Embedded containment: Creation of the CoCom Regime, 1947-1954

This dissertation shows how CoCom (the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) was created as a stable international regime in the early post World War Two period. Since its creation in 1949, CoCom has been maintained by the Western Allies as their principal economic security regime. This dissertation argues that a nonhegemonic distribution of issue-specific power capabilities and the shared norms of containment embedded within the international order were, together with the advent of the Cold War crises, the causes of the creation of the CoCom regime.; The creation of CoCom is analyzed from the perspective of three relevant theories in the study of international regimes. Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) posits that the preponderance of material resources held by a hegemon (in this case the United States) is a necessary and sufficient condition of regime creation. Neoliberal institutionalism proposes causes of regime creation, maintenance and decline. Yet it remains an underspecified theory of regime creation. The third theory, norm-governed regime creation, focuses on norms as a shared social purpose that lends to the creation of regimes.; Neither HST nor neoliberal institutionalism readily explains the strong consensus by Western European governments over the norms, principles and policy objectives of the CoCom regime. Nonhegemonic issue-specific power capabilities, shared social purpose and international crisis had a significant impact on the Western Allies' efforts to coordinate their respective export control policies. The Western European governments' strong consensus about the social purpose of containment facilitated efforts at policy coordination by the United States to impede the flow of East-West strategic trade. Over time and after the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the shared social purpose of impeding the flow of strategic trade to the Soviet bloc became 'embedded' into international order.; The central question of this dissertation is: how was CoCom created as a stable international regime? Its methodological framework is based on a 'within-case, structured, focused', case study approach. CoCom is analyzed over the period 1947-1954. The concluding chapter offers a critical analysis of the norm-governed maintenance of the CoCom regime in the most recent period of 1989-1993.