Stumbling from incident to incident: the systemic crisis of the post-Cold War order

Abstract

The conflict between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic Community has taken the form of a systemic crisis, in which we face the risk of running from incident to incident. It is argued that the European post-Cold War order has undergone a norm-transforming, rather than norm-governed change. The normative framework and shared purpose on which it rests and which are essential to stabilise and perpetuate an international order have been eroded. The crisis is assessed on the basis of both the acts of violation and retreat by key ordering agents and their intersubjective assessment of the order. It is argued that normative pillars have gradually dissolved in four key areas: the principles of the Paris Charter on the indivisibility of security, the arms control regime, collective security and the European border regime. Tackling these issues is particularly complicated, because some, such as arms control, require today a global approach, involving China.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 A variation of Katzenstein’s definition can be found in Finnemore and Sikkink, who define a norm as ‘a standard of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891).

2 Ruggie, in the context of the debates he was involved in, speaks mainly of ‘regimes’, but also refers to multilateralism as an ‘institution’.

3 Ruggie has applied this in the first place to the international economic order.

4 According to Robert Cox, institutions play a key role in ‘stabilising and perpetuating a particular order’ (Cox 1981, 136), by giving it ‘a semblance of universality’ (Cox 1981, 139).

5 Though it is not the purpose of our analysis, it goes without saying that this evolution is also linked to domestic developments. Ruggie mentions a ‘permissive domestic political environment’ as a critical factor for allowing multilateral regimes (Ruggie 1992, 582).

6 The Open Skies Treaty entered into force in 2002 only.

7 Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute, quoted in The Guardian 2018.

8 Over time Moscow’s relations with the OSCE have followed a zigzag pattern (Kropatcheva 2012), proposing the organisation as the basis for a pan-European collective security system at one point, and rejecting it as an organisation of double standards at other times.

9 The non-binding resolution was approved following Russia’s veto in the UNSC to a similar resolution.

10 It should also be noted that no referendum was held in the case of Kosovo’s independence.

11 It goes without saying that the rhetorical defence of norms does not equal respecting them de facto.

12 See the statement of June 9th 2020 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2020).

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Notes on contributors

Tom Casier

Tom Casier University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies, Boulevard Louis Schmidt 2a, 1040 Brussels, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]