Spontaneity or Deliberate Action: What is Behind the Emergence of Informal Transgovernmental Networks in International Security?

With a high degree of flexibility, rapid roll-out speed and low levels of political visibility, transgovernmental networks are of particular value to international security cooperation. Nonetheless, their spread and operation in the security sphere so far attracted considerably less scholarly attention than in many other areas of global governance. Even with the resurgence of interest in transgovernmentalism in the 1990s, after the subject was briefly overshadowed by the focus on security regimes and security studies, important gaps remain in understanding cooperation through transgovernmental relations in international security. The proposed paper will address one of such gaps - the question of emergence of informal transgovernmental networks outside intergovernmental agreements and international organisations, or what Anne-Marie Slaughter (2003) calls "spontaneous transgovernmental networks". Transgovernmental networks are overwhelmingly presented as spontaneous or organic. Spontaneity, however, is a problematic concept in the domain of international security, as, for example, demonstrated by research on security regimes (Krasner 1982) or more recently on allied cooperation (Henke 2019). This paper will question the applicability of the concept to informal security networks that emerge in support of security sector reform (SSR). SSR here has been chosen for two reasons. First, it is applied to a variety of contexts, whether developed, developing or post-conflict, thus allowing for a selection of cases with extreme factorial variation. Second, it attracts a plethora of actors, ranging from local NGOs and private firms to states and international organisations. By using the empirical data from SSR in Europe, North Africa and South America, the study will offer a new theoretical approach to the emergence of informal security networks, and hence make a contribution to a wider scholarly debate on the role of transgovernmental networks in the transformation of political orders.