Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:05:39.193Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining the emergence of great power concerts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Benjamin Miller
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The purpose of this article is to provide a theoretical analysis of the conditions affecting the emergence of a great power concert, in order to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon. In contrast to some recent important theoretical works which underline the role of various systemic factors in the formation of a concert, I will argue that it is unit-level factors that make the difference with regard to great power concerts. The article will also provide historical illustrations for the influence of the explanatory factors on the emergence or non-emergence of concerts. The only historical case of a great power concert to date is the nineteenth-century European Concert. Comparisons will be made between this period and the Cold War, when a great power concert manifestly did not take place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 327 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Jervis, Robert, ‘From Balance of Power to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation’, World Politics, 38 (1985), pp. 58–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Weber, Steve, ‘Realism, Detente, and Nuclear Weapons’, International Organization, 44 (1990), pp. 55–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Schroeder, Paul, ‘The 19th-century International System: Changes in the Structure’, World Politics, 34 (1986), pp. 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mandelbaum, Michael, The Fate of Nations (New York, 1988), ch. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 This argument draws on the model presented in Benjamin Miller, , ‘Explaining Great Power Cooperation in Conflict Management’, World Politics, 45 (1992), pp. 1–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This model advances general linkages between types of great power cooperation in conflict management and levels of causal variables, more specifically, contrasting the linkage between systemic factors and crisis management with the linkage between unit-level elements and cooperation in conflict resolution. Here I shall focus on developing and refining the relations between the unit level and great power concerts. I use the neo-realist methodological distinction between system (polarity) and state (or unit) levels; see Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, 1979)Google Scholar. Yet, neither the independent nor the dependent variables in the present study correspond substantively to neo-realist analysis. On the side of the independent variables, I underline the unit level rather than the system level. In fact, polarity will be shown to be irrelevant to the formation of great power concerts. My dependent variable—great power concerts—is seen by neo-realism, at best, as a sharp deviation from the dominant type of great power behaviour—competing and balancing each other, and thus it has largely been outside of the neo-realist research programme. Hence, the substantive analysis will rely heavily on non-neo-realist authors (some of whom might be called neo-liberal), whose concept of the system includes factors such as shared norms and common values. Yet, the conceptualization of these factors as either systemic or unit-level is more a matter of classification than substance. I find the neo-realist distinction between levels of analysis more useful because it clearly differentiates between power-related factors and normative-cognitive elements as alternative explanations of international outcomes. However categorized, the latter factors will constitute the main explanatory variables in this article. Moreover, shared norms and common values derive primarily from internal state attributes such as type of regime and ideology. Thus the unit-level factors are the independent variables, whereas the shared norms are the intervening variables in accounting for the formation of concerts.

3 Although the precise dates of the Concert are disputed, most scholars agree that the Concert lasted from the Congress of Vienna until the Crimean War, namely, in the period 1815–1854. See, for example, Craig, G. and George, A., Force and Statecraft (New York, 1983), pp. 28–36Google Scholar, Elrod, Richard, ‘The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International System’, World Politics, 28 (1976), p. 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Rosecrance, Richard N., Action and Reaction in World Politics: International Systems in Perspective (Boston, 1963), p. 117Google Scholar, and the references cited in Kupchan, C. and Kupchan, C., ‘Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe’, International Security, 16 (1991), p. 122, n23CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some scholars regard the Concert a s having lasted, to some extent, until 1914. See Albrecht-Carrie, Rene (ed.), The Concert of Europe, 1815–1914 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar, and Holbraad, Carsten (ed.), Super Powers and World Order (Canberra, 1971)Google Scholar. At any rate, the Concert became much weaker and less effective after 1854. See Holsti, K. J., ‘Governance without Government: Polyarchy in Nineteenth-Century European International Polities’, in Rosenau, J. N. and Czempiel, E. O. (eds.), Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar.

