Security regionalisms: lessons from around the world (original) (raw)
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Regional Security: Membership, Scope, or Mission?
After the years of World War II, it has been evident that security approaches have changed to ensure a protected state. We will look at those changes from global security approaches and those at regional level. There will be a discussion on difference in membership, scope and mission of individual approaches. This paper will conclude on which approach indicates the most effective measure and which approach heightens security. For the primary example of this paper, we will look at the impact of the UN to Africa and compare it to the African Union in terms of membership.
A REVIEW OF REGIONAL APPROACHES IN DEALING WITH SECURITY ISSUES
States have looked to their immediate and near neighbours as well as key external or regional powers as potential sources of threat or of protection. Therefore, rather than at the global or local level, the region is where most post-1945 success in achieving security arrangements has been experienced. The paper seeks to provide an assessment of the level of regionalism that has developed in the three regions of Europe, Asia Pacific and West Africa where regionalisation has developed the most, but importantly on different degrees. It uses Bjorn Hettne and Fredrik Soderbaum's 'New Regional Theory' to assess the level and direction of regionalism that has occurred in these regions since the end of the Second World War and in the post-Cold War era in the case of Europe and Asia Pacific. It is argued that the development of regionalism is dependent on the support of the regional great power(s); the extent of reciprocity that exists in the relations of the states in the region; and, the level of strategic reassurance that exists among these states. It concludes that Regionalisation has emerged in the three regions through similar processes. They all established precedents for cooperation in non-security issues first (ie the EU, ASEAN and ECOWAS) before extending cooperation to security issues (ie NATO, the ARF and the East Asian Summit, and ECOMOG). However, the degree of regionalism that has developed in each region is significantly different.
The UN and Regional Organizations in Global Security: Competing or Complementary Logics?
Global Governance, Volume 12, No 3 (Fall), pp. 227-232., 2006
What is the optimal relationship between global bodies and regional agencies in international security? This question has been intensively discussed at various junctures during the last century, including at the establishment of the United Nations in the 1940s. Today the debate between the UN and regional organizations has resurfaced⎯among policymakers as well as the research community⎯as one of the most important issues in the global security architecture, including reform of the UN Security Council. The long-standing prevailing view of the global-regional relationship in security matters has posited that a dominant UN would delegate tasks to subordinate regional institutions. With the rise of so-called new regionalism in recent decades, regional organizations have become actors in their own right. This complexity is not likely to decrease in the future. The greater agency of regional bodies needs to be recognized. It is more realistic to think of the relationship between multilateralism and regionalism in more horizontal and reciprocal terms, compared to the orthodox approach where regional agencies are subordinated to the UN Security Council.
Regionalism, Regional Security Cooperation, and the Contemporary World Order
THIRD CONCEPT, 2023
Regional security organizations have become increasingly significant after the Cold War. During the Cold War, regional security organizations developed to cooperate among small and weak nations. Gradually, it evolved into a tool to advance shared interests through pooled rather than ceded sovereignty. However, a resurgence of interest in regions, regionalism, and regional cooperation only appeared after 1990. Emerging patterns of regional security cooperation are witnessed in regions (sub-regions) ranging from Asia to Africa to Latin America. During this period, the world began to recognize and experience new security threats emanating from non-conventional (non-state) sources. The paper will examine the conceptual models of regional security collaboration while describing the region, regionalism, and regional cooperation. Most of the currently available literature looks at each regional grouping through the prism of political economy. So, the paper will present a viewpoint on security (multi-dimensional) as a way of fostering regional security cooperation between the states
Regional Security in a Global Perspective
in Ulf Engel and Joao Gomes Porto (eds.) Africa’s New Peace and Security Architecture: Promoting Norms, Institutionalizing Solutions, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 13-30., 2010
Regional Organizations and Security Governance: A Comparative Assessment of IGAD and ASEAN
The security functions of regional organizations have been greatly enhanced in the post-Cold War period, but they are determined by a host of external and internal factors. In this paper the security functions of two regional organizations, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), are examined from a comparative standpoint. It is amply demonstrated that the efforts of regional countries to pacify the conflict ridden Horn of Africa region through IGAD continue to be frustrated by long-standing practices of mutual intervention, shifting alliances, and an inability to develop shared norms regarding security governance. In contrast to IGAD and many other regional organizations in the developing world, ASEAN has a better track record in the maintenance of regional security in South East Asia. The key to the success of ASEAN in regional security governance lies in its development of norms proscribing mutual intervention and encouraging the use of quiet diplomacy in the resolution of disputes. It is hoped that this will furnish better understanding of both organizations and provide insights that will contribute to academic and policy debates on regionalism in the Third World. Keywords: regional security governance; Horn of Africa; IGAD; South East Asia; ASEAN; governance norms
Security Studies, 2008
This article seeks to contribute to debates about how regional arrangements construct and respond to threat agendas. It does so by using the literature on the concept of securitization to explore the processes through which the African Union (AU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have dealt with contemporary transnational challenges. After providing an overview of the Copenhagen School's (CS) understanding of securitization, we examine the main problems and limitations that emerge when attempting to apply the concept of securitization to regional arrangements in the developing world. The article explores in particular the extent to which the AU and ASEAN have securitized the transnational challenges on their agendas. We conclude that in both cases the impact of security culture as well as unresolved conceptual and methodological issues raise significant questions when seeking to apply securitization theory outside of Europe.
Regional Organizations and African Security: Moving the Debate Forward
African Security, vol 2, no 2-3:206-217. , 2009
This special volume addressed four issues concerning African Security (1) what are the advantages and disadvantages of African regional and sub-regional organizations vis-à-vis other security mechanisms, in particular UN peace operations?; (2) what are the official and unofficial reasons to intervene?; and (3) whose security is actually protected by the peace activities carried out by the regional organizations? The authors share some common conclusions. The relationship between regional agencies and multilateral agencies (including that between international and African organizations) is in flux, however in Africa the former are growing in importance. The reasons for intervening are often ambiguous, although likely to have both narrow national self interests and humanitarian catalysts. Less ambiguous, is the conclusion that Africa's regional and sub-regional security organizations have been more about “sovereign boosting” than about the “responsibility to protect.” Finally, by addressing the three questions above, we contribute to the larger debate in international relations and security studies on what we mean by security and how we define security Africa.