Why do powerful states often channel coercive policies through inter- national organizations ~IOs!? The article explains this phenomenon by theorizing the political advantages of working through a neutral institution, defined as one with heterogeneous and representative member preferences+ The argument centers on the notion of strategic information transmission+ IO involvement sends information about the coercer's intentions and the consequences of the coercive policy to foreign lead- ers and their publics, information that determines the level of international support offered to the coercing state+ The logic helps explain why the United Nations Secu- rity Council plays a unique role in approving and disapproving the use of force+ A case study of the 1990-91 Gulf War shows how these information transmission mech- anisms work in practice and that the rationalist information argument provides more traction than a legitimacy-based alternative explanation+

/pdf/coercion-through-ios-the-security-council-and-the-logic-of-4bau7odf1k.pdf

Coercion Through IOs: The Security Council and the Logic of Information Transmission

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/doc_library/linguistics/wodakr/JPGQ1194.pdf

Interventions in the new political geographies of the European 'neighborhood'

Many commentators explain recent transatlantic rifts by pointing to diverging norms, interests and geopolitical preferences. This paper proceeds from the premise that not all situations of conflict are necessarily due to underlying deadlocked preferences. Rather, non-cooperation may be a strategic form of soft balancing. That is, more generally, if they believe that they are being shortchanged in terms of influence and payoffs, weaker states may deliberately reject possible cooperation in the short run to improve their influence vis-a-vis stronger states in the long run. This need not be due to traditional relative gains concern. States merely calculate that their reputation as a weak negotiator will erode future bargaining power and subsequently their future share of absolute gains. Strategic non-cooperation is therefore a rational signal of resolve. This paper develops the concept of strategic non-cooperation as a soft balancing tool and applies it to the Iraq case in 2002–2003.

/pdf/strategic-non-cooperation-as-soft-balancing-why-iraq-was-not-7i5obag7d8.pdf

Strategic Non-cooperation as Soft Balancing: Why Iraq was not Just about Iraq

Many studies use the same factors to explain attitudes toward specific trade agreements and attitudes toward the principle of free trade and thus treat both objects as interchangeable. Contemporary trade agreements, however, often reach beyond trade in the narrow sense. Consequently, factors unrelated to free trade may affect citizens’ evaluations of these agreements. We propose a model of attitude formation toward specific trade agreements that includes the societal context as a constitutive feature. We expect salient aspects of an agreement to activate corresponding predispositions. Empirically, we compare how this contextual model and a standard model perform in explaining German citizens’ attitudes toward free trade and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The results show that the standard model performs well in explaining public opinion on the principle of free trade but is less useful in explaining attitudes toward TTIP. The latter were driven by postures toward transatlantic cooperation, predispositions toward the role of interest groups in politics, and market regulation – aspects salient in German public discourse about TTIP. In sum, we find ample evidence for the need to differentiate between the two attitude objects and for our contextual model of attitude formation.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09692290.2018.1431956

Context-driven attitude formation: the difference between supporting free trade in the abstract and supporting specific trade agreements

Many of today’s researchers of the Caucasus focus in particular on analyzing ways to achieve peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the Caucasus, while only a few publications are devoted to the state of economic interrelations in the region and their development prospects. The goal of the book is to reconsider the views that have formed about the Caucasus and analyze the main geopolitical and geo-economic problems of the integration prospects of the region. Research of the Caucasus within the framework of geopolitical economy is also acquiring special significance due to the energy resources of the Caspian Sea Basin.