4 See, most notably, the recent work of Kupchan and Kupchan, ‘Concerts’.

5 Robert Keohane refers to institutions in the broad sense of ‘sets of practices and expectations’. See After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, 1984), p. 246Google Scholar. In the most widely accepted formulation regimes are defined as ‘sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations’. See Krasner, Stephen (ed.), International Regimes (Ithaca, 1983), p. 2Google Scholar. On a concert as a security regime, see Jervis, Robert, ‘Security Regimes’, in Krasner, (ed.), International RegimesGoogle Scholar, and Lauren, Paul, ‘Crisis Prevention in Nineteenth-Century Diplomacy’, in George, A. (ed.), Managing U.S.–Soviet Rivalry: Problems of Crisis Prevention (Boulder, 1983)Google Scholar. On the principles, norms, and rules of the European Concert, see also Hinsley, F. H., Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations between States (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 224–5Google Scholar, Schroeder, Paul, Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert (Ithaca, 1972), p. 405Google Scholar, Garrett, Stephen, ‘Nixonian Foreign Policy: a New Balance of Power—or a Revised Concert?’, Polity, 8 (1976), p. 391CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Elrod, , ‘The Concert of Europe’, pp. 163–165Google Scholar, and Clark, Ian, The Hierarchy of States: Reform and Resistance in the International Order (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 112–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 On such a limited conception of a concert as a ‘temporary political agreement between two or more states’, see Holbraad, (ed.), Super Powers and World Order, p. 11Google Scholar. Yet, the same factors that prevent the establishment of a concert may also constrain the more limited form of concerted diplomacy, as was the case with some recurring attempts at US-Soviet concerted diplomacy during the Cold War, most notably in the Middle East. See Miller, Benjamin, When Opponents Cooperate: Great Power Conflict and Collaboration in World Politics (Ann Arbor, forthcoming), ch. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 On detente and entente, see Craig and George, Force and Statecraft, ch. 17.

8 A concert as a mechanism of international order has to be differentiated from balancing on the one hand and from collective security on the other. For an elaboration of this distinction, see Miller, Benjamin, ‘A “New World Order”: From Balancing to Hegemony, Concert or Collective Security?’ International Interactions, 18 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Kupchan and Kupchan, ‘Concerts’.

9 For example, see the insightful works of Jervis, ‘From Balance of Power’, Weber, ‘Realism, Détente’, and Kupchan and Kupchan, ‘Concerts’.

10 The theoretical literature has also overlooked the distinction between two forms of affirmative collaboration: accommodative vs. coercive (which parallels the distinction between a concert and a condominium). This distinction is discussed in Miller, When Opponents, chs. 4, 6.

11 ‘From Balance of Power’, p. 59.

12 ‘Security Regimes’, p. 179.

13 ‘The Concert of Europe’, p. 168.

14 This is especially emphasized in the following writings on the Concert: Jervis, ‘From Balance of Power’, and ‘Security Regimes’, Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 224–5Google Scholar, Elrod, , ‘The Concert of Europe’, p. 168Google Scholar, and Kaplan, Morton, Towards Professionalism in International Theory (New York, 1979), pp. 39, 73, 86Google Scholar.

15 See the accounts of the Concert in Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Lauren, ‘Crisis Prevention’, Schroeder, ‘The Nineteenth Century’, Mandelbaum, The Fate of Nations, ch. 1, and Clark, The Hierarchy of States, ch. 6. These authors refer to both roles but stress the conceptualization of the Concert as joint management.

16 See Clark, , The Hierarchy of Stales, pp. 121, 126–7.Google Scholar

17 Bull, , The Anarchical Society, p. 225Google Scholar.

18 Bull, , The Anarchical Society, p. 227Google Scholar.

19 For a useful related conception, see Holbraad, (ed.), Super Powers and World Order, pp. 11–12Google Scholar. On the high frequency of joint consultation and collective decision making in the post-Napoleonic Concert of Europe, see Elrod, , ‘The Concert of Europe’, pp. 162–3Google Scholar, and Lauren, , ‘Crisis Prevention’, pp. 35–36Google Scholar. On the Concert’s conscious management of the balance of power, see Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 224Google Scholar, and Kaplan, , Towards Professionalism, pp. 39, 73, 86, 136Google Scholar. On its pacific resolution or at least amelioration of conflicts, see Lauren, , ‘Crisis Prevention’, pp. 40–42, 48–50Google Scholar, Craig, and George, , Force and Statecraft, pp. 31–32Google Scholar, and Clark, , The Hierarchy of States, p. 121Google Scholar. Schroeder (The Nineteenth-Century', p. 3) lists the Concert's diplomatic accomplishments in settling or ameliorating disputes.

