Introduction: NATO as an Organization and Bureaucracy

Abstract

Like other international organizations (IOs), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become more complex since 1990. In the concise accounts that follow, this collection examines NATO’s bureaucracy and decision-making after the end of the Cold War, identifies changes therein, and evaluates their implications for the pursuit of external security and accompanying shifts in the locus of governance -alterations implying a transformation in national security politics. The book exposes the new functions and administrative capacities NATO has developed since 1990 and describes underlying processes. It is concerned with their implications for the provision of security, and it also develops initial arguments about the causes of this institutional change. The contributors address questions such as the following: 1)How did NATO as an organization and civil service change in the post-bipolar environment? Which administrative elements have evolved within the Alliance since 1990 — from scratch or as an evolution out of existing institutional schemes — in order to cope with new functions that the pact has taken on? And how have consensus-building, decision-shaping, and decision-making changed since?2)How can the power relationship between NATO’s international administration and members be characterized, as reflected in the Alliance’s structures? Has NATO norm-shaping abilities or a security identity of its own, and did its institutional autonomy increase? Is NATO’s military integration at present more constraining for its members than before 1990? Are there accompanying losses in national autonomy?