When security community meets balance of power: Overlapping regional mechanisms of security governance

Emanuel Adler, Patricia Greve

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract. By now arguments about the varieties of international order abound in International Relations. These disputes include arguments about the security mechanisms, institutions, and practices that sustain international orders, including balance of power and alliances, hegemony, security regimes based on regional or global institutions, public, private, and hybrid security networks, as well as different kinds of security communities. The way these orders coexist across time and space, however, has not been adequately theorised. In this article we seek to show (A) that, while analytically and normatively distinct, radically different orders, and in particular the security systems of governance on which they are based (such as balance of power and security community), often coexist or overlap in political discourse and practice. (B) We will attempt to demonstrate that the overlap of security governance systems may have important theoretical and empirical consequences: First, theoretically our argument sees ‘balance of power’ and ‘security community’ not only as analytically distinct structures of security orders, but focuses on them specifically as mechanisms based on a distinct mixture of practices. Second, this move opens up the possibility of a complex (perhaps, as John Ruggie called it, a ‘multiperspectival’) vision of regional security governance. Third, our argument may be able to inform new empirical research on the overlap of several security governance systems and the practices on which they are based.[…]

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGlobalising the Regional, Regionalising the Global
PublisherCambridge University Press
Pages59-84
Number of pages26
ISBN (Electronic)9781139087339
ISBN (Print)9780521759885
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2009
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© British International Studies Association 2009.

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