Regions and Powers The Structure of International Security

Asserting that regional patterns of security are increasingly important in international politics, this study presents a detailed account of relations between global powers. It emphasizes their relationship with the regional security complexes which make up the contemporary international system. The book analyzes Africa, the Balkans, Eastern and Western Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, North America and South Asia, tracing the history of each region through the present.

This book develops the idea that since decolonisation, regional patterns of security have become more prominent in international politics. The authors combine an operational theory of regional security with an empirical application across the whole of the international system. Individual chapters cover Africa, the Balkans, CIS Europe, East Asia, EU Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and South Asia. The main focus is on the post-Cold War period, but the history of each regional security complex is traced back to its beginnings. By relating the regional dynamics of security to current debates about the global power structure, the authors unfold a distinctive interpretation of post-Cold War international security, avoiding both the extreme oversimplifications of the unipolar view, and the extreme deterritorialisations of many globalist visions of a new world disorder. Their framework brings out the radical diversity of security dynamics in different parts of the world.

Part I. Introduction: Developing a Regional Approach to Global Security: 1. Theories and histories about the structure of contemporary international security; 2. Levels: distinguishing the regional from the global; 3. Security complexes: a theory of regional security; Part II. Asia: 4. South Asia: inching towards internal and external transformation; 5. Northeast and southeast Asian security complexes during the Cold War; 6. The 1990s and beyond: an emergent east Asian complex; Conclusion; Part III. The Middle East and Africa: Introduction; 7. The Middle East: a perennial conflict formation; 8. Sub-saharan Africa: security dynamics in a setting of weak and failed states; Conclusions; Part IV. The Americas: 9. North America: the sole superpower and its surroundings; 10. South America: an under-conflictual anomaly?; Conclusion: scenarios for the RSCs of the Americas; Part V. The Europes: Introduction: 11. EU-Europe: the European Union and its 'near abroad'; 12. The Balkans and Turkey; 13. The post-Soviet space: a regional security complex around Russia; Conclusion: scenarios for the European supercomplex; Part VI. Conclusions: 14. Regions and powers: summing up and looking ahead; 15. Reflections on conceptualising international security.

Buzan and W'ver argue that in the post-Cold War world regional patterns of security are more important than ever before. Analysing regions throughout the world, this original and comprehensive 2003 study offers a distinctive interpretation of the nature of the 'new world security order' that has followed the Cold War.

Barry Buzan is Professor of International Relations at the LSE.
Ole Wæver is Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.