Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni

Assessing the Dangers of Illicit Networks: Why al-Qaida May Be Less Threatening Than Many Think

Theoretical work on networked organization informs a large swathe of the current literature on international organized crime and terrorism in the field of international relations. Clandestine networks are portrayed as large, fluid, mobile, highly adaptable, and resilient. Many analysts have concluded that this makes them difficult for more stable, hierarchical states to combat. The prevailing mood of pessimism about the ability of states to combat illicit networks, however, may be premature. International relations scholars working in the area have often been too quick to draw parallels to the world of the firm, where networked organization has proven well adapted to the fast-moving global marketplace. They have consequently overlooked not only issues of community and trust but also problems of distance, coordination, and security, which may pose serious organizational difficulties for networks in general and for illicit networks in particular. Closer attention to a wider body of historical and contemporary research on dynamics of participation in underground movements, the life cycle of terrorism and insurgency, and vulnerabilities in organized crime reveals that clandestine networks are often not as adaptable or resilient as they are made out to be. An analysis of the al-Qaida network suggests that as al-Qaida adopts a more networked organization, it becomes exposed to a gamut of organizational dilemmas that threatens to reduce its unity, cohesion, and ability to act collectively.

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AS A SOLUTION TO WAR

We seek to establish the conditions in which binding international institutions can serve as a solution to preventive war. Scholars of international integration portray institutions as a response to problems of incomplete information, transaction costs and other barriers to welfare improvement for their members. In contrast, we show that international institutions can have binding properties that solve credible commitment problems among member states — even in the case of volatile preventive war dilemmas. Our primary case is post-war Europe. We show that European integration since the early 1950s was conceived as a means of committing a temporarily weakened West Germany not to use its future power to pursue military ends in Europe, thereby obviating a preventive war against it. The various institutions that form part of the European Communities, now the European Union, still bear the mark of this goal. In this article, we establish the game theoretic conditions for the existence of binding international institutions as a solution to preventive war. We also provide evidence that the model is a good approximation of what political elites had in mind in the wake of World War II.

Europe’s Defence Dilemma

Fifteen years ago, the European Union (EU) launched a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Since then, the CSDP has been the focus of a growing body of political and scholarly evaluations. While most commentators have acknowledged shortfalls in European military capabilities, many remain cautiously optimistic about the CSDP’s future. This article uses economic alliance theory to explain why EU member states have failed, so far, to create a potent common defence policy and to evaluate the policy’s future prospects. It demonstrates, through theoretical, case study-based and statistical analysis, that CSDP is more prone to collective action problems than relevant institutional alternatives, and concludes that the best option for Europeans is to refocus attention fully on cooperation within a NATO framework.

Informal Cooperation beyond the Alliance

A large literature charts NATO’s post-Cold War transformation from a close-knit, defensive alliance to a more versatile, multifaceted security organization. This literature focuses mainly on changes to the formal institutional makeup of the Alliance, such as the adoption of new Strategic Concepts, inclusion of new member states, and reform of command and decision procedures. Less analytical attention has been paid to changing patterns of informal cooperation within and around the Alliance. Indeed, while scholars have identified a growing tendency to supplement formal NATO cooperation with ad hoc, flexible forms of collaboration this tendency is often cited as a sign of disintegration of the Alliance (for example, Noetzel and Schreer 2009) rather than an integral part of NATO’s post-bipolar institutional practice, which is conducive to the continued functioning of the Alliance.