Abstinence over absence
The 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes and the OSCE’s ability to predict and prevent conflict
MA Thesis in European Studies
Graduate School for Humanities
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Author: Ieke Noyon
Student number: 11933267
Main supervisor: Dr. A.M. Kalinovsky
Second supervisor: Dr. A.K. Bustanov
3
Table of contents
3
LIST OF FIGURES ... 5
1. INTRODUCTION ... 6
1.1 Spontaneous, but not unexpected: the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes ... 6
1.2 The OSCE… ... 7
1.3 … and its crisis management abilities ... 8
1.4 The OSCE’s role in the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes ... 10
2. A COMPREHENSIVE ANSWER TO A NARROWED-DOWN SECURITY ... 13
2.1 The framework of international security organisations ... 13
2.1.1 International institutions in International Relations ... 13
2.1.2 Historical approaches to security ... 16
2.1.3 Definitions of Security ... 18
2.2 The OSCE’s security ... 22
2.2.1 The OSCE’s main aim: What is meant by security? ... 22
2.2.2 From states to societies: Whose security are we talking about? ... 23
2.2.3 The three dimensions: What counts as a security issue? ... 25
2.2.4 Combining the political and the practical: How can security be achieved? ... 27
2.3 Conclusion ... 30
3. The field presences’ activities ... 31
3.1 Background on monthly reports and method ... 31
3.2 First dimension: the politico-military, and cross-dimensional matters ... 32
Political reforms ... 33
Inter-ethnic issues ... 34
Media-related issues ... 36
3.3 Second dimension: the economic-environmental ... 37
Economic issues ... 38
Environmental issues ... 40
Good governance ... 41
3.4 Third dimension: the human ... 42
Rule of Law ... 42
3.5 The Police Assistance Programme, Interim Police Assistance Programme, and Police Reform Programme ... 44
Contents of the police programmes ... 45
Influence of and on the field presences’ work ... 47
3.6 Conclusion ... 48
4. Conclusion ... 51
4
LIST OF ANNEXES ... 64
Annex 1: Schematic overview of events ... 64
Annex 2: Mandate OSCE Centre Bishkek ... 65
5
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Kyrgyzstan ethnicity map, showing distribution of Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and 'other' nationalities.
Source: Interethnic Tensions in Kyrgyzstan: A Political Geographic Perspective. ... 7
Figure 2: "How we work", schematic overview of OSCE
Source: “How we work”. www.osce.org/whatistheosce ... 28
6
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Spontaneous, but not unexpected: the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes
In June 2010, in the aftermath of the ousting of president Bakiev, the Kyrgyz Republic faced one of its heaviest interethnic conflicts in recent history. It is estimated to have killed between 400 and 500 people in the course of two weeks, and left an estimated 400,000 people internally displaced – mostly Uzbeks.1 Within a matter of only days, a dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbek youths at a local casino escalated into mass slaughter, wide-spread physical assaults, and gang rapes, throughout the southern provinces of Osh and Jalalabad.2 Armed gangs of young Kyrgyz men destroyed Uzbek houses, supermarkets, and a cinema, and witnesses reported that “Osh is burning, and bodies are lying on the streets”3.4 Many local security forces appeared either incompetent or complacent in the violence, and some were even caught actively assisting the raiding Kyrgyz gangs by handing out their arms, or opening up security checkpoints at the entrance of Uzbek neighbourhoods.5 The secretive circumstances surrounding the outburst of the conflict, rumours about possible (financial) involvement of either Russia or president Bakiev and his trustees, as well as the inability of both the interim government and the local security forces to adequately counter the violence, make the 2010 events a highly controversial topic within Kyrgyz society and politics.6
The escalation of the violence in 2010 might have seemed spontaneous, however, there are reasons to assume that the interethnic clashes themselves were unexpected to the very least (see annex 1). Although both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks are Turkic Muslims, an ethnic difference between the Kyrgyz nomads and the sedentary Uzbeks was already institutionalised hierarchically by the Soviet Union.7 In 1990, this distinction came to the surface during the so-called Osh Riots, a land dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks over a former collective farm, costing approximately 300 lives.8 The tension had been high ever since, and it was constantly fuelled by claims of inequality from both sides, concerning land, energy resources, and borders, most notably in the ethnically diverse Fergana valley in the southern region (see figure 1).9 In 2007, politician Bermet Akaeva, the daughter of the in 2005 ousted president Akaev, openly feared that the rise of nationalism would cause “huge problems” between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz population in the
1 “UN Reports at Least 400,000 Refugees in Kyrgyzstan,” AsiaNews, June 18, 2010,
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/UN-reports-at-least-400,000-refugees-in-Kyrgyzstan-18711.html.
2 I.a. Lawrence Markowitz, “The Resource Curse Reconsidered: Cash Crops and Local Violence in Kyrgyzstan,” Terrorism
and Political Violence 29, no. 2 (2017): 342-58.
3 Luke Harding, “Kyrgyzstan Calls for Russian Help to End Ethnic Riots," The Guardian, June 12, 2010,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/12/kyrgyzstan-russia-help-ethnic-riots.
4 Harding, “Kyrgyzstan calls.”; “Kreml': besporjadki v Kirgizii - vnutrennij konflikt" InoSMI.Ru, June 12, 2010,
https://inosmi.ru/middle_asia/20100612/160553623.html; Alexander Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules : The New Great
Power Contest in Central Asia, (New York, NY [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 2012); Erica Marat, "‘We Disputed Every
Word’: How Kyrgyzstan's Moderates Tame Ethnic Nationalism," Nations and Nationalism 22, no. 2 (2016): 305.
5 Reuel R. Hanks, “Crisis in Kyrgyzstan: Conundrums of Ethnic Conflict, National Identity and State Cohesion,” Journal of
Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 13, no. 2 (2011): 180; Babak Rezvani, “Understanding and Explaining the Kyrgyz-Uzbek
Interethnic Conflict in Southern Kyrgyzstan." Anthropology of the Middle East 8, no. 2 (2013): 70; Markowitz “Resource Curse,” 352.
6 Richard Orange, “Russia Pushing for Control of Fuel Supplies to Crucial US Airbase," The Telegraph, June 22, 2010,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/kyrgyzstan/7847518/Russia-pushing-for-control-of-fuel-supplies-to-crucial-US-airbase.html; Cooley, Great Games, 131; Rezvani, “Understanding and Explaining,” 70.
7 Rezvani, “Understanding and Explaining,” 62; Marat, “Disputed Every Word,” 316. 8 Hanks, “Crisis in Kyrgyzstan,” 184; Rezvani, “Understanding and Explaining,” 67.
