ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of World War II Karl Deutsch and his colleagues (1957) published a thorough study on the use of large-scale physical force, or rather the absence thereof, in political communities. The goal was to establish the conditions and processes required for the achievement of long-term or permanent peace within a region in order to identify “possible ways in which men someday might abolish war” (Deutsch et al. 1957: 3). The authors concentrated upon the formation of security communities–that is, political communities that have eliminated war and the expectation of war within their boundaries–in a number of historical cases. They then examined the application of the conditions they found to be relevant for the constitution of pluralistic security community to the case of the North Atlantic area.
