Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security

by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver

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.

Genres: International Relations, Politics, Political Science, Academic, Nonfiction, History, Military Fiction

598 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (formerly Montague Burton Professor), and honorary professor at Copenhagen and Jilin Universities. In 1998 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written, co-authored or edited over twenty books, written or co-authored more than one hundred and thirty articles and chapters, and lectured, broadcast or presented papers in over twenty countries. Among his books are: People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (1983, revised 2nd edition 1991); The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (1993, with Charles Jones and Richard Little); Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1998, with Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde); International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (2000, with Richard Little); Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (2003, with Ole Wæver); From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (2004); The Evolution of International Security Studies (2009, with Lene Hansen) and Non-Western International Relations Theory (2010, co-edited with Amitav Acharya). Work in progress includes The Global Transformation: The 19th Century and the Making of Modern International Relations (2013, with George Lawson).

Reviews

[Mayim de Vries · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is still one of the most important books on international security.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the heart of this book is the Regional Security Complex Theory.

Briefly, and with substantial trivializations:

• Once upon a time, the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union was so worrisome, due to the very real threat of nuclear armageddon, that the only analysis of security that mattered was at the global scale. Even local conflicts could quickly turn into proxy wars of the superpowers, which was even more true of regional conflicts.

• During this time of darkness, some light was perceived. The very plausibility of military conflict was diminishing between a growing number of states. The European Community, North America, and Japan, appeared to have entered into peaceful relationships that realist theory claimed was more or less impossible.

• Some clever researchers in Copenhagen began to rethink some of this. One of them, Barry Buzan, wrote a book, People, States, And Fear: The National Security Problem In International Relations , which made the observations that:

» "Security" (or, more often, insecurity) could be thought of as an arrow pointing from one state to another which it considered an ally or enemy.

» States will tend to have these relationships much more often with states they are neighbors with.

» If you draw all these arrows on a map, they will form "patterns of amity and enmity", which in turn trace out regional "security complexes".

• To the surprise of many, that nasty cold war came to an end. That meant that the single remaining superpower had much less reason to meddle in the affairs of other states (hah!), since it no longer needed to fight proxy wars. And that meant that regional and local security issues suddenly became much more interesting.

• Working with another clever research from Copenhagen, Ole Wæver, the idea of those security complexes was refined to come in various flavors, from conflict formation through security regime to security community.

• After some criticism, they the refined their thinking about what those "arrows" might be, creating the much more sophisticated securitization theory in another book, Security: A New Framework for Analysis .

They then pulled together a lot of those threads, focusing on how those many securitizations create regional security complexes, which is what Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security is all about.

[Raj Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Disclaimer: This is a snapshot of my thoughts on this book after just reading it. This is not meant to serve as a summary of main/supporting points or a critique – only as some words on how I engaged with this book for the purposes of building a theoretical framework on strategy.]

-- Assigned Parts I-III; (skim chapters 14-15) for School of Advanced Air & Space Studies –

Buzan and Waever present their Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) which counters the argument based on globalization. These authors argue that after the Cold War, states shifted to what might be described as tacit regional power agreements. The international system, therefore, is not so much losing its boundaries due to globalization, but is in fact redefining its boundaries. Additionally, hegemonic power and effectiveness is filtered through regional boundaries, and therefore RSCT must be considered from a security perspective.

This argument seems to run alongside Dicken’s ideas on globalization, and are also complementary to Cox’s much more cynical perspective on globalization. I find RSCT very intriguing; however, I don’t believe that the regions are so easily identified. I tend to believe that regions shift depending on the subject, and that while some states may act together for some issues, they may shift “regions” for other issues. The challenge, therefore, would be for the US to determine how the regions take shape depending on the more important security questions.

This is an important resource for any IR student. I enjoyed the book, and I will likely draw from its ideas as I move forward in my studies.

[Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

ترجمه فاجعه است

[Mikkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile read on Regional Security Complex Theory.

In traditional IR theory the regional level is often not addressed. This book by Buzan and Waever rectifies this by proposing a theory of Regional Security Complexes and applies it to the World in an impressive analysis. Although, Buzan and Waever, builds on the social constructivist idea of "Securitization" by sector (military, political, societal, economic, environmental), the weight of the book is on Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) and application hereof. Buzan and Waever deftly relates to established IR theory in their presentation of the theory in chapters 1-3, and makes a convincing application in chapters 4-13. Some aspects of the book are dated (the book was published in 2003); yet, the theory and the application anticipates for example conflict potential in Ukraine and Crimea (416-419).

[Deden Alfathimy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buzan's cleverness to catch a realm between national security and the very-wide-scope international security. It provides a strong framework of analysis for regional security analysis. By influence of Copenhagen School, it combines neorealism theoretical perspective with social-constructivism on the framework. It also provide several example of regions being analyzed.

[Nanto]

Demi penghematan, baik uang dan tenaga, baca yang perlu saja: Bagian Konseptual sama Kasus Asia.