European Security into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Traditional Theories of International Relations - Tapa dura

Both NATO and the European Union are in the early stages of enlargement processes that will see both organizations expand to include a number of former Communist countries from Central Europe. Simultaneously, these processes ignore and exclude the interests and concerns of Russia and Turkey, respectively in the name of European security. Are both of these processes condemned to fail because of what was left out, rather than put in, to the organizational mix of both alliances? Is the leadership of NATO, for example, making the single largest, and costliest, blunder in the history of the organization? And is this being done, as well as that by the European Union, in part because of narrowly-held theoretical perspectives that define security in the most minimalist terms? Too often these processes of enlargement are discussed both out of context and in seclusion from one another, as if neither affects the other in any way, shape or form. This work brings together both processes of enlargement in order to examine whether or not similar mistakes are being made by both organizations, with grave practical consequences. This work will also examine both processes of enlargement from a critical perspective in that it will challenge the theoretically-driven conventional wisdoms of both processes. By doing so, this work will illustrate the need to go beyond these theories of International Relations and advocate the use of a number of non-traditional and very alternative positions that will assist one in developing richer, more comprehensive and inclusive explanations and understandings of these processes, as well as the field of International Relations in general. This work seeks to challenge the current state of International Relations, broadly defined, on its own ground in the hopes of presenting and developing, something newer and exciting for tomorrow.

This study examines the twin enlargements of NATO and the European Union within the context of the utility of traditional theories of international relations and in relationship to those countries that are not going to become new members - Russia and Turkey, the countries on the outside of both institutions. Both processes of enlargement are taking place within the context of a number of rationales and justifications, borne from specific theoretical paradigms. However, if these paradigms lack the ability to comprehensively explain security concerns from a broad perspective, then gaps between the proposed rhetoric and the reality of these processes will appear. Given such appearances, one must then ask which other politics-related theoretical paradigms will best be able to make sense of these processes, bridge these apparent gaps and offer a number of suggestions with respect to the processes of enlargement, as well as the utility of the initially examined traditional paradigms. The goal of this study is to offer a number of critical suggestions with respect to these enlarement processes. The study seeks to illustrate that both of these processes are so complex that one-dimensional paradigms are incapable of taking into account the multitude of factors which influence them.