Constructivist premises and concepts

In contrast to rationalism, sociological approaches to the study of international relations and international institutions are based on a social (structural) and ideational ontology and on the assumption of appropriate action.

Idealism. Constructivists regard ideas, in the broadest sense of the term, as the most fundamental causes of social phenomena. They do not deny the causal influence of human nature or material conditions altogether but argue that “only a small part of what constitutes interests is actually material” (Wendt 1999: 115) and that “the manner in which the material world shapes and is shaped by human action and interaction depends on dynamic normative and epistemic interpretations of the material world” (Adler 1997a: 322).

Structuralism. Neither the ideas that shape the identities and interests of the actors nor social phenomena in general can be “reduced to aggregations or consequences of individuals' attributes or motives” (DiMaggio and Powell 1991: 8). Ideas have a structural, “intersubjective” quality; they are “collective representations” (Durkheim) or “institutional facts” (Searle). Sociological institutionalists regard the environment of social actors as a cultural or institutional environment structured by collective schemata and rules.

Sociological explanations, therefore, do not start with actors and their exogenous corporate identities and interests. Rather, they problematize and endogenize identities, interests – and, ultimately, actors as well. That is, they analyze and explain them as products of collective ideational structures and social interactions that are subject to cultural variation and historical change.

Rationalist theories of international institutions dominated the theoretical debate in International Relations throughout the 1980s. Moreover, club theory, the general rationalist theory of the size of organizations, is the best developed and most pertinent approach to explaining enlargement. For these reasons, I begin my analysis of Eastern enlargement with rationalist institutionalism. In the theoretical chapter (chapter 1), I describe the basic assumptions of rationalist institutionalism, present club theory, distinguish a security, power, and welfare approach to enlargement, and specify the conditions of enlargement for each approach. In the empirical chapters, I check to what degree these conditions were fulfilled in the Eastern enlargement of NATO (chapter 3) and the European Union (chapter 2). However, I will conclude that, whereas rationalist institutionalism accounts for the Central and Eastern European interest in joining the Western organizations, it does not convincingly explain why the EU and NATO member states agreed to expand their organizations.

CEEC preferences

Whereas the reform-minded Central European governments declared their interest in becoming EC and CoE members soon after coming to power, their bid to join NATO was neither an immediate nor an automatic consequence of their transition to democracy or the end of the Cold War. Rather, it was motivated by their concern about the security situation in Central and Eastern Europe. I will focus on Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland because they were the first CEECs to request membership in the Western organizations.

When the Soviet Union released the Central European countries from its sphere of control and communist rule collapsed, the new governments proclaimed the “return to Europe” as their paramount foreign policy goal and almost immediately announced their interest in joining the EC and the CoE. To quote only a few leading officials of the time, the Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn declared as early as October 1989, “Our political resolve is to develop very close relations with the European Community.” Hungarian MDF party chairman and later prime minister, Jószef Antall, affirmed in January 1990, “We are firm supporters of this idea [of European unification], and unconditionally advocate European integration. We want to prepare ourselves for the Council of Europe and the European Community.” Polish President Lech Walesa said in July 1991 that “nothing is more important for Poland than membership in the EC,” and Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jirí Dienstbier stated in a meeting with EC Trade Commissioner Frans Andriessen in March 1990, “I think all of us should be members of one European Community” and that “Czechoslovakia wants to join the EC as quickly as possible.”

The decision to enlarge NATO and the EU took place in a community environment in which all state actors shared a liberal political culture and had subscribed to the constitutive organizational rules. In a rhetorical perspective, the problem of enlargement decision-making in this environment was not a conflict between competing validity claims. There was no controversy about, or controversial interpretation of, the criteria for legitimate membership; no member state openly challenged the principle that democratic European states were entitled to join the Western organizations. The problem was one of compliance with the practical consequences of this principle. For the CEEC aspirants, the question was how to induce the reluctant member states to acquiesce in Eastern enlargement; for their opponents, it was how to avoid or, at least, put off honoring their commitments as members of the Western community. In this situation (and given that transnational social mobilization did not promise to be effective), the rhetorical action hypothesis predicts that the proponents of enlargement use arguments based on the community culture to shame the opponents into compliance.