9 Madeleine Reeves, “Materialising State Space: ‘Creeping Migration’ and Territorial Integrity in Southern Kyrgyzstan,"
Europe-Asia Studies 61, no. 7 (2009): 1278; Hanks, “Crisis in Kyrgyzstan,” 180; Rezvani, “Understanding and Explaining,”
7 near future.10 In April 2010, the 20 years of Kyrgyz political malfunctioning, including widespread corruption and patronage systems throughout the country, were topped with a revolution that created a power vacuum.11 The complete loss of political credibility and authority that followed created a perfect situation for violence to spread throughout the volatile south. As the interim government admitted that “the situation has spun out of control”12, they were forced to appeal for third party assistance.13
Figure 1: Kyrgyzstan ethnicity map, showing distribution of Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and 'other' nationalities.
1.2 The OSCE…
One of the third parties that was active in Central Asia at the time of the conflict was the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The main purpose of this multilateral security organisation, established in 1995, is providing early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation throughout its region, mainly through a “comprehensive concept of security”14 and
10 Timothy Kenny and Ruslan Myatiyev, “Kyrgyzstan: An Interview with Bermet Akaeva, Daughter of Ex-President Askar
Akaev,” EurasiaNet, 17 July 2007, https://www.wluml.org/node/38921.
11 Hanks, “Crisis in Kyrgyzstan,” 180. 12 Harding, “Kyrgyzstan calls.”
13 Бesporjadki v Kirgizii; Stefan Wolff, Oya Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions in Civil Wars: The Role and Impact of
Regional and International Organisations, (London: Routledge, 2016), 166.
14 Walter Kemp, "The OSCE: Entering a Third Phase in Its Third Decade," Helsinki Monitor 15, no. 4 (2004): 262; Jean P.
Froehly, "The OSCE 40 Years after Helsinki: Fall Back or Reset?" The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs 25, no. 3 (2016): 9.
8 based dialogue”15.16 Kyrgyzstan and the other Central Asian states had been OSCE participating States (pS) since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the OSCE established field missions in the Kyrgyz cities of Bishkek and Osh in respectively 1998 and 2000.17 At the time of the conflict, the OSCE was the main security organisation that was active in the region.18 Therefore, concerning conflict intervention, Kyrgyzstan preferred the OSCE above other institutional frameworks active in the region, such as the United Nations (UN), the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and the European Union (EU).19
On top of that, the OSCE had every reason to be involved in the southern Kyrgyz conflict. Not only did the OSCE have its long-term field presences in the country, including in the region of conflict, Kyrgyzstan was also the host country to the OSCE Academy – the only OSCE-funded educational institution which was established in 2002.20 Besides, the urge to intervene in this particular conflict was further strengthened by the fact that neighbouring Kazakhstan held the OSCE chairmanship in 2010, which is the most influential position concerning the OSCE’s intervention policy.21 A few months before, Kazakh president Nazarbayev had provided Bakiev with the possibility to leave Kyrgyzstan in safety if he would agree to give up power, giving Kazakhstan an important role in the Kyrgyz political situation at the time.22 The OSCE was thus pressured by its own mandate, its connections to Kyrgyzstan, and by the involvement required by the nationality of the chairmanship.
1.3 … and its crisis management abilities
Even though the circumstances for the OSCE to intervene in the conflict appear to have been perfect, the Kyrgyz government did not immediately seek out the organisation’s help. The interim president at the time, Rosa Otunbaeva, had her doubts about the OSCE’s crisis management abilities. At first, she reached out to Russia, the region’s main security provider, but they declined military assistance, arguing they perceived the clashes to be a “national conflict” 23 in which they did not wish to intervene. 24 Respectively the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Collective Security Organisation (CSTO) responded negatively to a similar request, also stressing their non-interference policy, and only
15 Marc P. de Brichambaut, "The OSCE in Perspective, Six Years of Service, Six Questions and a Few Answers," Security and
Human Rights 23, no. 1 (2012): 31.
16 Kemp, “The OSCE,” 255; Maria Raquel Freire, "The OSCE's Post-September 11 Agenda, and Central Asia," Global
Society 19, no. 2 (2005): 191.
17 Vlastimil Jansky, “Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe: Past, Present and Future Missions,” (Phd diss,
Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, 2005), 65; OSCE Permanent Council Decision No. 1250, “Programme Office in Bishkek,” 1143rd Plenary Meeting, April 27, 2017, https://www.osce.org/permanent-council/317106?download=true; in this
research, ‘Central Asia’ will be interpreted as the five former Soviet countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, and Turkmenistan, in line with the OSCE’s interpretation of the region. See: www.osce.org; The participating States of the OSCE are explicitly not member states, because the lack of legal persona of the OSCE. Therefore, countries cannot be officially become a member of the organisation, and are decisions and declarations not legally binding.
18 Jansky, “Past, Present,” 65; Licínia Simão, "EU-OSCE Inter-Institutional Interaction: Preventing Water-Related Conflict in
Central Asia," Journal of Global Policy and Governance 1, no. 2 (2013): 118.
19 Mirzokhid Rahkimov, "Internal and External Dynamics of Regional Cooperation in Central Asia," Journal of Eurasian
Studies 1, no. 2 (2010): p.96; Simão, “Inter-Institutional Interaction,” 118.
20 Wilhelm Hõynck, "The OSCE in Central Asia – On the Right Track?" Helsinki Monitor 14, no. 3 (2003): 310; “OSCE
Academy in Bishkek,” OSCE Academy in Bishkek, accessed March 4, 2019, http://www.osce-academy.net.
21 De Brichambaut, “The OSCE,” 33; Pál Dunay, "OSCE Conflict Management in Central Asia: Fighting Windmills like Don
Quixote," Security and Human Rights 27, no. 3-4 (2016): 487; Christian Nünlist, "Successful Small States in the Osce and the German Chairmanship of 2016," Security and Human Rights 26, no. 1 (2015): 50.
22 Dunay, “Conflict Management,” 488.
23 Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 166.
9 hesitatingly started collecting crisis funding from their member states.25 When asked about the hesitance to call on the OSCE for intervention, the Kyrgyz government named the OSCE’s “generally long-term low-level approach”26 as a main factor, adding that the organisation “lacks the resources or coherence of other multilateral security institutions active in Central Asia”27. In a press release several days later, Otunbaeva confirmed this statement as she referred to the organisation’s security approach, arguing that “establishing a dialogue has failed, and fighting and rampages are continuing”28.
Indeed, critics have argued that the OSCE is not well-equipped for countering quickly erupting violence. Hõynck (2003), Saari (2014), and Dunay (2016) confirm Otunbaeva’s assumption that the long-term vision of the OSCE’s activities, the lack of capacity, and the limited available financial resources, hamper the organisation’s capacity to respond effectively in cases acute conflict.29 According to Raquel Freire (2005), however, the main problem is the consensus rule within the OSCE bodies, which guarantees that every decision is supported by all pS and can thus severely slow down the decision-making process.30 Whereas this rule is usually seen as one of the OSCE’s main assets, critics argue it is rather a handicap concerning the organisation’s ability to respond to acute threats.31 Finally, specifically in Central Asian states, another problematic factor at the time could have been the lack of the OSCE’s image and credibility, as suggested by Lewis (2011).32 As several long-term projects had failed, the OSCE might have had too little leverage over both the host society and local politics for the Kyrgyz government to defend a request for its assistance.
