A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of European NATO Members’ Involvement in Afghan Operations
Keywords:
Afghanistan, European involvement in NATO, ISAF, NATO operations, qualitative comparative analysis, fsQCA
Abstract
This article seeks to explain the significant variation of the levels of European NATO member states’ contributions to Afghan combat and reconstruction operations. The first part presents the theories used in the study and six hypotheses, which are tested using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). This sophisticated method, which was introduced to the social sciences by Charles Ragin, uses a special software to find combinations of independent variables which may explain the dependent variable with a given probability. The findings are presented in the second part, followed by three short case studies of Greece, the Netherlands and Estonia which provide a further insight into the issue. The study concludes that the most plausible explanation of high level of involvement in Afghanistan is a conjunction of allegiance to the „new Europe“ and dependence on importation of russian gas.
Issue
Section
Research Articles
Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations publishes under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. Anyone is allowed to use, share, copy, distribute, or display the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. The journal allows others to copy, distribute and display only original copies of our publications.