For three reasons, the NATO case study analyzes the US domestic decision-making process on NATO enlargement in addition to international interaction. First, the fact that the United States, in 1994, became the most determined advocate of Eastern enlargement in the Alliance was the only major puzzle for the rationalist explanation of enlargement preferences (see chapter 8). How then can we account for the change in US enlargement preferences?

The strategic conception of rules: Goffman's social theory

The hypotheses of habitual and normative action started from the assumption that social actors take community and organizational norms and values for granted or internalize them. By providing meanings and motives for action, norms and values affect social action at the dispositional level of cognitions and preferences. These hypotheses follow the cognitive and normative conceptions of institutions, rules and culture that have traditionally dominated sociological institutionalism. There is, however, an alternative, strategic conception of rules in sociological theory on which the mode of rhetorical action is based.

In the account of Robert Edgerton (1985: 7–14), the strategic conception of rules originated in anthropology and sociology as a reaction to the “oversocialized view of man” and the “over-integrated view of society” (Dennis Wrong) that dominated social analysis following the normativist theories of Durkheim and Parsons. “From the slave of custom in the normative model, man came full circle to become the strategic master of rules – artful, dissembling, posing, deceiving and calculating for his own advantage” (Edgerton 1985: 12–13). In the strategic conception, rules are not motives for action, nor are they merely constraints, they are “resources for human strategies” in social interactions and they “are used not followed.”

The seminal work in this tradition is the social theory of Erving Goffman.

Eastern enlargement constitutes a puzzle for the rationalist analysis of international institutions. The problem is not the interest of the CEECs in joining the Western organizations. Here rationalist institutionalism provided a plausible explanation in both the NATO and the EU cases. The puzzle is on the supply side. According to the security approach, enlargement was not necessary for an unthreatend and unrivalled NATO. In the EU case, it may have been useful for an economic organization in rivalry with the United States (and Japan); but then it was not efficient. This lack of efficiency also causes the power approach to fail – Eastern enlargement dilutes rather than strengthens the power of the Western organizations. Moreover, the auxiliary condition of preclusion proved unconvincing with regard to both the timing and the scope of Eastern enlargement.

Finally, even the welfare approach failed, although it is the least restrictive of the rationalist approaches and therefore the most likely one to be confirmed. First, the CEECs are poorer and located in a less stable environment than Western Europe. In addition to transaction and autonomy costs, enlargement was therefore expected to produce crowding costs that would exceed the CEECs' contribution to the club goods. NATO enlargement increases security risks for the old members and causes extra costs not balanced by the military or financial contributions of the new members.

The rhetorical mode of action is the causal link that solves the double puzzle of Eastern enlargement. Through a process of rhetorical action, the interest- and power-based initial outcome of the CEECs' association to the EU and NATO was turned into the rule-based outcome of “membership.” In Part IV, I have tried to show both theoretically and empirically how a rule-based collective outcome is possible even if the individual actors pursue selfish and conflicting goals, the structure of bargaining power works against the rule-based outcome, and the rules cannot be enforced coercively. Drawing on the strategic conception of rules in sociological theory, I argued that, in a community environment, community members can be induced to refrain from pursuing their rule-violating preferences and to behave in a rule-conforming way when they are confronted with arguments that invoke their prior commitments, accuse them of acting inconsistently, call into question their reputation and credibility and thereby shame them into paying heed to their obligations as community members. In the empirical parts of the chapter, I showed how the mostly self-interested advocates of Eastern enlargement persistently appealed to the collective identity, the constitutive values and norms and the past promises and practices of the community organizations and how the no less self-interested “brakemen” in NATO and the EU were silenced – that is, they felt compelled to acquiesce in the enlargement initiatives of the “drivers” without being convinced of their claims.

The results of the NATO case study were inconclusive.

As in the case of NATO enlargement, rationalist institutionalism accounts for the CEECs' desire to join the European Union but cannot explain why the EU members decided to start accession negotiations with the associated CEECs.

The CEECs and EU membership

The welfare approach to enlargement offers a largely convincing explanation of why the CEECs wanted to join the European Union.