That said, there are also examples in which the OSCE’s involvement in preventing acute threats has proven successful. The success of such interventions, however, seems to be strongly linked to the OSCE’s prior work on its general image and credibility in those countries.33 In Georgia, an OSCE pS since 1992, the decade-long democracy promotion efforts by the OSCE significantly contributed to their credibility when de-escalating the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003, and enabling a peaceful change of government a few weeks later.34 In Eastern Europe, the OSCE had built a similar credibility in the early 2000s through projects on ‘community policing’ in i.a. Croatia, Kosovo, and Macedonia, providing a strong, structural basis for early warning at a time of conflict.35 The OSCE prevented the escalation of a
25 Rezvani, “Understanding and Explaining,” 70; Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 166. 26 Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 166.
27 Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 166.
28 Sasha Merkushev and Leila Saralayeva, "Ethnic Riots Sweep Kyrgyzstan, Government Begs for Help," DeseretNews, June
12, 2010, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/700039793/Ethnic-riots-sweep-Kyrgyzstan-government-begs-for-help.html; Vladimir Isachenkov, "Ethnic Riots Turn Deadly; Kyrgyzstan Begs For Help," Southern California Public Radio, June 12, 2010, https://www.scpr.org/news/2010/06/12/16117/ethnic-riots-turn-deadly-kyrgyzstan-begs-for-help/.
29 Hõynck, “The OSCE”, 300; Sinikukka Saari, "The Thin Line between Failure and Success: The OSCE's Competence and
Capability in Conflict Management: The Case of Georgia," Security and Human Rights 25, no. 2 (2014): 241; Dunay, “Conflict Management,” 491; Pál Dunay, "The OSCEs of Central Asia," Central Asian Survey 36, no. 3 (2017): 303.
30 Raquel Freire , “Post-September 11 Agenda,” 203.
31 Kemp, “The OSCE,” 260; Michael W. Mosser, "Embracing “embedded Security”: The OSCE's Understated but Significant
Role in the European Security Architecture, " European Security 24, no. 4 (2015): 585.
32 Martina Huber, "The Effectiveness of OSCE Missions," Helsinki Monitor 14, no. 2 (2003): 126; David Lewis, "Security
Sector Reform in Authoritarian Regimes: The OSCE Experience of Police Assistance Programming in Central Asia," Security
and Human Rights 22, no. 2 (2011): 110.
33 Kemp, “The OSCE,” 256.
34 Pamela Jawad, "Conflict Resolution through Democracy Promotion? The Role of the OSCE in
Georgia," Democratization 15, no. 3 (2008): 623.
35 Lewis, “Security Sector Reform”, 106; Eileen Babbitt, "Preventive Diplomacy by Intergovernmental Organizations:
10 conflict over language laws reforms at Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 1994, by establishing a dialogue between Russian minorities and the government.36 In this case, the field operation was assisted in its efforts by the OSCE’s Office of the High Commissioner for National Minorities (HCNM), an institute focussed exclusively on preventing conflicts with an interethnic nature.37
1.4 The OSCE’s role in the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes
The role the OSCE played in the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes is generally regarded as negative, and it is thought to have negatively influenced the OSCE’s reputation with both host communities in Central Asia and politicians in OSCE pS in general. On June 15, nearly a month into the conflict, Otunbaeva finally turned to the OSCE for assistance, initially requesting “hard, technical support”38.39 Despite this specific demand, it took the OSCE until July 2 to make a decision on another long-term solution: the deployment of a Police Advisory Group, containing of 52 police officers to “monitor the work of territorial units of the Interior Ministry and advise them on methods to restore public order, as well as help reduce interethnic tension”40.41 This confirmed Otunbaeva’s initial assumption that the OSCE was not flexible enough to offer the acute military assistance she deemed necessary at the time.42 And although Kazakhstan still claims that the OSCE has done everything in its power to prevent the conflict from further escalating, Uzbek president Karimov claimed afterwards that the OSCE did “not play a positive role” in neutralising the events in South Kyrgyzstan.43
Previous studies of the OSCE’s role in this conflict confirm that the organisation was extremely unsuccessful in countering the acute eruption of the violence in 2010.44 Such approaches, however, have exclusively focussed on the OSCE’s short-term conflict prevention and resolution efforts at the time of the conflict, and have failed to integrate the long-term position and actions of the OSCE field presence in Kyrgyzstan in the period prior to the conflict. This long-term approach is a crucial aspect, as the success of acute conflict prevention by the OSCE in countries like Georgia seem to have be linked to earlier work by the field presences that contributed to the general image and credibility of the organisation in the host country. Moreover, in the case of Kyrgyzstan, the escalation of the interethnic violence was not as acute as it seemed at first sight. It was an unfortunate combination of events, bringing decade-old tensions to
36 Babbitt, “Preventive Diplomacy,” 370.
37 Gérard Stoudmann, "The Way Forward or Is the OSCE Fit for the 21st Century?" Helsinki Monitor 15, no. 4 (2004): 295;
Babbitt, “Preventive Diplomacy,” 366; De Brichambaut, “The OSCE,” 34; Marc Cogen, An Introduction to European
Intergovernmental Organizations, Farnham, Surrey, England: Routledge, 2015, 148.
38 Kemel Toktomushev, Kyrgyzstan : Regime Security and Foreign Policy, (London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017), 2008. 39 OSCE Permanent Council Decision No. 947, “OSCE Police Advisory Group to Kyrgyzstan,” 824th Plenary Meeting, July 22,
2010, https://www.osce.org/pc/70950?download=true; Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 169.
40 OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, “Follow-Up on Recommendations in the OSCE PA’s Oslo Declaration,” Interim Report for
the 2011 Winter Meeting, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, First General Committee on Political Affairs
and Security Accessed March 8, 2019, 4, https://www.oscepa.org/documents/winter-meetings/2011-vienna/reports-8/2221-first-committee-follow-up-report-1/file.
41 Decision No. 947; Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 169; Valerie A Pacer, Russian Foreign Policy Under
Dmitry Medvedev, 2008-2012, (London: Routledge, 2016).
42 Wolff and Dursun-Özkanca, External Interventions, 169; Pacer, Russian Foreign Policy; Toktomushev, Regime Security,
2014.