20 See Waltz, Theory, and Jervis, Robert, ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics, 30 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 See Grieco, Joseph, ‘Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism’, International Organization, 42 (1988), pp. 498–500CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See Holbraad, (ed.), Super Powers and World Order, pp. 4–10Google Scholar.

23 See Waltz, Theory, and Walt, Stephen, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, 1987)Google Scholar.

24 See Waltz, , Theory, p. 126Google Scholar.

25 Waltz, Kenneth, ‘The Stability of a Bipolar World’, Daedalus, 93 (1964), pp. 881–909Google Scholar.

26 Waltz, , Theory, p. 175Google Scholar.

27 Snyder, Glenn and Diesing, Paul, Conflict Among Nations (Princeton, 1977), p. 446Google Scholar.

28 Jervis, , ‘From Balance of Power’, p. 69Google Scholar.

29 Waltz, , ‘The Stability’, pp. 882–83Google Scholar, and Theory, p. 171, and Snyder and Diesing, Conflict, esp. ch. 6.

30 Snyder, and Diesing, , Conflict, pp. 505–6Google Scholar.

31 ‘The Stability’, and Theory, ch. 8.

32 Waltz, , Theory, ch. 9.Google Scholar

33 Conflict, pp. 506–7.

34 For a survey of the game theory literature, including with respect to the effect of the number of players, see Oye, Kenneth, ‘Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies’, World Politics, 38 (1985), esp. pp. 18–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the argument that the more concentrated the distribution of capabilities within a group, the more likely that public goods will be provided, see Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, 1965), esp. chs. 1 and 2Google Scholar. See also Hardin, Russell, Collective Action (Baltimore, 1982), ch. 3Google Scholar.

35 Oye, , ‘Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy’, p. 4Google Scholar.

36 Gowa, Joanne, ‘Anarchy, Egoism, and Third Images: The Evolution of Cooperation and International Relations’, International Organization, 40 (1986), p. 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a similar conclusion based on an overview of the literature, see Mandelbaum, The Fate of Nations, Yet, for a divergent opinion, see Snidal, Duncan, ‘International Cooperation among Relative Gains Maximizers’, International Studies Quarterly, 35 (1991), pp. 387–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Theory, p. 195.

38 For a more elaborate analysis, see Miller, When Opponents, chs. 2, 4.

39 On this point, see Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 201–212Google Scholar, Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, pp. 61–62Google Scholar, Hoffmann, Stanley, The State of War: Essays on the Theory and Practice of International Politics (New York, 1965), p. 103Google Scholar, Albrecht-Carrie, (ed.), The Concert of Europe, pp. 10–11Google Scholar, and Holsti, K. J., Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648–1989 (Cambridge, 1991), ch. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 See Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 204Google Scholar.

41 See Hoffmann, , The State of War, p. 103Google Scholar.

42 See Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 201Google Scholar, and Craig, and George, , Force and Statecraft, p. 31Google Scholar.

43 See Hoffmann, , The Slate of War, pp. 105, 107Google Scholar.

44 See Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 204Google Scholar, and Nicholson, Harold, The Congress of Vienna (New York, 1946), p. 224Google Scholar.

45 Craig, and George, , Force and Statecraft, p. 32Google Scholar, and Mandelbaum, , The Fate of Nations, pp. 22–23Google Scholar.

