chapter 32
...................................................................................................................................................INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY
INSTITUTIONS: RULES,
TOOLS, SCHOOLS, OR
FOOLS?
...................................................................................................................................................john s. duffield
1Introduction
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Just as international security is one of the central sub-Welds of international
politics, international security institutions (ISIs) constitute an important subset
of international institutions and political institutions more generally. Both despite
and because of that fact, however, any attempt to write a chapter on ISIs must
overcome two signiWcant hurdles. First, scholars have written very little about ISIs
per se. A thriving academic literature exists on the more general topic of inter-
national institutions. But with only a few exceptions (Jervis 1983 ;Mu ̈ller 1993 ;
DuYeld 1994 ; Wallander 1999 ; Haftendorn, Keohane, and Wallander 1999 ), theor-
etical writings on the subject either draw their examples primarily from other
realms, such as the international political economy (e.g. Keohane 1984 ) and
international environmental cooperation (e.g. Young 1999 ), or make no eVort to
distinguish among international institutions in diVerent issue areas.
One reason for this relative neglect may be that, as discussed more fully below,
security aVairs is the arena in which international institutions have been expected, on