43 Erica Marat, “OSCE Summit Highlights Disagreements Between Astana and Tashkent,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 7, no. 215,
(2010); Pál Dunay, “Kazakhstan’s Unique OSCE Chairmanship of 2010,” OSCE Yearbook 2011, (2012): 52.
44 Marat, “Summit Highlights”; Hanks, “Crisis in Kyrgyzstan”; Lewis, “Security Sector Reform”; Babbitt, “Preventive
11 surface. It is thus possible that the OSCE field missions in Kyrgyzstan, as the “eyes and ears of the organisation”45 were well aware of the possible escalation in the south, and had long adapted their approach to the situation.
This research will therefore assess the abilities and methods of the OSCE field presences to predict and prevent conflict on the long term, using the decade prior to the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes. It is aimed at researching the field presences’ function in researching and reporting on conflict probability as well as its effectiveness in doing so, and in effectuating long-term conflict prevention based on the research they have conducted. The OSCE’s general security will be used as a framework to assess the role of the field presences in the organisation’s main aims of predicting and preventing conflict. The research will thus not include the field presences’ short-term conflict prevention, conflict resolution, or post-conflict rehabilitation efforts. The field presences’ activities will be studied based on the monthly reports that were published by the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre over the decade. When possible, destabilising factors and field presences-specific challenges will be taken into account.
This particular conflict will be a useful subject to test these abilities for a number of reasons. First of all, a lot of research has been conducted on the conflict, focussing exclusively on the short-term conflict prevention efforts, therefore the research will provide a more complete image of the work of the OSCE field presences in Kyrgyzstan at the time. Secondly, as mentioned above, the OSCE had a long-term presence in the country, including in the region of conflict, which enables research on the long-term efforts, on the difference in activities between field presences in conflict and non-conflict regions, and show a development in the approaches over time. Thirdly, Kyrgyzstan was generally perceived to be the most open and progressive Central Asian country in terms of politics at the time of research.46 This could imply that the OSCE field presences in Kyrgyzstan had a certain degree freedom in conducting activities they deemed necessary to prevent conflict, unlike organisations operating in countries with more repressive governments.47
The given time frame will possibly shed a light on different approaches on conflict prevention by the field presences, as several events during this decade might have influenced their activities. The last critical study on the OSCE’s general work in Kyrgyzstan was published in 2003, in response to a small riot in Bishkek, in which Hõynck (2003) criticised the lack of strategy in the field presences’ work. Hõynck’s research included an advice for a more coherent long-term strategy as a means to counter acute conflict in the future.48 In 2005, Kyrgyzstan was confronted with such an acute conflict, when president Akaev was ousted during the so-called Tulip Revolution.49 The 2005 revolution was somewhat comparable to the one in 2010 in terms of the grounds of the protests, the effects of institutionalised
45 Huber, “The Effectiveness,” 134; De Brichambaut, “The OSCE,” 37.
46 Arman Mazikeyev, Huw T. Edwards, and Marian Rizov, “Openness and Isolation: The Trade Performance of the Former
Soviet Central Asian Countries,” International Business Review, 24, no. 6 (2015): 939.
47 Daniela Donno, “Who Is Punished? Regional Intergovernmental Organizations and the Enforcement of Democratic Norms,”
International Organization 64, no. 4 (2010): 594.
48 Hõynck, “The OSCE”.
49 Cooley, Great Games, 4; Cummings et al., "State, Regime, and Government in the Kyrgyz Republic (1991–2010):
12 corruption and patronage systems on the government’s response, the protests organised in front of the “White House” in Bishkek, and rumours on external influence in the actual toppling of the government.50 Because of the advices given by Hõynck (2003) and the similarities between the 2005 Tulip Revolution and ousting of Bakiev in 2010, there is reason to assume that after 2005 the OSCE field presences in Kyrgyzstan effectively adapted their work on the possibility of political instability and the eruption of acute violence, and thus changed their approach.
By focussing on the field presences’ long-term activities aimed at predicting and preventing conflict, rather than the OSCE’s acute responses to violence, this research will provide broader knowledge on the role of the field presences in the general OSCE goals of conflict prediction and conflict prevention. This includes activities that are not necessarily linked to the violence itself and can therefore be easily overlooked when studying merely short-term conflict prevention, such as the building of a political network in the host country or efforts to improve the image of the OSCE amongst the population. The quality of the field presences will be measurable by assessing if the field presences had rightly predicted the probability of the 2010 conflict, whether or not they informed the relevant OSCE bodies in time, and to what extend they had adapted their own activities to prevent the conflict from erupting. This adds to the discussion on the efficacy of the OSCE’s approach to security, which is the basis for the relevance of the OSCE as an international security organisation. Therefore, the results of this research will also test to what extend the OSCE’s approach to security is a valuable addition to the complex framework of international organisation in general.
This research would not touch upon the question whether or not the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes could have been avoided through a different method of conflict prediction or prevention by the OSCE field presences. Not only would this be an ahistorical question to ask, and impossible to argue with any degree of certainty, it would also deny the influence of any other factors that are beyond the scope of the research question. Such factors would entail the response of the Kyrgyz government and public services at the time of conflict, influence of other countries, activities of other national or international organisations in the region, the legacy of the Osh riots, availability of financial resources, etc. This research will however critically assess the outcomes of the field presences’ research on conflict prediction, and elaborate on possible reasons why certain results were not translated into conflict prevention activities.
13
2. A COMPREHENSIVE ANSWER TO A NARROWED-DOWN SECURITY
As mentioned above, the OSCE is first and foremost an international security organisation, claiming to use a “comprehensive concept of security”.51 However, the relevance and function of such institutions are subject to discussion, and many different interpretations of ‘security’ can be distinguished. The impact of these differing interpretations on policies and policy-making bodies, such as international organisations, can be explained by using an international relations’ perspective. This chapter will give an overview of the three major international relations theories and their relevance, the main theoretical discourses on security, and some important interpretations of security as a concept. This will be used as a framework to exactly define the OSCE’s interpretation of security, in order to fully comprehend the ways in which it aims to predict, prevent, and resolve conflict, as well as establishing post-conflict rehabilitation, and which role the different OSCE bodies play in this process.
2.1 The framework of international security organisations 2.1.1 International institutions in International Relations
Different theories on international relations have different approaches to international cooperation, including the functioning and uses of international institutions. The approaches also distinguish various ways to cooperate and to define common goals – like security. Therefore, in order to understand the background of how the OSCE tries to achieve its security goals, it is crucial to understand the main theoretical traditions in (Western) international relations, and in which ways they can be used to solve security issues. The three dominant approaches, the realist, the liberalist, and constructivist, have been strongly influenced by events like the Cold War, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11.52
The traditional and still most dominant approach to international relations is realism, which includes many different theories proposed over the past century.53 The first idea all realism theories share is that the world order is a mosaic of individual states that are all self-interested, focussed on their own survival, and continuously striving for more power.54 Traditionally, this power was primarily based on military force, but does now often includes or prioritises other forms, such as political and economic power, as long as it is aimed at the goal of state survival.55 Military force, however, is still a theoretically legitimate means to achieve or consolidate such power.56 The two world wars are often mentioned as examples of realism’s triumph over other international relations theories.57 The second idea that all realism
51 “What we do,” What is the OSCE?, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, accessed March 26, 2019,
https://www.osce.org/what-we-do.
