The evolution of Regional Economic Institutions(REI) into security institutionsorThe demise of realist military alliances?Kathy PowersDepartment of Political SciencePenn State UniversityState College, PA 16802email: [email protected] GoertzDepartment of Political ScienceUniversity of ArizonaTucson, Arizona 85721email: [email protected] 29, 2006This project was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation grant(SES–02415754), the Social and Behaviora l Sciences Research Institute and the UdallCenter for Public Policy at the University of Arizona as well as a PEIR grant from the De-partment of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. We would like to thankPeter Katzenstein, Ulrich Krotz, Ashley Leeds and Frank Baumgartner for discussionsthat inspired major aspects of this paper. We would also like to thank Chuck Boehmer,Emilie Hafner-Burton, David Lake, Paul Ingram and Bruce Russett and participants atseminars at the University of Chicago and Northwestern for useful suggestions.AbstractThe paper shows that a major change has occurred in the international systemsince the end of the Cold War. Realist multilateral alliances have become extinctand security functions are being taken over by international institutions, suchas the UN and Regional Economic Institutions (REIs). This system-level change isdue to the dramatically increased difficulty in winning wars and changes in sys-tem norms permitting and encouraging international institutions to get involvedin civil and international conflicts. The paper explores in more detail how thissystematic change has played out in Africa where all REIs have become securityinstitutions and where traditional realist military alliances no longer exist.1IntroductionThis paper examines one central aspect of the study of international institutionsand organizations: the relationship among international conflict managementinstitutions and military alliances1when both are potential means for dealingwith a given problem, in our case security (Snidal 2006, Hafner-Burton 2006).Grossly simplifying, governments have realist alternatives for dealing with theirsecurity problems, notably power- and threat-balancing alliances that promotedeterrence or offensive military action. They also have the option of dealingwith security problems in a liberal manner via international institutions thatpromote conflict management and prevention.We explore how system level changes lead to institutional evolution. Two ofthe most important kinds of institutional change are (1) functional shifts and (2)death. We show that as an empirical fact that classic, power- or threat-balancingmultilateral alliance2is becoming extinct: no3classic multilateral alliance hasbeen signed in the 15 years since the end of the Cold War. We also demonstratethat regional economic institutions (REIs) have taken up much of the slack. Wesee thus a quite radical change in the function of many important regional eco-nomic institutions. With one exception all African REIs have moved into thesecurity realm. We argue that these institutions are much more about usingconflict management as a route to stability in order to encourage free tradeand economic development. In short, a tectonic shift at the system level hasoccurred in the core area of international politics as traditional multilateral mil-itary alliances disappear and key regional economic institutions adopt securityfunctions.What could explain the dramatic decline in realist multilateral alliances andthe transformation of REIs into security institutions? We argue that part ofthe explanation is a major change in the security problem itself. In the nextsection we show that the realist preference for military victory in war, civil andinternational, has become very difficult to achieve. By far the most commonoutcome of civil and international wars in the last 15 years has been stalemate.The fundamental alternatives in the new war-fighting system are to continuethe conflict (e.g., form an enduring internal or international rivalry) or conflictmanagement/resolution. We briefly show that there has been a huge increase inthe number of United Nations peacekeeping missions since 1989. The decline ofmilitary threat-balancing alliances is matched by an increase in the involvementof international institutions in the security realm.The first half of the paper focuses on major changes that cut across theinternational system as a whole. We show (1) that it has become difficult to wincivil or international wars, (2) that since 1989 multilateral realist alliances are1It would be reasonable in a larger sense to also call international alliances “institutions.”To avoid confusion we use international conflict management institution to refer to the UN orregional economic institutions.2We use the terms ‘classic,’ ‘traditional,’ ‘power-balancing,’ and ‘threat-balancing’ to refer tothe standard realist view of the purpose and function of alliances.3There is one partial exception to this claim that we discuss below.2no longer used, and (3) that the United Nations has become very involved insecurity affairs in terms of peacekeeping and conflict resolution.If the international system has changed then it must be the case that itscomponent parts, e.g., regions, must have also changed. The second half of thepaper focuses on how the system-level changes have played out in the Africancontinent. There are good reasons to believe that regions differ significantlyon the speed, implementation, etc., of change. The system-level changes maskimportant regional differences. At the same time these regional changes mustmake sense since they collectively constitute the system. Many of changes wediscuss have occurred in Europe. However, Africa is in many ways a better re-gion to examine. There are many more REIs. There is much militarized conflict.It better reflects the realities of less developed countries.Thus the second half of the paper focuses on the transformation of AfricanREIs as a response to their security problems. The post–Cold War resulted in twochanged frames and international norms about dealing and think about conflict.A system-wide change was the new norm that “civil” wars were “international”threats to peace and security. It became normal and expected that the UN orregional organizations be involved in civil wars. A regional framing effect inAfrica was to think of security problems in terms of their impacts