2
IITHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
II.1. Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT)
Regional security complex theory (RSCT) has been a distinctive contribution of the CopenhagenSchool of International Security Studies with Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver at its core. The definition of a regional security complex (RSC) that Buzan and Wæver formulated was
„
a set of units whose major processes of securitization, desecuritization, or both are so interlinked that their security problemscannot reasonably be analyzed or resolved apart from one another
‟.
1
The central idea is that substantialparts of the securitization and desecuritization processes in the international system will manifestthemselves in regional clusters. These clusters are both durable and distinct from global level processesof (de)securitization. Each level needs to be understood both in itself and in how it interplays with theother.
2
RSCs are defined by durable patterns of amity and enmity taking the form of sub-global,geographically coherent patterns of security interdependence. The particular character of a local RSCwill often be affected by historical factors such as long-standing enmities or the common culturalembrace of a civilizational area. Another component is the power relations, since power operates on aregional scale (the concept of a regional balance of power), in which powers that are not directly linkedto each other still take part in the same network of relations. Thus RSCs, like the international system of which they are substructures, can be analyzed in terms of polarity, ranging from unipolar, through bi-and tripolar, to multipolar.
3
There are four levels of analysis specified in RSCT that constitute the
security constellation
:
1)
domestically in the states of the region, particularly their domestically generated vulnerabilities;
2)
state-to-state relations;
3)
the re
gion‟s interaction with neighbor
ing regions; and
4)
the role of globalpowers in the region. RSCT asserts that the regional level will always be operative, and sometimesdominant. The
essential structure
of an RSC embodies four variables:
1)
boundary,
2)
anarchicstructure,
3)
polarity, and
4)
social construction. From its configuration at any given snapshot in timethere are thus three possible evolutions open to an RSC:
1)
maintenance of the status quo
,
2)
internal
1
Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver,
Liberalism and Security: The Contradictions of the Liberal Leviathan
, Copenhagen:COPRIWorking Paper 23, p.201
2
Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver,
Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security
(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2003) p.45
3
Ibid
. p.45-49
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