52 COT Institute for Safety, Security and Crisis Management, Notions of security: shifting concepts and perspectives, The
Hague: COT Institute for Safety, Security and Crisis Management, 2007, 23; Arifi Dritëro, "The Concept of “Comprehensive Security” as a Draft for Reconstructing Security in a System of International Relations." ILIRIA International Review 1, no. 1 (2011): 21.
53 COT, Notion of Security, 24; Ian Hall, “The Triumph of Anti-Liberalism? Reconciling Radicalism to Realism in International
Relations Theory,” Political Studies Review 9, no. 1 (2011): 42.
54 Jack Snyder, "One World, Rival Theories," Foreign Policy, no. 145 (2004): 55; COT, Notions of Security, 24; Paul D.
Williams and Matt McDonald, ed., Security Studies : An Introduction, ed. (Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2018), 16.
55 Konstantinos Kostagiannis, “Mind the Gap Between Nationalism and International Relations: Power and the Nation-State in
E.H. Carr’s Realism,” International Politics 50, no. 6 (2013): 831; Michael Jackson and Thomas Moore, “Machiavelli’s Walls: The Legacy of Realism in International Relations Theory,” International Politics 53, no. 4 (2016): 449.
56 Snyder, “One World,” 55; Jonathan Cristol, Realism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1. 57 COT, Notions of Security, 24; Hall, “Anti-Liberalism,” 49.
14 theories have in common is the conviction that liberalist approaches are fundamentally wrong.58 This reflects the difficulties of reconciling national sovereignty and interstate cooperation, as described in the theory on security approaches. As according to realist approaches all states are purely self-interested, the only form of inter-state cooperation is aimed at securing or strengthening the individual state’s security for survival.59 Realist theorists therefore reject the possibility and added value of a supranational or international authority, such as international institutions.60
Liberalism is generally perceived to be a typically Western approach to International Relations, and the variants focussing on the relevance of institutions are generally used as to explain the Western tendency to solve international concerns through multilateralism.61 In contrast to the realist approach, traditional liberalism diminishes the relevance of state interests. It rather stresses interstate cooperation as a means to reach common goals, of which the most important one is global peace.62 It argues that everyone is better off without war, and that war will only occur when states choose self-preservation and other national goals above the common goals.63 Important for liberalist theories are freedom of the individual, trust, and cooperation.64 In general, it sympathises with both individual and global approaches to security issues, but in most theories does require states to cooperate in achieving it.65 It can thus be argued that realist theories focus on power, whereas liberalist theories focus on ideals.66 The liberalist approach is therefore connected to non-military, cooperative perspectives on security. Security goals can be achieved, for example, through economic interdependence, because the common interest in prosperity will force countries to cooperate. Another example of liberalist cooperation is the spread of democracy, which some strains argue will lead to global peace base on the assumption that democratic countries will trust each other more than non-democratic countries.67 This will lead to less war as well as stronger cooperation in other fields. These examples show how liberalist theories can be used as the main explanation for attempts of achieving security through international and supranational cooperation. Two specifically relevant variants of liberalism are institutional liberalism and neoliberal institutionalism. Institutional liberalism encourages cooperation through institutions, in which several actors come together in order to solve problems regarding a common problem, or amplify ideas to reach a common goal.68 Neoliberal institutionalism is the only liberal variant that centralises the state, as it claims that international institutions should help to avoid selfish state behaviour – again, with the higher goal of establishing global peace.69
58 Hall, “Anti-Liberalism,” 43.
59 Kostagiannis, “Carr’s realism,” 832.
60 Arnold Wolfers, ""National Security" as an Ambiguous Symbol," Political Science Quarterly 67, no. 4 (1952): 481; Snyder,
“One World,” 56.
61 COT, Notions of Security, 30.
62 COT, Notions of Security, 27; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 23. 63 COT, Notions of Security, p.27.
64 COT, Notions of Security, p.28.
65 Narcisa Gales and Dumitrita Florea, “The issue of force use in international security system,” European Journal of Law and
Public Administration, no. 1 (2015): 15.
66 Hall, “Anti-Liberalism,” p.43.
67 Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 35.
68 Lore Unt, "International Relations and International Insolvency Cooperation; Liberalism, Institutionalism, and Transnational
Legal Dialogue," Law and Policy in International Business : The International Journal of Georgetown University Law Center, (1997), 1036; Guillaume Devin, Les Organisations Internationales, (Paris : Armand Colin. Coll. U, 2016), 15.
15 The constructivist approach is usually associated with ‘social constructivism’ within especially social sciences.70 It then generally entails the idea that “some things are produced (and in this way constructed) by social actions, i.e., by actions that we carry out by interacting with other people.”71 The approach within International Relations is based on a similar assumption. Constructivist theories in this field refer to a group of widely varying theories that focus on trends in normative and nonmaterial factors in global politics.72 They stress the role of identities, ideas, ideologies, emotional drivers, and persuasion as deciding actors in shaping a society, rather than a state.73 More than liberalism, constructivism rejects the influence of states on an international and global level. It claims that power is in the hands of groups of individuals and other non-state actors, and can be gained by convincing other groups of certain ideas.74 This theory became especially prominent after 9/11 and the Global War on Terror, as both the actual event and the subsequent ‘war’ can be quite easily interpreted in terms of emotions, cross-national identities, and ideologies.75 It is also often used as an explanation for the rather abrupt end of the Cold War: the Soviet Union simply became convinced of another idea, which triggered it to change.76 However, the use of constructivism is somewhat contentious, as the different theories, due to their non-rational basis, are generally more applicable to single events than to global trends.77 When focussing on international security issues, this causes constructivist theories to lead to an explanation rather than a solution, and makes them particularly difficult to use when studying international organisations.78 Constructivism interprets security and insecurity as social constructs, meaning different things in different contexts and subject to negotiate identities and values, which are therefore hardly institutionalisable in itself. 79 Moreover, constructivism in principle rejects the almost automatically generated power and authority that are crucial for the efficacy of international organisations.80 Therefore, the relevance of this theory for this research is minimal.