The Central Caucasus : Essays on geopolitical economy

A SERIES OF HISTORICALLY unprecedented events have brought the attention of the West to the wider Black Sea region--that region including the littoral states of the Black Sea, Moldova, and the Southern Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The successful completion of the anchoring and integration of Central and Eastern European countries stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea in the Euro-Atlantic community marks the end of the grand historical project of the 1990s initiated in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Moreover, the terrorist attacks of 9-11 and 3-11 have underscored the dangers of a new century and the fact that the greatest threats to both North America and Europe are now likely to emanate from further afield and beyond the continent, in particular from the Greater Middle East. These events have begun to push the Black Sea from the periphery to the center of Western attention. At the same time, they have underscored the fact that the West today lacks a coherent and meaningful strategy vis-a-vis this region. Neither the United States nor the major European powers have made this region a priority nor have they identified strategic objectives in the region. Absent a compelling rationale attractive and comprehensible to elites and publics on both sides of the Atlantic, this is unlikely to change. Absent such a rationale, Europe and the United States are not going to be willing or able to generate the attention and resources necessary to engage and anchor the countries of the wider Black Sea region to the West--let alone to help them transform themselves into full partners and perhaps, over time, full members of the major Euro-Atlantic institutions. We mean to explain in this essay why the Black Sea region needs to be at the forefront of the Euro-Atlantic agenda. Years of neglect WHY HAS THE West lacked such a strategy in the past and what has changed to make one so critical now? Four main factors explain the past lack of interest. First, in many ways the wider Black Sea region has been the Bermuda Triangle of Western strategic studies. Lying at the crossroads of European, Eurasian, and Middle Eastern security spaces, it has been largely ignored by mainstream experts on all three regions. Geographically located at the edge of each, the region has not been at the center of any. When it came to Europe, our priority was with the arc of countries extending from the Baltic states to the Eastern Balkan states. When it came to the former Soviet Union, we were focused on building a new cooperative relationship with Moscow. And apart from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the interests and attention of our Middle Eastern policy usually ceased at Turkey's southern border. Second, given the crowded agenda of the Euro-Atlantic community since the collapse of communism 15 years ago, there was little time or political energy left to address the wider Black Sea region. The task of anchoring and integrating Central and Eastern Europe, stopping the Balkan wars, and putting those countries back on a path towards European integration--and, finally, trying to establish a new and cooperative post-Cold War relationship with Moscow--became full-time preoccupations. If one looked at the list of priorities of an American secretary of state or European foreign minister in the 1990s, rightly or wrongly, the Black Sea rarely broke through into the top tier of concerns. The exception was, of course, Turkey, which fought a lonely political battle to get the West to pay more attention to the region. Almost by default, our considerable interest in the safe and stable flow of energy through the region ended up driving our policy--as opposed to some overarching vision of how we saw the place of these countries in the Euro-Atlantic community. Third, there was also little push from the region for a closer relationship with the West. No Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel emerged to capture our attention or pound at our door. …

The Black Sea and the Frontiers of Freedom

FOR 50 YEARS and more, the United States and our European allies cooperated in a grand strategic venture to create a democratic, peaceful, prosperous continent free of threats from within and without. At the dawn of a new century, that task is approaching completion. This autumn both NATO and the EU are likely to launch so-called "Big Bang" rounds of enlargement, encompassing up to seven and 10 countries, respectively. If successful, these moves will help lock in democracy and security from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Relations between Russia and the West are also back on track. Russian President Vladimir Putin has opted to protect Moscow's interests by cooperating with the U.S. and Europe rather than by trying to play a spoiler role. The certitude of that decision and, above all, the depth of Moscow's commitment to democracy at home remain open questions. But Putin's turn to the West has further reduced the risk that Russia might again become a strategic adversary and has instead opened a window to put the West's relations with Russia on a more stable and cooperative footing. There is still work to be done. Not all of the European democracies are ful1y functional and not all of the European economies are prosperous. Completing Central and Eastern Europe's integration will take time even after they join NATO and the EU. Balkan instability has been stemmed but the underlying tensions are not yet resolved. Ukraine's westward integration and that of Russia will remain works in progress for years to come. And the West is only waking up to the challenge of the Caucasus and Central Asia. But the key cornerstones of a new, peaceful European order are in place. The grand strategic issues that preoccupied statesmen and strategists for the second half of the twentieth century -- Germany's internal order and place in Europe, the anchoring of Central and Eastern Europe to the West, and the establishment of the foundation for a democratic Russia to integrate itself with Europe -- have been or are in the process of being largely resolved. Europe today is at peace with itself and more democratic and secure than at any time in history. If Harry Truman and his European counterparts could look down upon us today, they would no doubt be proud of what has been accomplished in their names. Unfortunately, there is bad news too. The extraordinary accomplishment of the Atlantic alliance does not mean that America and Europe are now safe and secure. Success on the continent has been matched by the emergence of new threats from beyond. September 11 has brought home what a number of strategists have been predicting for years -- that the new century would usher in new, different, and potentially very dangerous threats to our societies. On the verge of eradicating the danger to our societies from intra-European war and thermonuclear exchanges, we are faced with new scourges -- terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, mass migrations, rogue and failed states, and the threat of disruptions to the economic lifelines of the world. September 11 has become a symbol and metaphor for the new perils looming on the horizon. No one can doubt that Osama bin Laden would have used weapons of mass destruction on September I I if he had had them. We know that al Qaeda and similar groups are trying to obtain such weapons and will, in all probability, use them if they succeed. The odds of their success are too good for comfort. Indeed, the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction being used against our citizens and societies is probably greater today than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. While America is the target of choice for these terrorists, Europe may not be far behind. It was certainly no accident that the United States was struck September 11, but it is not much of a stretch to imagine a similar attack on Europe in the future. There is already ample evidence of past terrorist plots by these groups on the continent. …