46 See Kissinger, Henry, White House Years (Boston, 1979)Google Scholar, and Years of Upheaval (Boston, 1982)Google Scholar, Sestanovich, Stephen, ‘The Third World in Soviet Foreign Policy’, in Korbonski, and Fukuyama, (eds.), The Soviet Union in the Third World After 30 Years (Ithaca, 1987), p. 18Google Scholar; see also George, Alexander, ‘Domestic Constraints on Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Need for Policy Legitimacy’, in George, A.el al. (eds.), Change in the International System (Boulder, 1980)Google Scholar, and George, , Managing U.S.-Soviet Rivalry (Boulder, 1983), chs. 2 and 5Google Scholar.

47 See George, Managing U.S.–Soviet Rivalry, chs. 2, 5, and Simes, Dimitri K., ‘The Domestic Environment of Soviet Policy Making’, in Horelick, A. (ed.), U.S.–Soviet Relations: the Next Phase (Ithaca, 1986), pp. 154–5Google Scholar.

48 See Miller, When Opponents, ch. 6.

49 See Adomeit, Hannes, Soviet Risk-Taking and Crisis Behaviour: from Confrontation to Coexistence? Adelphi Paper 101 (London, 1973), p. 37Google Scholar.

50 See Kissinger, , Years of Upheaval, p. 275Google Scholar.

51 See Jonsson, Christer, Superpower: Comparing American and Soviet Foreign Policy (New York, 1984), pp. 24–25Google Scholar.

52 Calleo, David, Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York, 1987), p. 17Google Scholar.

53 See Kennedy, Paul M., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York, 1987), pp. 488–514Google Scholar, and especially Nye, Joseph, Bound to Lead (New York, 1990), pp. 115–30Google Scholar.

54 In contrast to the US, the Soviet Union, as the Russian Empire before it, has been surrounded historically by unfriendly nations, especially, although by no means exclusively, in Eastern and Central Europe. Since the late 1950s, the hostile environment has included Communist China and, since the late 1970s Islamic fundamentalism—the rising force in Southwest Asia. In its last years, however, the source of its vulnerability has turned inward: the sluggish performance of the Soviet economy and the threat of disintegration because of accelerating nationalist and ethnic tensions in the Soviet empire.

55 On Pax Britannica and Pax Americana, see Modelski, George, ‘The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20 (1978), pp. 214–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, for a recent useful critique which highlights the limits to hegemonic accounts of international politics, see Nye, Bound to Lead. Pax Britannica was relevant at most to the British empire and to international political economy (notably, the issue-area of trade), but not to Europe. Indeed, it was the Concert (rather than hegemonic leadership by Britain) which played the major role in conflict management in the post-Napoleonic era (see Holsti, , ‘Governance without Government’, pp. 33–35Google Scholar and below). Pax Americana, for its part, was constrained by the bipolar structure of the postwar era. See Nye, , Bound to Lead, pp. 87–95Google Scholar. Yet, it is true that both Britain and the US were relatively less inclined to take part in a multilateral cooperative framework of all the great powers.

56 See Miller, , When Opponents, ch. 6.Google Scholar

57 According to balance of power theory, such disappearance is likely to lead to the termination of the cooperation among previous allies.

58 On the concept ‘the image of the opponent’, see George, Alexander, ‘The “operational code”: a neglected approach to the study of political leaders and decision-making’, International Studies Quarterly, 13 (1969), pp. 190–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On such a positive image as a prerequisite for a concert, see Liska, George, ‘From Containment to Concert’, Foreign Policy, 62 (1986), pp. 3–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 See Kupchan and Kupchan, ‘Concerts’, and the sources they cite.

60 Deutsch, , The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes (New Haven, 1973), p. 374Google Scholar. On positive effects of shared values on cooperation, see Bull, The Anarchical Society, and Taylor, Michael, Community, Anarchy and Liberty (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 26–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 See especially the articles by Ruggie, Puchala and Hopkins and by Young in Krasner (ed.), International Regimes. A useful overview of different approaches to regimes is Haggard, S. and Simmons, B., ‘Theories of International Regimes’, International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 491–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Deutsch, Karlet al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, 1957), pp. 123–37Google Scholar.

