The unintended consequences of the Helsinki Final Act: A path emergence theory perspective

Abstract

This article examines the unintended consequences of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act − a political agreement among the 35 participating states in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The primary objective of this article is to explain the unintended consequences of the CSCE security regime in terms of path emergence. ‘Path emergence’ is presented as a conceptual apparatus to explain the emergent properties exhibited within a complex adaptive system. The path emergence theory highlights four explanatory metaphors: morphogenetic fields, self-organized criticality, social resonance, and co-evolution. These metaphors serve as conceptual linchpins for the case analysis of the unintended consequences of the CSCE security regime. This article suggests that the CSCE embedded within it the properties of path emergence, which in turn contributed to the end of the Cold War in Europe.