These different approaches show that liberalism is the most relevant framework for studying the functioning and use of international organisations. In general, three types of security cooperation amongst such organisations can be distinguished, which all have a multilateral nature.81 The idea of collective security stems from the neoliberal institutionalist theory, and entails states respond collectively to a collectively identified threat.82 They do so by using treaties, agreements, and sanctions if deemed necessary, while respecting the states sovereign rights.83 Two examples of collective security
70 COT, Notions of Security, 30.
71 Wolfgang Detel, “Social Constructivism,” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences 2, (2015). 72 COT, Notions of Security, 31; Martin Griffiths, International Relations Theory for the Twenty-First Century: an
Introduction, (London: Routledge, 2007), 58.
73 Paul J. Burton, "Culture and Constructivism in International Relations," The International History Review 32, no. 1 (2010):
90; COT, Notions of Security, 31; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 46.
74 Andrew A. G. Ross, “Coming in from the Cold: Constructivism and Emotions,” European Journal of International Relations
12, no. 2 (2006): 197; Snyder, “One World,” 56; COT, Notions of Security, 31; Griffiths, International Relations, 59.
75 Ross, “Constructivism and Emotions,” 212; Griffiths, International Relations, 58. 76 Ross, “Constructivism and Emotions,” 198; COT, Notions of Security, 31. 77 Ross, “Constructivism and Emotions,” 197; Griffiths, International Relations, 60. 78 COT, Notions of Security, 31.
79 Burton, “Culture and Constructivism,” 90.
80 Ted Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory,” International Security 23, no. 1 (1998): 180. 81 Dritëro, “Comprehensive Security,” 20; John Baylis and Yōko Iwama, Joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty : Deterrence,
Non-Proliferation and the American Alliance, (New York: Routledge, 2019), 12.
82 Alexander Orakhelashvili, Collective Security, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p.4. 83 Dritëro, “Comprehensive Security,” 20; Orakhelashvili, Collective Security, 5.
16 organisations are the UN and the Organization of American States. A second variant is the principle of collective defence. This entails a military alliance between states that committed to support each other in case of a military attack.84 The most well-known collective defence organisation is NATO. The least common variant is cooperative security, which developed parallel to the perception of global security threats after the Cold War, and has its roots in both institutional liberalism and neoliberal institutionalism.85 This is based on the principle that security is indivisible, resulting in an organisation in which the security concerns of one state or region are approached as a common security concern.86 It therefore usually focusses on a wider range of topics than other security organisations, and aims at making consensual policies based on shared values, rather than binding decisions.87 This approach can be seen in many NGOs, but the most relevant international organisation is the OSCE.88
2.1.2 Historical approaches to security
‘Security’ is an often contested term, of which the interpretation changed strongly over time. Amongst other things, the definition of security depends on the context it is studied in as well as on the people using it, such as academics, politicians, or corporations.89 This is partially due to the subjective approach of both actors and audiences, defined by the relevance and possible interests of defining it.90 For example, a software company might present a computer virus as a plausible and dangerous possibility in order to sell an antivirus, thus framing a certain threat to the ‘security’ of a computer user. When it comes to security policy, a distinction can often be made between objective and subjective security goals, such as the absence of a military war (objective) or the sense of safety in the streets of one’s home town (subjective).91 The success of a certain policy then depends on the value and the perception of the audience, which can also differ greatly. A relatable example in this context is the presence of large group of armed police officers in the streets; this might give some people the sense of safety and protection, as they know the police are present to protect them. On the other hand, it might give some people the sense of unsafety and insecurity, as the need for a large police presence implies an acute and dangerous threat that requires strong police response. This paragraph will discuss the main theoretical discourses on security, before discussing specific interpretations of the concept.
84 Sorin D. Ducaru, “The security of critical energy infrastructure in the age of multiple attack vectors: NATO’s multi-faceted
approach,” Europolity: Continuity and Change in European Governance 11, no. 1 (2017): 6; Oana-Cosmina Mihalache, “NATO’s ‘Out of Area’ Operations: A Two- Track Approach. the Normative Side of a Military Alliance,” Croatian
International Relations Review 23, no. 80 (2017): 234.
85 Dritëro, “Comprehensive Security,” 20; Rodger A. Payne, “Cooperative Security: Grand Strategy Meets Critical Theory?”
Millennium - Journal of International Studies 40, no. 3 (2012): 609; Nancy W. Gallagher, “Re-Thinking the Unthinkable: Arms
Control in the Twenty-First Century,” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 3-4 (2015): 492.
86 Guoliang Gu, “Redefine Cooperative Security, Not Preemption,” The Washington Quarterly 26, no. 2 (2003): 140; Payne,
“Cooperative Security,” 622.
87 Payne, “Cooperative Security,” 609. 88 Payne, “Cooperative Security,” 624.
89 Wolfers, “Ambigious Symbol,” 481; David A. Baldwin, "The Concept of Security," Review of International Studies 23, no. 1
(1997): 6; COT, Notions of Security, 6; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 1.
90 Barry Buzan, "New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-first Century," International Affairs 1944-1995 67, no. 3
(1991): 433.
17 The traditional approach to security is limited to terms of military power. The consciousness of the subject emerged in the 19th century and was strongly linked to nations and nationhood.92 In this perspective, the central goal of security is survival of the nation-state, and it is therefore strongly linked to the realist approach in International Relations.93 The main threat to this survival is military aggression by other nation-states, and therefore maximisation of military force is legitimised as a means of protection. Both threat and protection are thus approached in terms of military power abilities, and the interstate balance was a zero-sum.94 This idea was first challenged during the Interbellum, as democracy, international understanding, and arbitration were pushed forward as ways to promote security, rather than military force.95 There were attempts to further develop such ideologies in the form international law and institutions, for example with the establishment of the League of Nations in 1920, and its sub-organisation The Permanent Court of International Justice in 1922 – the predecessors of respectively the UN and of the current International Court of Justice in The Hague.96 Such initiatives unsuccessfully tried to reconcile the dominant strains of thought on state sovereignty with the notion of international organisations, which obstructed their general implementation for the time being.97 The Second World War was rather a confirmation of the failure of the League of Nations than an argument for stronger institutionalisation, as it disclosed the lack of legal foundations in a number of fields and further complicated the puzzle between state sovereignty and the responsibilities of organisations.98
Ideas on international security started changing under the influence of the Cold War, for which two complementary reasons can be given. The first was the possible presence of nuclear weapons.99 Whereas nation-states were able to translate their probability of threats into ‘levels of security’, the destructive power of nuclear weapons narrowed this down to either ‘secure’ or ‘not secure’. Second, the power of the nation-state itself lost its relevance in the global polarisation of ‘East’ and ‘West’, as many existing or former nation-states were unavoidably positioned in either category.100 The subsequently changing ideas on security led to three general security approaches. The ‘balance of powers’ approach focussed on the relationship between the number of actors and the stability of the system, implying that if the relationship is disturbed, stability c.q. security is disturbed as well. This approach thus implied all states were actors, though it recognised their different influence within the system.101 As the divergence between the two sides increased, the ‘balance of power’ slowly developed into the theory of a ‘bipolar world order’, which entailed the same but marked the United States and the Soviet Union as the only two
92 Iver B. Neumann, "Security, Ethnicity, Nationalism: Security, Ethnicity, Nationalism," Nations and Nationalism 24, no. 2
(2018): 13; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 6.