63 The linkage between similarity and peacefulness is especially strong in the case of the relations among democracies or (’liberal’ regimes). But although liberal states tend to avoid the use of force among themselves, as Kant expected, they are frequently aggressive toward nonliberal regimes. See Doyle, Michael, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12 (1983), pp. 205–35Google Scholar, and ‘Liberalism and World Polities’, American Political Science Review, 80 (1986), pp. 1,151–69Google Scholar.

64 Bull, , The Anarchical Society, pp. 226–7Google Scholar.

65 Bull, H., ‘The Great Irresponsibles? The United States, the Soviet Union, and World Order’, International Journal, 35 (1980), pp. 439–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Osgood, Robert (ed.), Containment, Soviet Behaviour, and Grand Strategy (Berkeley, 1981), p. 4Google Scholar.

67 Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, p. 56Google Scholar. Ideological consensus as an explanation of the Concert's cooperation is advanced, among others, by Albrecht-Carrie, (ed.), The Concert of Europe, p. 6Google Scholar, Morgenthau, Hans, Politics Among Nations, 5th edn (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, pp. 55–59, 77, 79–80Google Scholar, Schroeder, , Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War, p. 404Google Scholar, and Kupchan and Kupchan, ‘Concerts’.

68 Garrett, Cf., ‘Nixonian Foreign Policy’, p. 400Google Scholar, Gulick, Edward, Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York, 1967), pp. 5–10Google Scholar, and Holbraad, C., Superpowers and International Conflict (London, 1979), p. 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Bull, , The Anarchical Society, pp. 115, 316–17Google Scholar, and Craig, and George, , Force and Statecraft, p. 165Google Scholar.

70 Morgenthau, (Politics Among Nations, pp. 250–1Google Scholar) cites Guizot, a former prime minister of France, who wrote in the mid nineteenth century: The professional diplomats form within the European community, a society of their own which lives by its own principles, customs, lights, and aspirations, and which amid differences and even conflicts between states, preserves a quiet and permanent unity of its own …’ For a similar point, see also Garrett, , ‘Nixonian Foreign Policy’, p. 406Google Scholar, and Jervis, , ‘Security Regimes’, pp. 183–4Google Scholar.

71 For similar points, see Kissinger, Henry, A World Restored (New York, 1964), pp. 1–6, 145–7Google Scholar, and Jervis, , ‘Security Regimes’, pp. 176–7Google Scholar. See also the rules of Kaplan, Morton in System and Process in International Politics (New York, 1957)Google Scholar. For a useful critique of Kissinger’s notion of ‘international legitimacy’ in the context of both the Concert and the post-1945 system, see Hoffmann, Stanley, Primacy or World Order (New York, 1980), pp. 37–40Google Scholar.

72 The classical analysis of legitimacy is Weber, Max, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Roth, G. and Wittich, C. (eds.), (Berkeley, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 212–16Google Scholar, which is criticized by Habermas, Jurgen, Legitimation Crisis (Boston, 1975)Google Scholar. I am drawing on the discussions of foreign policy legitimacy in George, , ‘Domestic Constraints on Regime Change’, p. 235Google Scholar, and of international legitimacy in JIkenberry, ohn and Kupchan, Charles A., ‘The Legitimation of Hegemonic Power’, in Rapkin, D. (ed.), World Leadership and Hegemony (Boulder, 1990)Google Scholar.

73 See, e.g., Kissinger, A World Restored, Hoffmann, , The State of War, p. 104Google Scholar, Hoffmann, , Primacy or World Order, p. 39Google Scholar, Craig, and George, , Force and Statecraft, p. 34Google Scholar, and Lauren, , ‘Crisis Prevention’, p. 33Google Scholar.

74 Hoffmann, Cf., Primacy or World Order, Bull, ‘The Great Irresponsibles?’, pp. 439–42Google Scholar, and Mandelbaum, , The Fate of Nations, pp. 29–31Google Scholar.

75 See George, ‘Domestic Constraints on Regime Change’, and Keal, Paul, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance (London, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 See Matheson, Neil, The ‘Rules of the Game’ of Superpower Military Intervention in the Third World 1975–1980 (Lanham, 1982), pp. 65–83Google Scholar, and Garthoff, Raymond, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, D.C., 1985)Google Scholar.

