NATO and the European System of Liberal-democratic Security Communities

This chapter shows how NATO’s own transformation in the post-Cold War period and the parallel redefinition of security have had an impact which has gone far beyond the borders of the organization. Shared values and norms of liberal-democracy have always been recognised as being crucial for the existence of the transatlantic security community, but the attention paid by NATO to such norms and the actual construction of a security concept and security-building practices around such a conviction is a result of the post-Cold War. This translated into three major tool of democracy promotion and socialization of NATO’s neiborhood: (i) a redefinition of NATO’s own identity in such a way that a clear message was delivered about the borders of what could be consided an appropriate political identity, (ii) the enlargement process and (ii) a thick communicative area at the core of which stay the pleora of activities of the Partnership for peace Programme. Through the PfP and the enlargement process, NATO has undertaken a large democratization enterprise that in some countries translated into some institutional adaptation, while in others has already produced a more profound socialization around some basic democratic norms such as the civilian control of foreign and defence policy.