Conventional Arms Control Agreements in Europe: Conditions of Success and Failure

Abstract

Under what conditions are adversarial conventional arms control agreements (CAC) in Europe successful or unsuccessful? This study aims to identify the conjunctural causes of conventional arms control success in Europe from the end of World War One to the present based on a dataset of 22 cases. It applies a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to assess arms control success and failure resulting from four conditions: great power rivalry, national limitations, demilitarisation and delegation. Few studies have attempted to determine if CAC agreements in Europe have been successful and determine possible explanations for their outcome. This study’s results suggest that national limitations between great power rivals and the absence of delegation with great power rivalry are more likely to result in agreement failure. Delegation may be important for agreement success when great powers or buffer zones are involved. These findings offer insights for future CAC agreements in Europe.