To what extent can international regimes change the nature of states’ interactions and provide a solution to intra-state wars?
Abstract
In this essay, I am arguing that the international regimes can cause a limited change to the nature of the states because of the state sovereignty and legitimacy. However, it is hard to distinguish the limit of the change of the traditional state by the influence of the international regimes. For example if a country wants to become a member of European Union or Schengen agreement has to meets the requirements of the organization. Usually if the country is not meeting the requirement, the organization is giving a deadline to the country to do some reforms and developments in the governance. The limit of the organization is that the state can decide to not follow their rules and simply to not become a member. According to Krasner’s definition, “ regime is more than set of rules presupposed a high level of institutionalization” (Saideman, S. and Zahar, Marie-Joelle, (2008) Intra-state Conflict, Governments and Security; Routledge). International regimes are globalized and interconnected. The international organizations are challenging the state sovereignty and have an impact on it in realms as security, economy, environment and culture. International organizations can be a solution for intra-state wars. Other solutions can be self-help, democratization, guarantor, the use of military forces to decrease the violence, elites, reducing all types of inequality etc.
Introduction
Globalization as a feature of international regimes is challenging the traditional governance and it is weakening it process. Countries are depending on each other and every little change in a particular country may lead to a worldwide transformation because of increasing globalization and high interconnectedness. The International regimes have effect on the policy decision-making and are monitoring the policy implementation. Each political theory has a different view about the effect of the international regimes. The Civil society concept and the international organizations such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profitable organizations (NPOs) are advocating human rights, explaining to people why voting is important and giving them more clear vision of the world. The international regimes regulate the world beyond state borders. The regimes can change the state sovereignty through international organization‘ s rules; can have influence to the state by civil society, NGOs, pressure groups etc. but cannot take decisions instead of the state governance or to run the policy-making process. If a state is a member of a certain organization (UN, NATO, EU etc.) the state has to face the participation requirements and to follow the rules of the organization. Each member has the same rights; equality in voting, rights to speak up, benefits etc. there is no separatism between the states (small, big, poor, rich countries). The state sovereignty cannot be changed, because there is no one that can take decisions but the governance. No one can forcibly make the government to reform the policy or do any other reformation (political, social, economy, environmental etc.). If the state disagrees to follow the rules of the organization it cannot become its member, but it’s a state decision to become or not a member of a certain organization.
The role of United Nations
Founded after the World War ІІ, The United Nations purpose is to prevent wars and to create a safe environment for the people. The main UN aims are world peace, minimizing poverty, human rights, freedom and solving environmental issues. Shortly, the UN has an impact on political, economic and environmental realms. Members of the UN have a sovereign equality and the right to vote whether is rich, poor, small or big country. All members must support, help the UN and follow the rules. One of the rules is to avoid using force, to keep a peaceful environment and to solve the differences through dialogs or other peaceful methods. The role of one of the principles organs – the UN Security Council is to keep the world peace and to solve international security issues. The Security Council has 15 members, 5 permanent and 10 other countries changing every two years. The five permanent countries, the Great Powers (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US) have veto power, which means, the decision can be taken if and only if all of the members agree; if even one of the five countries disagrees the decision is going to be blocked. The Great Powers decisions can change each member sovereignty trough changing the organization constitution or reforming the rules. The UN is constructed by sovereign states, so for example actions about fund agreement depend on the UN members, so they are controlling the agenda entirely.
The Global Civil Society and NGOs
The Global Civil society is a norm of the good, protection and a voice for the voiceless. The main contexts are personal autonomy, self-organization, globalization and global interconnectedness thus global civil society is more transnational rather than domestic. The Civil society is proclaiming human rights, moral, human’s development etc. They are supporting those which rights and voice are limited or do not have at all, because freedom is one of the main features of the society concept. The Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the non-profitable organizations (NPOs) are usually linked up with volunteering and charity. They are independent from the government and they rely on their own funds. The NGOs can work in every level–regional, national or international. Usually, the NGOs are private and that means they are always working for profit (opposite: governmental – working for the society good) but all these NGOs, NPOs, Civil society are Private but non profitable, so all of them are working for improving humans life, proclaiming human rights, moral valuables, integration, environmental and cultural issues.
The Intra –state wars solution
Before finding the right solutions of the intra-state wars, we have to be clear about the concept and how the intra-state war occurs. At first, we have to know the difference between the intra-state war and the inter-state war. The intra-state war is between citizens of one country, they can be different ethnic groups, to have dissimilar views about a certain issue etc. Usually, the conflict leads to violence between the state army and the non-state group or groups (terrorist organizations or rebels). The conflict is affecting only the country but it is possible to have international effect. Interstate war is a conflict between two or more states, which are using their national military forces against each other in an aggressive and violent way.
The intra-state wars occur in a particular state between their citizens. There are several reasons why intra-state wars occur. A reason can be different points of view about elections or how the state has to be run by the government. The reason can be related to occupying a part of the state by a particular group or trying to make a certain area independent. Also, it can be about political or governance reformation. It is possible intra-state war to occur between ethic and religion groups based on cultural, religion and economic differences. The Civil wars are long lasting and usually end up with a lot of deaths and used resources which is a benefit for the country producing weapons.
In 19th and 20 th century, the intra-state wars have been decreased because of the centralized governments. The Great Powers (UK, Habsburg Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia) have been involved in the conflicts by supporting the running government with the purpose to prevent violence escalation and to stop the war.
Every case of war has different actors, concepts, issues and respectively different. The common thing is that each government has to think about the security of the state citizens. That is important because that would prevent mass murders and radical violence between the groups which are involved in. One of the main government obligation is to provide a “ safe and secure environment” (Saideman, S. and Zahar, Marie-Joelle; (2008) Intra-state Conflict, Governments and Security; Routledge), to protect each group in the state and to decrease the violence to a minimum.
According to (Saideman, S. and Zahar, Marie-Joelle; (2008) Intra-state Conflict, Governments and Security; Routledge) the civil war can be resolved by the nationalist elites. The Elites can withdraw the mass attention to a less significant issue for the purpose of governmental faults or “ issues that politicians want to avoid”. Also, the elites can try to divide each group based on nationalism, religion, race etc. so their support would be limited and the government would have more power to control the citizens and their actions. Other solutions can be trying to reduce the inequality or to improve the global norms about the violence usage between humans. The violence must be minimized that would make negotiations easier. Other option is a third side – a state guarantor, which is not directly linked with the war to use force to convince both sides to agreement. Democratization is a solution, as well, because it is impossible a war to occur between two or more democratic states, thus it is impossible in one democratic state to occur a civil war.
Conclusion
International regimes can change the nature of states through international organization rules but limited because of the state sovereignty. International regimes can have impact on political, social, environmental, economy, cultural, technological realms. Each international organization has different level of influence to the state, different set of rules and requirements for participation. Thus when a country is joining an organization usually is doing reformations according to the particular organization set of rules and laws. They can have influence to the wars and to resolve the problem with them. In a civil war they can play the role of the third side (guarantor) and to use force to make agreement between the arguing sides. Democratization is other way to prevent wars because the democratic concept rejects the war as a method to resolve problems. Both democratic and liberal views collaborate by the idea of achieving agreement between belligerents by negotiations. Although the variety of wars solution wars still occurs, that means one thing – no solution is 100% effective, each case of war needs a careful consideration and precise actions.
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