The New Transatlantic Project: A Response to Robert Kagan

The American Presidential election in November 2004 has heightened interest in the impact of public opinion on foreign policy. One of the more specific questions is what the consequences of the re-election of President Bush will or could be in this connection. Nowhere is this truer than on both sides of the Atlantic given the differences that have roiled the US-European relationship in recent years.

The Transatlantic Gap in Public Opinion

IN RECENT YEARS, the transatlantic relationship has witnessed some of the greatest debates and differences recorded in U.S.-European relations, most recently concerning the war in Iraq. Not surprisingly, this turbulence has also generated a growing debate over the nature and causes of such differences. A number of different views have been advanced. One explanation suggests that such differences are largely attributable to the policies of the Bush administration. Another argues that the advent of the Bush administration is not a major factor and that the two sides have grown increasingly incompatible as a result of the growing asymmetry in power across the Atlantic. Yet another argues that current differences are essentially rooted in widely differing threat perceptions in the United States and Europe after 9-11. It is perhaps inevitable that proponents of each of these views will look for--and sometimes find--public opinion research results that tend to confirm their own differing hypotheses. At the same time, the core issue of where and why American and European publics differ on questions of war and peace has not yet been adequately addressed. Here, drawing on the 2002 and 2003 Transatlantic Trends survey conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, we attempt to dig a bit deeper into the nature and structure of the transatlantic divide. SEVERAL CONCLUSIONS CAN be drawn from what we have learned from the Transatlantic Trends results. For one, fears about American or European isolationism are misplaced. The American public is more willing to play an active role in world affairs than at any time in recent memory. Similarly, there is clear support in principle across Europe for the European Union to take on global responsibility, though that support is tempered by a limited willingness to spend resources. Americans and Europeans basically still like each other, although such warmth has recently waned in the wake of the Iraq war. This drop in fellow-feeling, however, begins from an historically very high level. While the Iraq war has led to a backlash, it is noteworthy that the backlash has remained modest. To some degree it appears focused mainly on the Bush administration as opposed to the United States more generally. (1) Anti-American and anti-European sentiments may exist, but they are not dominant views. Americans and Europeans continue to have clear, shared views of their friends and enemies, and each side still clearly sees the other as a friend. All of this testifies to the continued durability of traditional transatlantic ties. Americans and Europeans continue to regard each other as potential partners. While European support for America's global role under President Bush has fallen, such slippage also takes place at a high level. Americans are strongly supportive of the European Union becoming a more equal partner, and both sides of the Atlantic continue to see their relations as cooperative and not competitive. Nor do the problems across the Atlantic appear rooted in radically different threat perceptions following September 11, 2001. On the contrary, Transatlantic Trends suggests that when Americans and Europeans look out at the world, they by and large assess the threats they face in similar terms. Americans and Europeans do not live on different planets when it comes to viewing the threats around them. Both sides of the Atlantic clearly do have different impulses when it comes to how to respond to such threats, however, concerning the efficacy and legitimacy of military versus economic power and the role of the United Nations. Yet even here it is not entirely clear to what degree transatlantic differences on the use of force reflect fundamental moral principles, more transient attitudes contingent on specific events, or an overall European skepticism about policies publicly associated with the Bush administration. So what is going on? If Americans and Europeans both want to be engaged in the world, still basically like one another, would like to work together as partners, and also see the threats facing both sides of the Atlantic in similar ways, how and why did we end up with such a dramatic divergence in public opinion over the war in Iraq? …

Ronald D. Asmus

Papers

The Black Sea and the Frontiers of Freedom

The New Transatlantic Project: A Response to Robert Kagan

The Transatlantic Gap in Public Opinion

Power, War, and Public Opinion: Looking Behind the Transatlantic Divide