictory reassertion of United States leadership and the emergence of South American regional power made hemispheric cooperation more difficult again. The OAS's main achievement is the extension of essential principles – democracy, human rights, and peaceful conflict resolution – to the entire hemisphere. As a diversified institution addressing a wide variety of security challenges, however, the OAS must find a coherent project alongside more focused sub-regional organizations such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article is the by-product of a research project entitled ‘The International Organization of the Democratic Peace’, which explored the role of regional security institutions in rivalry mitigation. The author thanks Lilli Banholzer, Jorge Heine, Detlef Nolte, Rafael A.D. Villa, participants in lectures at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies Hamburg and the Institute of International Relations, University of São Paulo, as well as four anonymous reviewers and the editors from Contemporary Security Policy for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. She gratefully acknowledges financial support from the German Foundation for Peace Research, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study Konstanz.

Notes

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Ibid.

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These periods have been discerned before for the evolution of the OAS and inter-American relations. See Carolyn M. Shaw, Cooperation, Conflict, and Consensus in the Organization of American States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle. Latin America, the United States, and the World, 3rd edition (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Herz, The Organization of American States (note 1); Oelsner, ‘Consensus and Governance in Mercosur’ (note 8).

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The underlying assumption is that the acceptance of externally induced norms may enhance the credibility of leaders' commitment to democratic reforms and protects them against actors who would benefit from rolling back liberalization. See Edward D. Mansfield and Jon C. Pevehouse, ‘Democratization and International Organizations’, International Organization, Vol. 60, No. 1 (2006), pp. 137–67.

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The work plans and calendars are available on the website of the Committee of Hemispheric Security: http://www.oas.org/csh/english/workplan.asp.

Several earlier missions in support of peace processes in the region are described in Chanona, ‘Regional Security Governance in the Americas’ (note 2), pp. 120–22.

For a compilation of information on CSBM reporting to the CHS and the IADB, see Chanona, ‘Regional Security Governance in the Americas’ (note 2), p. 119.

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