The CEECs will reap net welfare benefits from membership in the EU. In general, the economies of the CEE candidates for EU membership will benefit both from integration into the Community market and from the redistributive policies of the EU.

1. The economies of the CEECs will grow as a result of accession. In their study of the benefits of EU accession for the CEECs, Baldwin, François and Portes (1997: 138) come to the conclusion that the GDP of the CEECs will grow by approximately 1.5 percent as a result of the elimination of tariffs, the adoption of the EU common tariff and unrestricted access to the single market. If it is further assumed that membership in the EU will considerably reduce the risk of investments in the CEECs and thus help to attract foreign capital, the study even arrives at an 18.8 percent increase in real income for the CEECs (1997: 147). Although much less optimistic, the more recent enlargement study by the French Commissariat du Plan, which is based on a review of other studies, still comes to the conclusion that the growth effect of enlargement will be about 5–6.5 percent annually.[…]

“Rhetorical action” – the strategic use of rule-based arguments – solves the double puzzle of Eastern enlargement. It provides the causal link between the interest-based state preferences and initial stages of EU and NATO enlargement, on the one hand, and the rule-based final outcome, on the other. “Rhetorical action” draws on a strategic conception of rules that combines a social, ideational ontology with the assumption of rational action; it postulates that social actors use and exchange arguments based on identities, values, and norms institutionalized in their environment to defend their political claims and to persuade their audience and their opponents to accept these claims and to act accordingly. In NATO and the EU, the actors interested in enlargement used the liberal identity, values, and norms of the Western international community to put moral and social pressure on the reluctant member states and shamed them into acquiescing to the admission of CEECs.

In the theoretical chapter of this part (chapter 9), I discuss the conceptual and theoretical foundations of rhetorical action and specify hypotheses about the use and effects of arguments in decision-making. I do this in much greater detail than for the hypotheses of habitual and normative action because rhetorical action plays a pivotal role in my explanation of Eastern enlargement and has received less attention in the rationalist-constructivist debate than the other hypotheses.

Washington, DC, 19 February – 5 March 1999

1. Ian Brzezinski, Office of Senator William V. Roth, Jr. (Delaware)

2. Paul E. Gallis, Section Head, Europe/Middle East/Africa, Congressional Research Service

3. James Goldgeier, George Washington University

4. Bruce Pitcairn Jackson, President, US Committee on NATO Enlargement

5. Charles Kupchan, Council on Foreign Relations

6. Cameron Munter, Office of the Counselor, Department of State

7. Stanley Sloan, Senior Specialist, Congressional Research Service

8. Stephen Szabo, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University

Bonn, 27–28 April 1999

1. Rafael Biermann, Planning Staff, Federal Ministry of Defense

2. Karl-Heinz Kamp, Konrad Adenauer Foundation

3. Heinrich Rentmeister, Federal Ministry of Defense

Brussels, 17–21 May 1999

1. Eitvydas Bajarunas, Lithuanian Mission to NATO, counsellor

2. Chris Donnelly, special adviser to the Secretary-General, NATO

3. Katerina Fialkova, counsellor, Czech Delegation to NATO

4. Isabelle François, NATO, Defense Planning and Operations Division

5. Armin Hasenpusch, Military Delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany to NATO

6. George Katsirdakis, NATO, deputy director, Defense Planning and Operations Division

7. R.P. Kirby, NATO, head, Euro-Atlantic Partnership & Cooperation Section, Political Affairs Division

8. Ivan Korcok, counsellor, deputy head of mission, Mission of the Slovak Republic to NATO

9. David Powell, UK Delegation to NATO, political counsellor

10. Robert Pszczel, Polish Delegation to NATO

11. Gheorghe Rotaru, Romanian Military Mission to NATO

12. Istvan Szabo, Hungarian Delegation to NATO

13. András Simonyi, ambassador, head of the Mission of the Republic of Hungary to NATO

The EU case study will focus on the intergovernmental decision-making process. It is this process which proved most ambiguous theoretically in the NATO case, and it is here that the factor of interest – the structure of bargaining power – varies between NATO and the EU. This variation makes it possible to disentangle the potentially confounding effects of bargaining and shaming. The EU intergovernmental process is a hard case for rhetorical action because it needed to prevail against the material interests of most member states, a coalition with superior bargaining power, and an initial bargaining outcome (association) that was already put in treaty form and appeared to represent a stable equilibrium in light of the member state interests and power structure.

