John P. Willerton

Treaty networks, nesting, and interstate cooperation: Russia, the FSU, and the CIS

Networks of treaties with treaty nesting, wherein treaties build upon, expand upon, or are grounded in preexisting treaties, are an increasingly important dimension of interstate cooperation. Focusing on relations within the area of the former Soviet Union (FSU), with special attention to both multilateral and bilateral arrangements between Russia and other FSU states, we illuminate treaty activism and regional cooperation among Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members in the security domain. Beyond an analysis of multilateral and bilateral CIS alliance agreements, we evaluate the more focused security arrangements of two FSU–CIS bilateral relationships: Russia–Turkmenistan and Russia–Georgia. We intentionally analyze these two complex and problematic bilateral relationships, where treaty activism and networks permitted the signatory states to address common security issues. The breakdown of the Russian–Georgian relationship with the August 2008 war should not obscure the significant conflict management efforts of the preceding decade and a half; efforts that were grounded in intensive treaty activity. Joined together, these CIS multilateral and focused bilateral relationships point to a treaty complex and architecture that partially manage the contrasting security interests of FSU states.

Mistrust and hegemony: Regional institutional design, the FSU-CIS, and Russia

Power inequalities and mistrust have characterized many relationships between states over the centuries. One approach that states can take to deal with these two, often interrelated, problems is to create intergovernmental institutions and arrangements designed to accommodate the interests of states with varied power capabilities. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) embodies an interesting institutional design in an effort by former Soviet Union (FSU) countries to address these dilemmas. The CIS was not only the first multilateral FSU organization created following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it also provided a necessary and important framework for the further construction of bilateral and multilateral relations among the former Soviet republics as they reengaged one another. CIS arrangements have been augmented by extensive bilateral negotiations and treaties and, brought together, these interconnected multilateral and bilateral instruments yield a system of cautious regional security governance and framework for international relations within the FSU. This paper analyzes three key features of this foundational CIS institutional design: (1) legalism, (2) an à la carte choice of treaty instruments, and (3) nested bilateralism, wherein many details of the regional, multilateral agreements are implemented via bilateral treaties (hence constituting a combination design feature). Empirically, the paper illuminates this institutional design using a unique dataset of all multilateral security treaties of the CIS (approximately 185) and all bilateral security treaties (more than 500) between the regional hegemon, Russia, and the smaller CIS members. We further investigate the causal mechanisms of the CIS institutional design as it copes with the conditions of hegemony and mistrust in two bilateral case studies, Russia–Armenia, and Russia–Ukraine (Black Sea Fleet status). We find the CIS institutional design, built upon by subsequent FSU regional organizations (including the Eurasian Economic Union and Shanghai Cooperation Organization), has permitted both more and less powerful states to advance their interrelated security interests in the face of considerable power asymmetry and mistrust. More than twenty years after the CIS’s formation, a patchwork of Eurasian regional organizations and numerous related bilateral treaties widen regional security and other arrangements. Meanwhile, the dramatic events surrounding the February 2014 Ukrainian coup and the joining of Crimea to the Russian Federation only reinforce the importance of understanding state treaty activity in channeling state action. Questions surround Russia respecting the 1992 treaty and protocol with Ukraine and the US on the removal of nuclear weapons from the territory of Ukraine and the joint recognition of Ukraine’s sovereign borders. But Russia’s spring 2014 actions involving Crimea and its Crimean bases accorded with the various treaties concluded with Ukraine in 1997; treaties addressing the Black Sea Fleet and the Crimean Peninsula that are a subject of our analysis.

Russia’s Pursuit of its Eurasian Security Interests: Weighing the CIS and Alternative Bilateral—Multilateral Arrangements

During a joint press conference with the Armenian President in Yerevan, March 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly acknowledged what had long been assumed about the original logic and role of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the transformation of the post-Soviet states, commenting: The stated aims were one thing, but in reality the CIS was formed in order to make the Soviet Union’s collapse as civilized and smooth as possible and to minimize the economic and humanitarian losses it entailed, above all for people.

The Quest for the Liberal Peace: Toward a Measure of Interstate Cooperation

Building on the Kantian tripod of peace in liberal peace theory, we test theories of state intergovernmental organization (IGO) membership and levels of state cooperation. We examine the measurement for IGO joint membership and find that it is inadequate to measure the level of cooperation among states. Using network analysis, we propose a new dyadic measure for the level of bilateral cooperation. We argue that states craft intergovernmental agreements, purposely nested within bilateral treaty networks, to further consolidate and bolster such agreements’ efficacy. States both express and safeguard their power interests via negotiated treaties, and while costs of violating individual treaties are small, violating treaties nested within broader treaty networks are more costly as this significantly inhibits future cooperation with all states in a region. By creating networks of treaties, states bolster compliance, enhance the prospects for cooperative foreign policy behavior, and strengthen the conditions for peace. We argue that the strength of a bilateral treaty network is a better measure than joint IGO membership for liberal peace theory. We test this measure in the post-Soviet space, where many scholars expect dyadic conflict due to Russia’s regional economic and military dominance. Using militarized interstate disputes (MID’s) as the dependent variable in our model, we find that dyads that have stronger treaty networks are significantly less likely to experience a MID than dyads without a strong treaty network. We propose that the strength of treaty networks is a better measure for tapping cooperation among states, yielding analytical results more compatible with liberal peace theory.

American Democratic Practice, France, and Russia: Institutions, Values, and Alternative Democratic Experience

The US emphasis on democratic procedures and property rights profoundly distinguishes the American polity from nearly all consolidated and newly emergent democracies; democracies that place stress on more egalitarian notions of social justice. Interrelating institutional arrangements and democratic values through an application of George Tsebeliss veto players theory and Isaiah Berlins notions of positive and negative liberty, we juxtapose the American and French democracies as we assess Russias post-Soviet democratic consolidation. We focus on the policy-making proclivities of these three states, and a combined application of the veto players framework and positive-negative liberty dichotomy reveals a US policy bias toward the status quo as contrasted with a French and Russian system bias facilitating more substantial policy change. The 1993–1995 Clinton health-care initiative, the 1997–2002 Jospin-Left program, with attention to the 35-hour workweek and associated policies, and the 2000–2006 Putin policy agenda, with attention to health care and housing measures, serve as national case studies to illuminate our arguments.

Solzhenitsyn's Challenge to Russia and the West

Operating out of a Slavophile tradition, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn offers a critique of both Soviet and Western societies that is comprehensive and damning. A review of his writings reveals a profound rejection of many core values and practices of Western civilization. What is viewed as an aberrant Soviet experience is understood as but a logical extension of developments in the West. Solzhenitsyn′s prescription for an identified Soviet and Western moral bankruptcy draws on past Russian Orthodox thinking and practices. Playing to Russian collectivist and conservative instincts, he venerates an idyllic Russian rural setting; but that setting has little relevance to contemporary Soviet reality. Ironically, Solzhenitsyn′s strong reformist inclinations are not unlike those of many reformers now championing change in a post‐Soviet Russia. But his stated political and economic preferences place him solidly in the ranks of contemporary Russian nationalist extremists, making him a leading figure for those promoting ...