Regime Security and International Institutions: The Domestic Origins of the International Norms

Abstract

What types of characteristics do the diplomatic relationships of countries with unstable “regime security” exhibit? These are countries where the use of force is used to challenge the authority of the central government, for example, by means of revolution; civil war; or coup d' état. According to the existing literature, the argument that “when domestic governance within a country is unstable, that country's relationship with other countries will also be unstable” seems to dominate most research.
In contrast to these works, this paper aims to conceptualize the mechanism where countries choose to cooperate multilaterally and internationally, in order to heighten their own regime security. In particular, two types of international institutions which exist for the purpose of heightening domestic security will be introduced. The first type of institution, which is responsible for defining the concept of what a “domestic political regime” should be, seeks to actively impose sanctions on those countries which defy the concept. On the other hand, the second type of institution seeks to mutually recognize the legitimacy of its member countries' political regimes, regardless of the form that these regimes might take. In this way, the second type of institution can be described as being “negative” in nature. Examples of such institutions include Mercosur and ASEAN. This paper will demonstrate that the role of these institutions goes beyond stabilizing international relationships, but also extends into the realm of reinforcing regime security, which is the prior concern of its member countries.
Moreover, since the stance adopted by this paper is that “regime security and the international institutions are closely linked”, it will also add a fresh perspective to the existing literature on the evolution of the international norms. The evolution of the international norms refers to the change in the perspective of countries over time, when they choose to replace policies of mutual non-interference with new policies. Originally, such changes used to be interpreted as a “transition in the international norms”, or as “the waning of sovereignty”. However, this paper argues differently. Instead of seeing changes in the international regime as a “break” in the existing state of affairs, this paper proposes that the change from mutual non-interference to mutual cooperation is in fact a form of continuity in the international norm, borne out of the desire of countries to heighten their own regime security.