Security Institutions as Agents of Socialization? NATO in the “New Europe”
Alexandra Gheciu
Affiliation
Alexandra Gheciu is Research Associate in International Relations (Leverhulme Programme on
the Changing Character of War) at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford
University, and Research Fellow in International Relations at Somerville College, Oxford
University. She can be reached at: alexandra.## email not listed ##.
Acknowledgments
For extremely helpful comments on previous incarnations of this article, I am grateful to the editors
of International Organization, two anonymous reviewers, Jeffrey Checkel, Michael Zuern, Alastair
Iain Johnston, Michael C. Williams, and all the participants in the IDNET workshops.
In recent years, the relationship between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
and the former communist countries of Europe has been the focus of numerous analyses in the field
of international relations. This article seeks to contribute to those analyses by arguing that,
following the end of the Cold War, NATO became systematically engaged in the projection of a
particular set of Western-based norms into Central and Eastern Europe. Conventional wisdom about
international security portrays NATO as a military alliance, irrelevant to processes of constructing
or reproducing domestic norms and institutions. Contrary to that view, I show that NATO played an
important role in the reconstitution of post-communist polities. The alliance relied especially on
mechanisms of teaching and persuasion in an effort to socialize Central and East European actors
into a particular, liberal-democratic vision of correct norms of governance.
NATO was especially heavily involved in the eastern projection of liberal-democratic norms
in the field of security. These include accountability and transparency in the formulation of defense
policies and budgets, the division of powers within the state in the area of security, government
oversight of the military through civilian defense ministries, and accountability for the armed
forces. In addition, NATO has sought to project into Central/East European countries Western-
defined liberal norms and rules of international behavior, in particular involving peaceful settlement
of disputes, multilateralism, and democracy and human rights promotion in the international arena.
This article examines the dynamics and implications of socialization conducted by NATO
between 1994---2000, in interactions with actors from the Czech Republic and Romania.
1
1994 marked the beginning of more systematic interactions between NATO and former communist states, particularly
through the establishment of the Partnership for Peace. The end point was chosen to cover the 1999 enlargement and the
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