Security Cooperation

This entry deals with security cooperation in a classical sense: It focuses on state security and cooperation. This does not imply that other actors are not subjects of security or do not participate in related cooperation; it pays just tribute to the fact that states are still the main actors in both domestic and external security activities, including cooperation. It is worth noting that international and nongovernmental organizations, substate actors, companies, and others are involved in these activities as well.

International security cooperation is counterintuitive to the notion of “international anarchy.” To entrust a part of the responsibility for state survival to other actors thus sounds far-fetched; neorealism has expressed this skepticism distinctly. Yet in everyday international life, security cooperation is found in ever more varied forms: It is an ubiquitous pattern in world and in regional politics.

Cooperative strategies in security policy accept the notion of anarchy but view it in a more relaxed way than neorealists do. These strategies see states as security seekers. Security interests have become interdependent owing to the penetrability of national borders and the impossibility of perfect defense, and national interests in general have become interdependent through globalization. Competing interests are mitigated by common interests. States can signal effectively benign intentions. “Predators” and sincere partners can be distinguished. Common security institutions supply reliable information about present and future capabilities and intentions, and common norms channel the goals, interests, and actions of states in a mutually agreeable direction.

This entry provides a typology of security cooperation in today's world. It distinguishes between exclusive security cooperation, where entry rights are limited and controlled and which [Page 2384]coordinates policies toward the nonmembership, and inclusive security cooperation, which is open and which regulates the policies of the members toward each other. Exclusive institutions contain a strong element of realism, though they are by no means exclusively rooted in realist theory. Inclusive institutions have stronger relations to liberal-institutionalist, constructivist, and normative-idealist theories. The following sections describe the basic structure, advantages and disadvantages, and theoretical underpinnings of each type.