Behind closed doors: reassessing European participation in the Kosovo intervention through the case of Denmark
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The participation in military coalitions in the post-Cold War era has sparked an intense debate among realist bandwagon theory and liberal theories about the motivational drivers behind coalition partners' decision to join US-led interventions. Based on recently declassified material, this article reevaluates the dominant explanations, including those attempting to synthesise the explanations. Based on an in-depth case study of the Danish decision-making process, which is combined with a probing of the decision-making process in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Greece leading up to the NATO intervention in Kosovo, the article produces new knowledge about the balance between competing realist and liberal motivational drivers and their relations under shifting scope conditions. Utilising a combination of process tracing, Bayesian inference logics and historical methods, we find that liberal order motives clearly become secondary to realist bandwagon motives in the crucial phases of the central decision-making moments following an increase in US pressure on its NATO allies. The conclusions demonstrate that alliance concerns, coupled with fear of marginalisation and loss of alliance protection, played a much more vital role for coalition partners than previously recognised.
Source: European Security
Authors: Mikkel Runge Olesen, Rasmus Brun Pedersen
Institutions: Danish Institute for International Studies, Aarhus University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Aarhus Universitet
OpenAlex ID: W7155566965