This book seeks to understand the role of regions in the provision of security (and insecurity) practices across the globe. Specialists with expertise in the regions they examine present eight case studies and analyses of the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, South and East Asia, and Europe. Discussing both The State and people in the context of security, this book examines four categories; inter-state security, transnational criminal practices (the drugs trade, human trafficking migration), proliferation issues (both nuclear and non-nuclear), and issues of domestic/state collapse. The book uses an inclusive definition of security to include traditional and non-traditional conceptions, and incorporates the use of force and the threat of the use of force, as well as issues related to the integrity of peoples. The chapters weave theory and case studies to provide a rich description of a variety of regional governance forms; and, where applicable, the absence of them to move beyond regionalism to consider the key determining features of regional governance. Comparative Regional Security Governance will be of interest to students and scholars of international security, international relations and governance.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

Recent debates in security policy have highlighted trends towards fragmentation, informalisation and privatisation in the diverse field of security policy, with its increasingly transnational security risks. In this context, the concept of security governance has risen to prominence and has inspired much valuable research. Yet, there are not only very different conceptual understandings of security governance; there is also a lack of clarity regarding its empirical manifestations and normative connotations. After a decade of research, this book therefore puts security governance to the test and scrutinises its analytical and political pitfalls and potentials. It reviews the concept of security governance and identifies central conceptual, empirical and normative challenges that need to be addressed. Moreover, this book scrutinises critical examples of security governance from EU security policy as well as in a comparative regional perspective. Case studies include EU efforts to counter piracy off the coast of Somalia, combat terrorism inside European societies and protect critical infrastructures. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Security.

One of the apparent contradictions which has puzzled observers of East Asian politics is why, despite the region's considerable economic integration, economic governance institutions remain largely underdeveloped. This book stems from the observation that the study of actual forms of economic governance in Asia has been impeded by the dominance of a ‘regionalism’ problematique. Scholars have focused on the emergence – or not – of regional multilateral institutions, seeking to evaluate these institutions’ capacities to enforce disciplines on Asian states. However, they have also neglected prior, and more pertinent, questions regarding the causal determinants of regional economic governance, which animate the contributions to this collection: What factors shape the scale and instruments of economic governance in Asia; and how and why is economic governance being rescaled between the sub-national, national and regional levels? In the chapters of this book, the contributors explore the social and political struggles over the scale and instruments of economic governance. They identify and explain the emergence of a wide variety of regional modes of economic governance, explain the factors shaping the spatial scale of economic governance in Asia, and discern the patterns of regional integration to which they give rise. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs.

This volume explores the repercussions of a changing world order on regional security in Latin America. It examines how global and regional power shifts impact on the evolution of regional institutions as well as on state policies adopted in response to regional security challenges such as border conflicts, political instability, migration, drug-trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism. Contributions to this volume analyze the topic from three angles: power dynamics and its effects on regional security governance; the contribution of regional institutions to the management of security challenges; and the impact of power dynamics on states’ shifting security priorities. Written by specialists from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, the United States and Europe, the chapters weave theory and case studies to provide a rich description of the impact of power and politics on regional security in Latin America. This book is an invaluable resource for students, scholars and practitioners interested in Latin American politics, regional cooperation, and war and conflict studies, as well as international security and international relations in general.

This Oxford Handbook is the definitive volume on the state of international security and the academic field of security studies. It provides a tour of the most innovative and exciting news areas of research as well as major developments in established lines of inquiry. It presents a comprehensive portrait of an exciting field, with a distinctively forward-looking theme, focusing on the question: what does it mean to think about the future of international security? The key assumption underpinning this volume is that all scholarly claims about international security, both normative and positive, have implications for the future. By examining international security to extract implications for the future, the volume provides clarity about the real meaning and practical implications for those involved in this field. Yet, contributions to this volume are not exclusively forecasts or prognostications, and the volume reflects the fact that, within the field of security studies, there are diverse views on how to think about the future. Readers will find in this volume some of the most influential mainstream (positivist) voices in the field of international security as well as some of the best known scholars representing various branches of critical thinking about security. The topics covered in the Handbook range from conventional international security themes such as arms control, alliances and Great Power politics, to "new security" issues such as global health, the roles of non-state actors, cyber-security, and the power of visual representations in international security. The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations. The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smith of the University of Queensland and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by a distinguished pair of specialists in their respective fields. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of the original Reus-Smit and Snidal The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by a pair of scholars drawn from alternative perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions.

This book focuses on current key issues of international security from an actor-centered approach. The volume is divided into 3 sections: the first part analyses an array of security issues in Europe, the second one explores how those security issues play out in the Americas, and the third focuses on Africa. Each of the chapter authors outlines the relevant ideas, interests and institutions. The volume provides an overview of how global, regional, and national actors, differ in their management approaches, capacity levels, and how these differences translate into cross-regional cooperation on security issues.

The Handbook is divided into four sections which examine, in turn: the emergence, evolution, and forms of security governance, as well as the theoretical orientations that have so far dominated the literature (networks, multilateralism, regimes, and sy

This book aims to examine the conceptions and practices of security adopted by Regional Organisations (ROs) across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased focus on regions as a relevant realm for security, with actors within regional contexts identifying a significant degree of interdependency between one another. As a consequence, international security has taken on a distinct regionally institutionalised character, as seen by the increase in calls for greater utilisation of ‘Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements’ of the UN, in order to create a devolved UN-led system of global security management. However, the idea of a system of global security management is a remote prospect, because divergence seems to be as important as commonality in terms of regional security. In light of the above, Regional Organisations and Security analyses the primary ROs that are active in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, the Middle East and South America. The findings of individual case studies are compiled to highlight disparities and similarities in how security is seen, prioritised, understood, practised, managed and implemented across regions. On this basis, the authors reach conclusions about whether we live in an increasingly globalised or regionally distinct world, and go on to assess the prospects for a globalised system of security management and consider how this might be developed and organised. This book will be of interest to students of comparative regionalism, international organisations, international security and IR.

"Featuring a strikingly diverse and impressive team of authors, this is the most comprehensive textbook available for courses on international organizations and global governance. This book covers the history, theories, structure, activities and policies of both state-centred institutions, and non-state actors in global politics"--