The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics

This article can be found here.

November 25, 2009

Martha Finnemore’s main argument is that neither liberalist nor realist perspectives can provide adequate explanations for military intervention for humanitarian causes or preventative measures, since geostrategic and economic interests are not always involved. She adopts, instead, a constructionist’s standpoint. Shifts in intervention behavior reflect changes in norms regarding moral beliefs in military intervention, such as the definition of who is ‘human’, and thus deserving of humanitarian action. Classical liberals might promote the idea that intervention in nations with insignificant value economically may indicate a desire to spread democracy, but this still doesn’t explain humanitarian efforts. Interests cannot be assumed; rather, they must be interpreted for every unique situation. Norms determine interests, and interests are what determine action of the state, but norms do not directly affect action. Justifications, or reasons for action, are indicators of existing norms, as they are used to help explain feats of the state. Institutionalization of norms, by why which norms evolve when they become integrated into systems, also account for the progression of norms. Humanitarian intervention requires exclusive interest and identification in the peoples needing help. Eventually, humanitarian interests expanded to helping victims based on a new universal belief of humanity. I found it interesting, as Finnemore pointed out, that colonialism both began and ended as a humanitarian crusade to aid the ‘primitive’ peoples. There are conflicting views between ideas of state sovereignty and human rights, and which should be held to a higher standard. Today, it is not enough to intervene solely on the idea of humanitarianism, as it is viewed with suspicion. Unilateralism (action by one state) in intervention has been viewed as very expensive compared to multilateralism, which is known for making intervention measures more difficult since there is shared power. Intervention must be multilateral to be legitimate, since that is the only way for it to gain acceptance in the UN. Multilateralism of the 19th century was not driven by norms as it is today, but through the idea that one state acting alone would encourage adventurism, so in these times interventionism was marked by competitiveness and fear.