Collective Action or Collective Inaction: The Use of Military Force in Transatlantic Security

This dissertation examines influence and decision-making within the transatlantic security regime, focusing on the four major member states of NATO. Two cases of post-Cold War transatlantic military intervention are examined in which regime member states sought to develop and adopt a single, collective policy on the use of military force outside of NATO's traditional (i.e. collective defense) area of operations: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. These cases illustrate the "puzzle" that the dissertation attempts to solve: why did the transatlantic security regime adopt a common military intervention policy relatively quickly in one case (Kosovo) but much more slowly in other the other case (Bosnia) despite the fact that deep policy differences were initially present in both cases? The dependent variable in the dissertation is thus the likelihood of the transatlantic security regime adopting and successfully implementing a common policy regarding the use of military force in a given case. Relative distribution of power among regime members has no effect on collective policy congruence whatsoever. Collective risk analysis and ideological compatibility, however, strongly influenced regime policy cohesion (or lack thereof) in both case studies. This seems to indicate that regime policy cohesion is a function of actor rationality and yet also through rather socially constructed ideological compatibility. These variables are mutually supportive. That is, strong correlation in each is necessary to precipitate collective regime policy cohesion. Thus, both a similar view among the major regime states of the costs and benefits of military intervention and a significant level of ideological compatibility among their national leaders is necessary to create and maintain regime policy cohesion. The active presence and involvement of an international institution had moderate effect in both cases. However, while the active engagement of NATO may not, in itself, be a causal factor in regime policy cohesion, the institution may help to more rapidly facilitate policy cohesion as long as the influence of variables four and five is present. This variable is thus rather interesting; however, additional case studies are necessary to explore its role and function in this issue-area. Finally, collective threat perception and collective domestic pressures have mixed results, with domestic pressures being the stronger of the two. Again, this seems to indicate that notions of collective state cooperative behavior based primarily (or even solely) upon perceived external threat is not accurate. Like the institutional variable, collective domestic pressures plays an uncertain and yet interesting role. It is also certainly not a causal factor in itself but may play a much stronger role dependent upon the strength of the other variables