93 COT, Notions of Security, 7. 94 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 22. 95 COT, Notions of Security, 7.
96 Jan Klabbers, “The Life and Times of the Law of International Organizations,” Nordic Journal of International Law 70, no. 3
(2001): 291; Hugh Thirlway, The International Court of Justice, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 3.
97 Klabbers, “Life and Times,” 292; COT, Notions of Security, 7.
98 Jens Goβmann, “Die Statistik in den internationalen Organisationen seit dem Ende des zweiten Weltkrieges,” Statistische
Hefte 1, no. 1 (1960): 105; Klabbers, “Life and Times,” 299.
99 COT, Notions of Security, 9; David A. Ochmanek and Lowell Schwartz, The Challenge of Nuclear-Armed Regional
Adversaries, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp., 2008), 5.
100 John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International Security 15, no. 1 (1990):
7; Steven R. David, “Explaining Third World Alignment,” World Politics 43, no. 2 (1991): 234; COT, Notions of Security, 9; Ochmanek and Schwartz, Regional Adversaries, 3.
18 actors in the system. A sub-category of the bipolar world order theory is ‘deterrence’.102 The deterrence theory is based on the idea that actually neither party dared to effectively attack out of fear of retaliation, and it is often mentioned as the reasons that the Cold War did not erupt into military or especially nuclear violence.103 From 1950 onwards, ‘containment’ is a third approach which can be distinguished on basis of the US foreign policies. The US closely followed the Soviet manoeuvres in order to counter any type of encroachment “upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world”104, but possibly also because the US feared losing their dominant position in the global order.105 These three concepts clearly show a broadening view on security framework during the Cold War, as compared to the idea that it could only refer to nation-states.
After the end of the Cold War, and especially after ‘9/11’, the perspectives on the world order changed from bipolar ones into both multipolar and unipolar ones.106 A similar shift can be observed in discussions on security, in which globalisation as well as individualisation became major topics.107 On a global level, the emergence of cross-national structures of state and non-state actors in post-Cold War globalisation is relevant. As mentioned above, this process formed worldwide networks at all levels which are crucial for understanding modern security and threat perception.108 It enabled the determination of new ‘global threats’, such non-state actors themselves in the context of international organised crime or terrorism, or threats to the environment.109 This has also led to new perspective on war, which is distinguishable from old warfare in terms of goals, financing, and methods.110 On an individual level, security was approached as an everyday factor “for real people in real places”111, in which threats can range from any physical or mental type of ‘danger’ or ‘oppression’, such as hunger, diseases, or threats to identity.112 According to this perspective, the concept of security relatable to a certain threat is not limited to either level. Cyber security, for example, can affect national and international state structures or businesses, as well as individuals. Likewise, a hack or cyber-attack can be conducted by an individual as well as an organised, national or international organised crime group.
2.1.3 Definitions of Security
Although the above-mentioned security approaches can be a useful tool to understand the background of security discussions, they do not define exactly what ‘security’ entails. As mentioned above, this is
102 Baylis and Iwama, Non-proliferation Treaty, 8.
103 Giles Scott-Smith, "Interdoc and West European Psychological Warfare: The American Connection," Intelligence and
National Security 26, no. 2-3 (2011): 356.
104 COT, Notions of Security, 10.
105 COT, Notions of Security, 10; Baylis and Iwama, Non-proliferation Treaty, 10.
106 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 9; COT, Notions of Security, 14; Dritëro, “Comprehensive Security,” 22.
107 Matt McDonald, "Human Security and the Construction of Security." Global Society 16, no. 3 (2002): 277; COT, Notions of
Security, 14; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 7.
108 Elke Krahmann, "Security Governance and Networks: New Theoretical Perspectives in Transatlantic Security," Cambridge
Review of International Affairs 18, no. 1 (2005): 15; Jan Terpstra, “Models of Local Security Networks: On the Diversity of
Local Security Networks in The Netherlands,” Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal 7, no 4 (2005): 37.
109 Karen T. Liftin, "Constructing Environmental Security and Ecological Interdependence," Global Governance: A Review of
Multilateralism and International Organizations 5, no. 3 (1999): 359; COT, Notions of Security, 60.
110 COT, Notions of Security, 15.
111 João Nunes, "Reclaiming the Political: Emancipation and Critique in Security Studies," Security Dialogue 43, no. 4 (2012):
351.
19 strongly depended on factors like the context, the people using it, and its purposes. In line with the traditional approach, the first definition was based on the absence of military threat to a nation-state, but this has long been rejected because of the limits to its use.113 First, the Cold War forced scholars to question both the military grounds of the concept and the state as the main referent object.114 This laid the foundation for the many discussions in the 1990s on the definition and uses of security, opening up the spectrum for subject like ‘environmental security’ and ‘human rights’.115 This broadening (concerned with the source of threats) and deepening (concerned with the referent objects) of security have substantially added to the diversity in definitions of the concept. This paragraph will outline the most significant ones.
Some of the newer interpretations simply try to redefine the traditional concept, by questioning either the source of threats or the referent object. Nye (1974) was one of the first scholars to acknowledge the decreasing relevance of the state related to growing interdependence in shared economies, which he argued simultaneously created interstate dependence in terms of security.116 The shared economies created a common objective (economic stability) that required security, which was non-zero-sum and forced states to cooperate. Therefore, Nye argues that “collective security is based on a common concern and the belief that insecurity leads to conflict”.117 Ullman (1983) especially opposed the idea that military force would lead to security. According to him, the emphasis on military security conveys a false image of reality, which could eventually only lead to a diminishment of security in general.118 He argued that the security provided by the state is a trade-off shaped by the government of that state, as military security can only be achieved at the expense of other security goals. Therefore military security is only an aspect of state security. Ullman suggests approaching security as a consequence of overall security, including other issues such as population growth and resource scarcity.119
There are a few examples of scholars who tried to define a more generally applicable definition, of which Wolfers and Buzan were the most influential. In 1952, Wolfers recognised that ‘state security’ could mean different things in different contexts, and could be obtained by different means dependent on the its definition.120 Unlike Nye and Ullman, Wolfers did not reject the idea that military security can equal state security, but rather argued it is replaceable with other non-military ‘interests’, defined by values.121 This means that his main objective was still general state security, but both the threats to security and the definition of security itself could be defined in non-military concepts, and are both strongly dependent on the user. His interpretation that security is “the absence of threats to acquired values”122 is still the most common one in the field of International Relations.123 Building on Wolfers, Buzan (1991)
113 COT, Notions of Security, 9.
114 COT, Notions of Security, 9; Edward Lemon, "Critical Approaches to Security in Central Asia: An Introduction," Central
Asian Survey 37, no. 1 (2018): 1.
