Individual Democratic Institutions Research Fellowships 1994-1996

The research reports reproduced here are the responsibility of the individual authors. Their reproduction does not imply any form of official or unofficial endorsement by NATO. The reports are offered in unedited form, as presented by their authors, with a view to make their findings available to a wide audience. Ukraine And European Security - International Mechanisms As Non-Military Options For National Security Of Ukraine. Bohdan Lupiy [Back to Index] Chapter 3. "Gradual" Approach Section 1. Ukraine's policies on the level of sub-regional cooperation. 1.1 Theoretical Background: Integration A state security in today's world consolidates if becomes a part of a collective security system and common actions to maintain the regional stability may be provided only by international organizations.(146) With this idea in mind, Ukrainian leaders always regarded Ukraine's security as a subsequent element of the world collective security.(147) When entering the international community in 1991-1992, Ukraine however has found it difficult to consolidate with Western security sphere. Like many Eastern European states, on initial stages Ukraine intended foremost to become the member of NATO. That aspirations to joint the alliance were soon lost their actuality and forced Ukraine to look for another means of streightening its security. Ukrainian leaders were appeared to consider the options of close cooperation with their neighbours, as a transitional phase in the process of eventual integration into Western European security establishments. Following that way, Ukraine has found itself only with two options - with Eurasian and Central European. Before discussing these two prospects for Ukraine's foreign and security policies in "gradual" measurement, it seems to be practical to outline main existing trends in the theory of international integration. The postwar evolution of European political, economic and social consolidation, which presently seems to be the best achievement of the democratic Western policies, was established and cultivated by the growth of theories of integration in Political Science. In general, the concept of integration was defined by majority of Western theoreticians as a process towards or an end product of political unification among separate national units. And whether a process or an end product, the integration among the states should be originally voluntary and should be realized through peaceful political unification.(148) There are different models of and approaches to international integration. Earns Haas defines integration as a process "whereby political actors in several distinct national setting are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations, and political activities toward a new center, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the preexisting national states."(149) Another theoretician, Karl Deutsch suggests that "integration is a matter of fact, not of time "(150) and the main factor which runs the integrative trends among the states is communication. Deutsch's hypothesis (Communicative approach) of integration is based upon the determinant, that the building of political unit largely depends upon the flow of communication within the unit, as well as between the unit and outside world, Through this, the process of integration is made largely through the flow of international transactions, such as trade, immigration, exchange of massages and ideas, etc. According to Deutch people have complementary habits of communication, and communication among them can produce either friendship or hostility depending on, more or less, favourable emotions. People become integrated as they become interdependent, and interdependency among nations is lower than within nations.(151) With regard to the inter-state security system, Deutsch identifies two viable kinds of security community - amalgamated and pluralistic. The former one, is when previously independent political units have formed a single unit with a common government; and the later - when separate governments retain legal independence. Both models of security community are characterized by absence of inter-community wars and both models require common intentions of member-states to coopereate.(152) The other school of thought is Neofunctionalism. In his neofunctionalist theory of integration, Earnst Haas examines integration as both - a process and an outcome. Neofunctionalists emphasize cooperative decision-making processes and elite attitudes in order to assess the progress toward integration. Neofunctionalism contains a formal objective - a European federation; central institutions with supernational authority are to provide the mechanism for achieving this; the process of integration is to begin with the economic sector and is dependent on interest group involvement.(153) Hass assumes that integration is not initially dependent on mass support; such support would, over time, become associated with its development. He suggests, that integration proceeds as a result of the work of relevant elites in the governmental and private sectors, who support integration for essentially pragmatic rather than altruistic reasons. Haas argued that successful integration is dependent on the idea of 'spillover' what in Mitrany's theory [of classic Functionalism] is a doctrine of 'ramification' (development of collaboration in technical field)"(154). Thus, there was an 'expansive logic' of integration that contributed to 'spillover' from one sector to another.(155) Finally, another political scholar, Joseph Nye uses the approach of Elite Socialization, or situation, when national bureaucrats are wary of integration because of the possible loss of the control over their nations; the socialization of elites, especially bureaucratic groups, may serve in favour of regional integration.(156) Being various in approach, each of integration's models shows a multi-dimensional phenomenon of this process, which influences all sectors in internal structure of the states, participating in integration - or to put it in short - the integration in one sector affects the achievement of integration in the others.