From vicious to virtuous circle: Moralistic trust, diffuse reciprocity, and the American security commitment to Europe
| Author | Brian C. Rathbun |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066110391308 |
| Published date | 01 June 2012 |
| Date | 01 June 2012 |
Article
European Journal of
International Relations
18(2) 323–344
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066110391308
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JR
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Corresponding author:
Brian C. Rathbun, University of Southern California — School of International Relations, 3718 Trousdale
Parkway VKC330, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Email: brathbun@usc.edu
From vicious to virtuous
circle: Moralistic trust, diffuse
reciprocity, and the American
security commitment to
Europe
Brian C. Rathbun
University of Southern California, USA
Abstract
Constructivists maintain that a shared identity was crucial for explaining the creation
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the multilateral form that it took. I
challenge this view, arguing instead that the alliance was based on moralistic trust, the
belief that others will live up to their moral obligations. Moralistic trust facilitates the
initiation of cooperation, so that states can begin a virtuous circle of trust, collaboration,
and enhanced trust. It is also the foundation of the diffuse reciprocity inherent to
multilateralism. In two case studies of the domestic politics in the United States of
making a multilateral security commitment to Europe, the first being the League of
Nations, I demonstrate that identity was not a prominent consideration and did not
lead individuals to embrace multilateralism. This social-psychological account improves
upon constructivism and rationalism by offering a way to embed ideational variables
in studies of strategic interaction.
Keywords
constructivism, international organizations, NATO, psychology, reciprocity, trust
Introduction
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a special alliance. Formed 60 years
ago, it laid the foundation for security in post-war Western Europe, facilitating a rap-
prochement between France and Germany that counts among the most unexpected and
transformational developments in the history of great power relations. It has endured the
test of time, taking in 12 new members since the end of the Cold War. The treaty contains
324 European Journal of International Relations 18(2)
one of the most robust security guarantees of any alliance in history. NATO’s integrated
command comes close to constituting a supranational army.
For many, NATO is more than an alliance held together by shared security interests — it
is a community of democracies. The idea that NATO’s unique characteristics, indeed its
very existence, is owed to a shared identity based on Western values is one of the most
common theoretical claims made by constructivist scholars about the alliance (Deutsch,
1957; Hemmer and Katzenstein, 2002; Jackson, 2006; Patrick, 2009; Risse-Kappen,
1995). It is often associated with a particular account of post-World War II American
foreign policy, that after 1945 the United States broke free of its parochial isolationism
and magnanimously made the security commitment to Europe it had refused after World
War I. The United States was led to this point by the realization of a common identity
with the liberal democracies of Europe. Identity in these accounts implies a certain altru-
ism, a merging of selves. The United States made an asymmetric commitment to
European security that gave the Europeans a larger role than pure power would have led
us to expect, most evident in the multilateral security guarantee of Article V in which an
attack on one was an attack on all.
If democratic identity was the tie that brought the West together, it begs the question
of why it did not occur earlier. American President Woodrow Wilson’s idea of collective
security was largely considered through the lens of relations with the great powers of
Europe. Following World War I, there was a significant group of American politicians
who felt an affinity with America’s wartime allies, fellow civilized powers defined in
opposition to German barbarism. This was a contrast of autocracy and democracy. Yet
these same Americans, predominantly conservatives in the Republican Party, were not
willing to make a binding security commitment to Europe. They would only consider a
concert-like arrangement based on consultation that preserved America’s unilateral free-
dom of action. Identity mattered in a negative way. Traditional isolationists, who defined
the United States in opposition to Europe, would not even contemplate going that far.
Only Wilson and his Democratic Party allies were willing to consider multilateralism,
and they fe lt no bond with the Old World. In other words, those liberals most willing to
extend a multilateral security guarantee to Europe felt less of a sense of common identity
than conservatives who favored unilateralism. In the debate over the North Atlantic
Treaty, the same political factions, with the same preferences, largely re-emerged. Liberal
Democrats largely supported multilateralism, conservatives preferred unilateralism,
and isolationists objected to any association. Only a political compromise between the
parties allowed the United States to negotiate and sign the treaty.
If identity was not necessary for the creation of NATO, shared interest was necessary
but insufficient. Lake (1999) has correctly pointed out that the shared threat of the
Soviet Union was indeterminate. There were multiple ways of coping with this problem.
NATO required something else, and the League debate provides clues. American par-
ticipation in this multilateral arrangement was scuttled by fears of various types of
opportunism that are possible under multilateralism, such as entrapment in European
conflicts. These concerns were the expression of distrust, but of a particular sort.
Opponents of multilateralism objected to it because they argued that others were inher-
ently untrustworthy; they were immoral. Proponents of collective security believed
that others would largely comply with the obligations of the League because they were
generally trustworthy.
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