Regional security: Demarcating theoretical and empirical borders

Rodrigo Tavares

doi:10.1108/S0195-6310(2010)0000027010

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Comparative Social Research

ISSN: 0195-6310
Series editor(s): Dr Fredrik Engelstad

Subject Area: Sociology and Public Policy

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Regional security: Demarcating theoretical and empirical borders

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Title:	Regional security: Demarcating theoretical and empirical borders
Author(s):	Rodrigo Tavares
Volume:	27 Editor(s): Kristian Berg Harpviken ISBN: 978-0-85724-101-6 eISBN: 978-0-85724-102-3
Citation:	Rodrigo Tavares (2010), Regional security: Demarcating theoretical and empirical borders, in Kristian Berg Harpviken (ed.) Troubled Regions and Failing States: The Clustering and Contagion of Armed Conflicts (Comparative Social Research, Volume 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.153-170
DOI:	10.1108/S0195-6310(2010)0000027010 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	The relevance of regional security has increased in the wake of decolonization and the end of the Cold War. In a globalized and intertwined world, security can no longer be conceived as having the state as its sole object or subject. Regional clusters of security have become a new paradigm in international relations, and a new wave of regionalist scholarship has arisen in response. However, although this body of work has devoted considerable attention to defining the elements that constitute each regional cluster, less attention has been given ascertaining how such clusters are formed. This exploratory chapter provides an extensive review of the relevant literature and draws two conclusions. First, it suggests that, as postulated by a large portion of the regional security literature, regions of security are a natural consequence of proximity, as threats travel more easily over short distances than over longer ones. Second, it extends that argument by arguing that security also clusters at the regional level when regions are targets of extra-regional threats (regions as objects), and when they gain ‘actorness’ and operate as agents of peace and security (regions as subjects).