CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2008
| Author | Levkovska, Lidija |
|---|---|
| Title | The Limits of Rhetorical Entrapment: NATO Enlargement in Southeast Europe |
| Summary | NATO enlargement has been recognized as the most successful policy the Alliance has embarked on since the end of the Cold War. The enlargement has been subject to many theoretical explanations aiming to explain the driving force behind the decision to expand the Alliance and extend invitations to former adversaries. Rationalist and constructivists theories of international relations confirmed to be puzzled by NATO’s decision to pursue eastern enlargement. The following work employs the “rhetorical action” conceptual lens, which explains the enlargement puzzle for the first and the second round of NATO expansion. However, the third round of enlargement questions the relevance of the “rhetorical action” and places this theoretical framework in the same group of theories that fail to fully explain the enlargement policy of the Alliance. This thesis will first examine how the argumentative strategies employed by the proponents to enlarge to candidate countries at the 1997 Madrid Summit and the 2002 Prague Summit succeeded in persuading opponents of enlargement to uphold to their commitments. Secondly, this thesis shows how ‘rhetorical action’ failed to influence the enlargement decisions taken at the Bucharest Summit in 2008. The third round of enlargement and the outcome brings the debate back to rationalist conceptual lens where the rational preferences dominate accession decisions of the Alliance by placing the emphasis on preserving Alliance unity. In conclusion, this thesis argues that the rational calculations are in the center of NATO’s enlargement decision making policy. |
| Supervisor | Jenne Erin Kristin |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2008/levkovska_lidija.pdf |
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