77 See Kupchan, and Kupchan, , ‘Concerts’, pp. 142–3, n81Google Scholar.

78 See Craig and George, Force and Statecraft.

79 On the tendency of monarchies t o respect the traditional legitimacy of fellow kingdoms, see Walt, , The Origins of Alliances, pp. 36–37Google Scholar. Kant predicted that ‘republican’ states would avoid the use of force against each other but not against nonrepublican regimes; see Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’, and ‘Liberalism and World Polities’. Moreover, democracies tend t o respect the sovereignty of other popularly elected governments and to settle differences with them through negotiations, as a reflection of their domestic norm of settling political disputes nonviolently.

80 See Walt, , The Origins of Alliances, pp. 35–37Google Scholar.

81 Kant according to Doyle, ‘Liberalism and World Polities’, p. 1,161Google Scholar.

82 See Hoffmann, , The State of War, p. 104Google Scholar, and Hoffmann, , ‘Will the Balance Balance at Home?’ Foreign Policy, no. 7 (1972), pp. 60–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mandelbaum, , The Fate of Nations, pp. 65–69Google Scholar.

83 See Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, p. 58Google Scholar, Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 226Google Scholar, and Albrecht-Carrie, (ed.), The Concert of Europe, p. 6Google Scholar.

84 See Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, pp. 58–59Google Scholar. For an elaborate analysis of the ideological differences among the Concert members with regard to interventions in Europe, see Miller, When Opponents, ch. 4.

85 See Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 220Google Scholar, Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, p. 56Google Scholar, and Schroeder, , Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War, p. 404Google Scholar.

86 On the effects of this memory, see Garrett, ‘Nixonian Foreign Policy’, Holbraad, , Superpowers and International Conflict, pp. 151–2Google Scholar, Jervis, ‘From Balance of Power’, Rosecrance, , Action and Reaction, pp. 59–60Google Scholar, and Hinsley, , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, ch. 9Google Scholar.

87 On this point, see, e.g. Elrod, , ‘The Concert of Europe’, p. 166Google Scholar, Garrett, , ‘Nixonian Foreign Policy’, pp. 415–20Google Scholar, Craig, and George, , Force and Statecraft, pp. 29–35Google Scholar, Lauren, , ‘Crisis Prevention’, pp. 46–50Google Scholar, and Schroeder, ‘The Nineteenth Century’.

88 This is because the disintegratio n of the Ottoman Empire might have brought about a scramble over the spoils, since the Near East affected the interests of all the great powers. Such a scramble would have threatened the existing balance of power and the international order, as agreed upon in the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and consciously maintained by subsequent international conferences. Thus, to avoid this, so long as the Concert was functioning effectively it maintained the integrity of the decaying Ottoman Empire through multilateral diplomacy and collective interventions. See, e.g., the above references and also Jervis, , ‘Security Regimes’, p. 186, n25Google Scholar. For a useful analysis of the Eastern Question, see Brown, Carl L., International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar. Brown also provides a useful bibliographical essay (pp. 280–329) and a detailed chronology (pp. 331–55) of this question.

89 See Holbraad, , Superpowers and International Conflict, pp. 142–3Google Scholar, Lauren, , ‘Crisis Prevention’, p. 57Google Scholar, and Jervis, , ‘From Balance of Power’, p. 65Google Scholar.

90 ‘From Balance of Power’, p. 66 (italics added). This kind of interdependence differs from the high interdependence of the superpowers in a bipolar world in their external security (see Miller, When Opponents, ch. 3).

91 Despite numerous differences, the growing concern of Western leaders in 1989–91 about the stability of Gorbachev’s regime also fostered a somewhat similar sense of interdependence: it was feared that Gorbachev’s fall from power would destabilize the Soviet Union and Eastern Europ e and therefore have adverse consequences for international stability (mass emigration, loss of control over nuclear weapons, spreading ethnic and civil wars, etc.). Hence, the West not only tried to avoid unilateral advantages but sought to be benign toward the Soviet government (i.e., financially and to support the integrity of the USSR) and especially toward Gorbachev personally. A similar process seems to be taking place towards Yeltsin in 1993–94 because of the fear that his fall might result in either chaos or a rise to power of the conservative-nationalist forces.

