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Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)

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In the great debate with Huntingtons `civilizations' thesis this book argues that the world is divided into `regions' and powers' With a sole superpower, the U.S and a series of Great powers(the EU, Japan, China etc...) and a number of regional powers(India etc...). This book explains that rather then simply seeing the world as a clash of civilization, rather each region can be carved up and explained and conflicts understood within the regional framework. While this approach works nice on paper, it also contains a few obvious problems. While it is true that most relations in Asia are regional and certainly don't extend into Africa and that the world has lost its bi-polar nature since the fall of the Soviets, it is also true that certain transnational movements such as Islam, do in fact extend beyond region. For instance, this book sees Afghanistan as an `insulator' keeping Asia(India) away from the middle east. So for this book the Pakistan-India conflict is simply a regional outgrowth of two regional powers. Realism would seem to agree. Yet the truth is that Pakistan fanned the flames of Islamic fundamentalism all across Asia and Turkey is once again dabbling in pan-Turkism in central Asia, even stretching to the Uigurs of China. These phenomenon's, not to mention the presence of Arab volunteers in Chechnya and Bosnia, seem to contract the thesis here. Nevertheless this book is a wonderful framework where regions such as Africa(sub Saharan) and South America(an underconflictual region) and be seen to have transformed themselves in the post-cold war world. A book of interest to anyone trying to understand international relations in the coming century.

Seth J. Frantzman

Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security complements a project that has begun with Barry Buzan's People, States and Fear and was later thoroughly reformulated with the help of Ole Waever in Security: New Framework for Analysis.
We are talking about the regional security complex theory (RSCT). This theory postulates that security of an actor cannot be analysed without taking in account the security milieu of that actor - in fact other actors. This leads to the importance of regional level of analysis. Another important feature is the process of securitization, which is in fact a defining threshold for threats. Aim of this book is to deepen the theory and to apply it on the empirical background of different regions.

- RSCT has universalistic ambitions and therefore neglects difference between actors, mainly states. Third world states percept threats quite often differently than modern states (see Ayoob).

- eventhough the theory conceptualy encompasses non-state actors, it is in fact heavily statecentric.

- RSCT cannot conceptualize network actors, because of their transnational or deterritorialized character.

+ RSCT is useful medium-range theory when it comes to modern states.

If you are particulary interested in the regional level of analysis, then this is your natural choice. Even that Buzan and Waever cannot fulfil what they were aiming to - the universal framework for conceptualization of security, it still can be useful.

Petr Zelinka,
Journal of Security Issues

This book outlines a theory which in the post-Cold War era builds upon Waltz's neorealism theory of International Relations. Using this theory as a lens to examine the world of International Relations will aid in one's understanding of the world we live in today. This is required reading for any one taking political science or IR at the graduate level.
A great book!!!