Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security

by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107385696
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/04/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in International Relations , #91
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Regions and Powers is a work that demands attention from both general IR theorists and regional specialists." Spencer D. Bakich, Virginia Quarterly Review

"The authors' earlier works in security studies are brought together and developed into an innovative and coherent regional security complex theory. The empirical sweep of the study is monumental. This book is a major re-think of the problem of security in the post-Cold War world and successfully challenges conventional and competing approaches." Kalevi J. Holsti, University of British Columbia

"This is the long-awaited follow-on book to Buzan's and Waever's initial statement of securitization.Regions and Powers develops a conceptual apparatus for an interpretation of all of the world's different regional security complexes. The book is heroic in its ambition and Herculean in its execution. A landmark study that displays a rare combination of cutting-edge theoretical sophistication with an insatiable appetite for data." Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University

"The domain of world society has for some time been a neglected dimension in English School theorizing. Barry Buzanas book has not only filled this gap, it has radically reconfigured the relationship between international system, international society and world society. The result is a formidable work of grand theory. At last we have a work in the English School which is analytically rigorous enough to meet the high standards set by the best recent American IR theory while at the same time remaining faithful to the richness of the original sociological institutionalism." Tim Dunne, University of Exeter

"This is the long-awaited follow-on book to Buzan's and Waever's initial statement of securitization.Regions and Powers develops a conceptual apparatus for an interpretation of all of the world's different regional security complexes. The book is heroic in its ambition and Herculean in its execution. A landmark study that displays a rare combination of cutting-edge theoretical sophistication with an insatiable appetite for data." Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University

"This is a book tht deserves to be widely read, and it is liekly to serve as an inspiration for many subsequent studies of regions." Political Science Quarterly

Editorial Reviews

"Regions and Powers is a work that demands attention from both general IR theorists and regional specialists." Spencer D. Bakich, Virginia Quarterly Review

"The authors' earlier works in security studies are brought together and developed into an innovative and coherent regional security complex theory. The empirical sweep of the study is monumental. This book is a major re-think of the problem of security in the post-Cold War world and successfully challenges conventional and competing approaches." Kalevi J. Holsti, University of British Columbia

"This is the long-awaited follow-on book to Buzan's and Waever's initial statement of securitization.Regions and Powers develops a conceptual apparatus for an interpretation of all of the world's different regional security complexes. The book is heroic in its ambition and Herculean in its execution. A landmark study that displays a rare combination of cutting-edge theoretical sophistication with an insatiable appetite for data." Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University

"The domain of world society has for some time been a neglected dimension in English School theorizing. Barry Buzanas book has not only filled this gap, it has radically reconfigured the relationship between international system, international society and world society. The result is a formidable work of grand theory. At last we have a work in the English School which is analytically rigorous enough to meet the high standards set by the best recent American IR theory while at the same time remaining faithful to the richness of the original sociological institutionalism." Tim Dunne, University of Exeter

"This is the long-awaited follow-on book to Buzan's and Waever's initial statement of securitization.Regions and Powers develops a conceptual apparatus for an interpretation of all of the world's different regional security complexes. The book is heroic in its ambition and Herculean in its execution. A landmark study that displays a rare combination of cutting-edge theoretical sophistication with an insatiable appetite for data." Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University

"This is a book tht deserves to be widely read, and it is liekly to serve as an inspiration for many subsequent studies of regions." Political Science Quarterly

From the Publisher