92 Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 196. The difference between the unstable power politics of the eighteenth century and the cooperative concert of the post-1815 era is most dramatically underlined in the work of the historian Schroeder (Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War, and ‘The Nineteenth Century’). He accounts for this difference by what he calls ‘systemic’ or ‘structural’ changes from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. However, rather than to structural changes, he refers, in fact, to changes in institutionalized arrangements (a great power concert, the separation between Europe and the colonial world, and small states as intermediary bodies in Europe). These institutions, in my view, constitute the intervening instead of independent variables. The formation of such cooperative arrangements, in turn, is explained by unit-level factors such as those highlighted here.

93 ‘From Balance of Power’.

94 See Miller, When Opponents, ch. 6.

95 For recent treatments of superpower diplomatic cooperation in various regional conflicts, see the detailed accounts in the following edited volumes dedicated to this subject: Kanet, R. and Kolodziej, E. (eds.), The Cold War as Cooperation (Baltimore, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Katz, Mark N. (ed.), Soviet-American Conflict Resolution in the Third World (Washington DC, 1991)Google Scholar, and Weiss, Thomas and Blight, James (eds.), The Suffering Grass: Superpowers and Regional Conflict in Southern Africa and the Caribbean (Boulder, CO, 1992)Google Scholar.

96 For an explanation of US-Soviet cooperation based on the emergence of nuclear MAD as a structural change, see Weber, ‘Realism, Detente’. At the same time, balance of power theory could suggest that the ‘concert’ of the late 1980s was only a reflection of Soviet weakness.

97 On the importance of Gorbachev’s more positive image of US intentions as compared to his predecessors, see Lebow, Ned and Stein, Janice, ‘Preventing War in the Middle East: When do Deterrence and Reassurance Work?’, in Spiegel, S. (ed.), Conflict Management in the Middle East (Boulder, 1992)Google Scholar, and Herrmann, Richard K., ‘Soviet Behaviour in Regional Conflicts: Old Questions, New Strategies, and Important Lessons’, World Politics, 44 (1992), pp. 462–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 On the cognitive side, the ‘new thinking ‘ in Soviet foreign policy expressed a fundamental change with regard to the willingness for high-level superpower cooperation in conflict resolution. On the ‘new thinking’, see Legvold, Robert, ‘War, Weapons, and Soviet Foreign Policy’, in Bialer, S. and Mandelbaum, M. (eds.), Gorbachev’s Russia and American Foreign Policy (Boulder, 1988), pp. 126–8Google Scholar, Breslauer, G., Soviet Strategy in the Middle East (Winchester, 1990), esp. pp. 293–4Google Scholar, Breslauer, and Tetlock, P., Learning in US and Soviet Foreign Policies (Boulder, 1991)Google Scholar, and Weiss, and Blight, , The Suffering Grass, pp. 158–61.Google Scholar For a Soviet perspective on the ‘new thinking’ in regional contexts, see Kremenyuk, Victor, ‘The Cold War as Cooperation: A Soviet Perspective’, in Kanet, and Kolodziej, (eds.), The Cold War as Cooperation.Google Scholar For a recent analysis which highlights the cooperative elements (rather than just unilateral disengagement and submission to US pressures) in the recent Soviet strategy towards conflict resolution in a number of regions, see Herrmann, ‘Soviet Behaviour in Regional Conflicts’. For a similar point with regard to the settlement in Southern Africa see, for example, Hampson, Fen, ‘Winding Down Strife in Southern Africa’, in Weiss, and Blight, (eds.), The Suffering Grass, p. 141Google Scholar.

99 For elaboration of the points made here, see Benjamin Miller, ‘International Systems and Regional Security: From Competition to Cooperation, Dominance or Disengagement?’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 1992, and When Opponents, ch. 6 and conclusions.

100 See Olson, The Logic of Collective Action.

101 See Miller, When Opponents, ch. 4.