The chapter is divided into sections on “rhetorical commitment,” “rhetorical argumentation” and “rhetorical entrapment” – the three main analytical phases in the shaming process. I seek to show that the Community has committed itself ideologically and institutionally to the integration of all European liberal societies since its beginnings and has continually confirmed this commitment in its rhetoric. This rhetorical commitment created the prerequisite for effective shaming during the enlargement process. The “drivers” among the member states as well as the associated CEE states regularly justified their demands for enlargement on the grounds of this commitment and of the community's collective identity.

The study of enlargement: political relevance and theoretical neglect

Eastern enlargement is a defining process in the international politics of the New Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, the major West European regional organizations – the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and, to a lesser degree, the Council of Europe (CoE) – have become the fundamental institutional structures in the “architecture” of the new Europe. They have developed into the centers of gravity in pan-European institution-building and into the dominant loci of decision- and policy-making for the entire region. The borders of these organizations have replaced the East–West line of the Cold War as the central cleavage in the European system. “Europe” has increasingly come to be defined in terms of these organizations, the “Europeanization” or “Europeanness” of individual countries has come to be measured by the intensity of institutional relations with these organizations and by the adoption of their organizational values and norms.

Immediately after the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, all European organizations began to create a diversified array of institutional relationships with the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) – reaching from observer status to some form of association. A few years later, the Western organizations set out to expand their membership to the East in the biggest enlargement rounds in their history. The membership of the Council of Europe grew from fourteen to twenty-two members between 1950 and 1988. Since then, it has doubled.

As war in the Middle East threatened to erupt during the first week of June 1967, leaders of the Six were settling down into one of their periodic intergovernmental summits only a few hundred miles away in Rome. Although fully aware of the different preferences among EU states regarding this volatile region, and of the apparent intractability of the political problems in the Middle East, Germany suggested the Rome summit might be a rare opportunity for the Europeans to speak with a single voice about the tense situation. However, France, under the leadership of de Gaulle, proposed instead a four-power summit (France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US) to discuss a settlement to the conflict, but this offer was rejected by the Americans. This failure on the part of the EU even to attempt coordination on its own during such a major crisis, and the rejection of French leadership, both eased the way for the creation of EPC three years later. As German chancellor Kurt Kiesinger recalled, “I felt ashamed at the Rome summit. Just as the war was on the point of breaking, we could not even agree to talk about it” (Ifestos 1987: 420).

The dynamics of the Rome summit during the 1967 Six-Day War also illustrate three important circumstances facing EU governments as they began to think more seriously about coordinating their foreign policies.

Once EPC began generating its own norms and rules in the late 1970s, the stage was set for a far more comprehensive approach to EU foreign policy cooperation a decade later: the CFSP. Before examining the CFSP, however, we must digress for a moment to consider the role of permanent organizations in EU foreign policy. These organizations comprise budgets, professional staffs, buildings and facilities, unique policy goals, and a host of other features which affect both policy performance and institutionalization. As I noted in Chapter 3, although the Luxembourg Report briefly acknowledged the Commission and the European Parliament (EP) as supporting players in EPC, most EU states generally preferred EPC to remain a decentralized system dominated by national governments. Their strong preference for intergovernmental foreign policy cooperation created a barrier to both the involvement of existing EC organizations and the creation of any permanent organization to administer EPC.

However, this barrier gradually broke down and EC organizations began to affect the development of European foreign policy cooperation. Organizations that have achieved some level of permanency, legitimacy, and competent authority are more likely to influence the policy process, thus increasing the prospects for cooperative outcomes and institutional growth. Organizations have the capacity for coordinated, purposive action; as their permanent staffs are established, as their institutional memory develops in a particular policy area, and as policy norms are preserved and followed by these organizations, cooperative outcomes will be affected.