
Nested Security
Lessons in Conflict Management from the League of Nations and the European Union
Erin K. Jenne(Author)
Cornell University Press
Published on 2. November 2015
Book
Hardback
264 pages
978-0-8014-5390-8 (ISBN)
Description
Why does soft power conflict management meet with variable success over the course of a single mediation? In Nested Security, Erin K. Jenne asserts that international conflict management is almost never a straightforward case of success or failure. Instead, external mediators may reduce communal tensions at one point but utterly fail at another point, even if the incentives for conflict remain unchanged. Jenne explains this puzzle using a "nested security" model of conflict management, which holds that protracted ethnic or ideological conflicts are rarely internal affairs, but rather are embedded in wider regional and/or great power disputes. Internal conflict is nested within a regional environment, which in turn is nested in a global environment. Efforts to reduce conflict on the ground are therefore unlikely to succeed without first containing or resolving inter-state or trans-state conflict processes.
Nested security is neither irreversible nor static: ethnic relations may easily go from nested security to nested insecurity when the regional or geopolitical structures that support them are destabilized through some exogenous pressure or shocks, including kin state intervention, transborder ethnic ties, refugee flows, or other factors related to regional conflict processes. Jenne argues that regional security regimes are ideally suited to the management of internal conflicts, because neighbors that have a strong incentive to work for stability provide critical hard-power backing to soft-power missions. Jenne tests her theory against two regional security regimes in Central and Eastern Europe: the interwar minorities regime under the League of Nations (German minorities in Central Europe, Hungarian minorities in the Carpathian Basin, and disputes over the Aland Islands, Memel, and Danzig), and the ad hoc security regime of the post-Cold War period (focusing on Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic States and Albanian minorities in Montenegro, Macedonia, and northern Kosovo).
Nested security is neither irreversible nor static: ethnic relations may easily go from nested security to nested insecurity when the regional or geopolitical structures that support them are destabilized through some exogenous pressure or shocks, including kin state intervention, transborder ethnic ties, refugee flows, or other factors related to regional conflict processes. Jenne argues that regional security regimes are ideally suited to the management of internal conflicts, because neighbors that have a strong incentive to work for stability provide critical hard-power backing to soft-power missions. Jenne tests her theory against two regional security regimes in Central and Eastern Europe: the interwar minorities regime under the League of Nations (German minorities in Central Europe, Hungarian minorities in the Carpathian Basin, and disputes over the Aland Islands, Memel, and Danzig), and the ad hoc security regime of the post-Cold War period (focusing on Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic States and Albanian minorities in Montenegro, Macedonia, and northern Kosovo).
Reviews / Votes
Erin Jenne makes an important contribution to the literature on conflict management. Jenne argues that in order for mediation of civil disputes to succeed, it is necessary to first address the wider conflict environment.... But as she herself acknowledges, external stability alone does not create peace. It is an important piece of the conflict management puzzle and she does well to remind scholars and policymakers alike that we cannot get so caught up in the trees that we miss the forest.- Jennifer De Maio (H-Net) Jenne (Central European Univ.) presents a comprehensive analysis of international conflict management under two European security systems: the League of Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).... highly recommended.
- K. M. Zaarour (CHOICE)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paper over boards
Illustrations
2 maps, 11 tables, 13 charts - 2 Maps
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8014-5390-8 (9780801453908)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Erin K. Jenne
Nested Security
Lessons in Conflict Management from the League of Nations and the European Union
E-Book
11/2015
Cornell University Press
€36.99
Available for download
Person
Erin K. Jenne is Professor of International Relations at the Central European University. She is the author of Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment, also from Cornell.
Content
Introduction1. The Promises and Pitfalls of Cooperative Conflict Management2. The Theory of Nested Security3. Preventive Diplomacy in Interwar Europe4. Induced Devolution in Interwar Europe5. Preventive Diplomacy in Post-Cold War Europe6. Induced Devolution in Post-Cold War Europe7. Nested Security beyond EuropeGreat Powers and Cooperative Conflict Management