115 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 9; COT, Notions of Security, 20.
116 J. S. Nye, "Collective Economic Security," International Affairs 50, no. 4 (1974): 587. 117 Nye, “Economic Security,” 584.
118 Richard H. Ullman, "Redefining Security." International Security 8, no. 1 (1983): 131.
119 Ullman, “Redefining Security,” 133-153, Stuart Croft and Terry Terriff, Critical Reflections on Security and Change,
(London [etc.]: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000), 125.
120 Wolfers, “Ambigious Symbol,” 482. 121 Wolfers, “Ambigious Symbol,” 482. 122 Wolfers, “Ambigious Symbol,” 484.
20 tried to reshape the discussion by specifying the types of security that he argued would influence the new global order and international relations as the Second World dissolved.124 He distinguished five types: military, political, economic, environmental, and societal.125 The most ground-breaking aspect to Buzan’s division was the addition of ‘societal’, a frame referring to “all human collectives”126 that respond to a system, such as, but not necessarily, a state.127 Theories using this definition generally replace the state by a society as a referent object of security, which reflects the post-Cold War loss of state’s relevance due to globalisation.128
Baldwin (1997) was the first to recognise the difficulty of translating these definitions into other contexts, such as an effective policy. He argued that the term ‘security’ was being either misused or misinterpreted, as all definitions were narrowed down to explaining it by describing threats to security.129 In different fields, this had led to a security policy that is basically a policy for pursuing an objective, rather than a policy objective itself.130 This argument can be explained by the above-mentioned example of the software company selling an anti-virus programme; by framing a virus as a dangerous threat to the security of a computer or the user of the computer, the company is more likely to sell its programme. The goal of this framing of threats is not to ensure the security, but to sell a product. Translated to politics, the misuse of the term makes it vulnerable for legitimisation of political power.131 In terms of policy-making, it makes definition incomparable to other policy goals as it is not defined it a similar way. Baldwin therefore tried to define security as objectively as possible, arguing it is “a low probability of damage to acquired values”, which is comparable to other policy goals.132
Although Baldwin definition is the most generally applicable one thus far, it is still not entirely objective. Even if ‘acquired values’ are something that can be agreed upon, the probability of a threat to that acquired value itself is measured subjectively to a large extent. As mentioned above, a military war is an objective threat to many possible acquired values. If this threatens peace in the definition of the absence of a military war, which is also objective and can well be an acquired value, still the probability of such a war is in many cases undefinable and based on subjectivity. Although this is unmentioned in his work, Baldwin seemed have been aware of these difficulties, as he articulated a set of questions to define certain types of security. He distinguishes four questions which are particularly relevant when translating a certain type of security into a policy goal:
- What is meant by security?
- Whose security are we talking about? - What counts as a security issue?
124 Buzan, “Global Security,” 434. 125 Buzan, “Global Security,” 433. 126 Buzan, “Global Security,” 438.
127 Buzan, “Global Security,” 438; COT, Notions of Security, 40; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 3. 128 COT, Notions of Security, 34; Dritëro, “Comprehensive Security,” 23; Williams and McDonald, Security Studies, 3. 129 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 12.
130 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 12. 131 Balwdin, “Concept of Security,” 12. 132 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 17.
21 - How can security be achieved?
In regard to the OSCE, some of these questions can already be partially answered by the International Relations theories on the background of the OSCE. Coming from a liberalist viewpoint, the OSCE will most like interpret security as peace throughout its region, and try to achieve this goal through cooperative security. In the next chapter, Baldwin’s set of questions will be used as a framework to further define the concept of security used by the OSCE, and how this affects the organisation’s work and structure.
22
2.2 The OSCE’s security
2.2.1 The OSCE’s main aim: What is meant by security?
As mentioned above, the OSCE claims to use a “comprehensive concept of security”.133 Research on the OSCE’s mandates and projects shows that they indeed range over a wide variety of possible fields in which security can be achieved, and the OSCE itself argues:
“Security touches on many aspects of the way we live and are governed. The OSCE’s comprehensive view of security covers three ‘dimensions’: the politico-military; the economic and environmental; and the human.
The OSCE’s activities cover all three of these areas, from “hard” security issues such as conflict prevention to fostering economic development, ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources, and promoting the full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”134
However, this explanation does not explain the concept of ‘security’ itself according to the OSCE. In the brief discussion on security definitions in the last paragraph, Baldwin’s observation was mentioned that often security goals are confused with the security policies in order to achieve that goal.135 The wide range of security issues covered by the OSCE, divided into three dimensions, are not the goal in itself. They are merely a way to achieve a goal. The OSCE’s conclusion that the concept of security itself as used by the organisation is comprehensive, is thus incorrect. Rather, the range of security issues as identified by the OSCE is comprehensive. Therefore, the division in the three dimensions and its implications will be covered in paragraph 2.2.3 What counts as a security issue?.
More important for understanding the OSCE’s interpretation of security is the organisation’s main mandate, which is referred to by the organisation as the ‘conflict cycle’.136 As mentioned in the introduction, this is defined as conflict prediction and early warning, conflict prevention in its different forms, conflict resolution through crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation.137 The OSCE’s activities are indeed always aimed at one of the parts of this conflict cycle. Although the main tools to do so are the Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) and the field operations, the Permanent Council discusses interstate conflicts at all levels, the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration is mandated to settle disputes, and the diplomatic efforts of the Secretary General support these activities.138 Especially the OSCE’s long-term projects are important for conflict prevention: the goal of democracy promotion is stability; the goal of arms control is eschewing war; the goal of establishing interethnic dialogue is mutual understanding.139
133 “What we do.”
134 “What we are,” What is the OSCE?, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, accessed April 5, 2019,
https://www.osce.org/whatistheosce.
135 Baldwin, “Concept of Security,” 12.
136 Jansky, “Past, Present,” 64; “Conflict Prevention and Resolution,” What we do, Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, accessed April 16, 2019, https://www.osce.org/conflict-prevention-and-resolution.
137 Kemp, “The OSCE,” 255; Raquel Freire, “Post-September 11 Agenda,” 191; The essence of the term ‘conflict’ is described
by Cooper (2003) as “essentially, an attempt to secure accommodation by force, intimidation, deceit, or other politically less reprehensible means. The opposite of conflict is avoidance of collision, that each party’s interest in its own orbit runs.” This will be the terminology used in this research.
138 Jansky, “Past, Present,” 63; Nünlist, “German Chairmanship,” 50. 139 Jawad, “OSCE in Georgia,” 612.
