TY - JOUR
T1 - The spread of security communities
T2 - Communities of practice, self-restraint, and NATO's post-cold war transformation
AU - Adler, Emanuel
PY - 2008/6
Y1 - 2008/6
N2 - This article invokes a combination of analytical and normative arguments that highlight the leading role of practices in explaining the expansion of security communities. The analytical argument is that collective meanings, on which peaceful change is based, cognitively evolve - i.e. they are established in individuals' expectations and dispositions and they are institutionalized in practice - because of communities of practice. By that we mean like-minded groups of practitioners who are bound, both informally and contextually, by a shared interest in learning and applying a common practice. The normative argument is that security communities rest in part on the sharing of rational and moral expectations and dispositions of self-restraint. This thesis is illustrated by the example of the successful expansion of security-community identities from a core of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states to Central and Eastern European countries during the 1990s, which was facilitated by a 'cooperative-security' community of practice that, emerging from the Helsinki Process, endowed NATO with the practices necessary for the spread of self-restraint.
AB - This article invokes a combination of analytical and normative arguments that highlight the leading role of practices in explaining the expansion of security communities. The analytical argument is that collective meanings, on which peaceful change is based, cognitively evolve - i.e. they are established in individuals' expectations and dispositions and they are institutionalized in practice - because of communities of practice. By that we mean like-minded groups of practitioners who are bound, both informally and contextually, by a shared interest in learning and applying a common practice. The normative argument is that security communities rest in part on the sharing of rational and moral expectations and dispositions of self-restraint. This thesis is illustrated by the example of the successful expansion of security-community identities from a core of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states to Central and Eastern European countries during the 1990s, which was facilitated by a 'cooperative-security' community of practice that, emerging from the Helsinki Process, endowed NATO with the practices necessary for the spread of self-restraint.
KW - Communities of practice
KW - Cooperative security
KW - NATO
KW - Security communities
KW - Self-restraint
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=43449118119&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1354066108089241
DO - 10.1177/1354066108089241
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AN - SCOPUS:43449118119
SN - 1354-0661
VL - 14
SP - 195
EP - 230
JO - European Journal of International Relations
JF - European Journal of International Relations
IS - 2
ER -