States and Institutional Relationships

Abstract

States normally provide for their own security. By doing so they can preserve their sovereignty and maximize their freedom of action. They do not have to place their trust in others to come to their assistance and they are not in fear of being let down in a crisis. But if states are unable to guarantee their own security, because the level of threat exceeds their strength, they may seek to join with others. This may remain an informal arrangement within a coalition or it may be formalized within an alliance (Riker, 1962). The results have the advantage of creating patterns of regularized behaviour and expectations of reciprocity amongst participating states (Haas, 1997). Liberal institutionalists argue that by choosing to invest responsibility for security activity in an institution, states become socialized into patterns of working together. They begin to develop norms and agreed ways of conducting their relationships. The bureaucracy that services the institution may evolve over time to assume a life of its own, and the institution itself may outgrow the role for which it was originally intended.