Regional organizations and security governance

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The changing nature of threats in international relations has largely surpassed the capacity of individual states to efficiently perform their traditional task of providing security to their citizens. While globalization and the proliferation of non-state actors have stimulated economic growth and democratization worldwide, they have also set the conditions for pandemics and economic and financial crises and opened a window of opportunity for organized crime and international terrorism. The fall-out of these circumstances, together with the threats emanating from failed and failing states, and general difficulties in determining the origin and targets of threats, have affected the ability of single states to either meet or effectively deal with these threats. As a consequence, states have opted for greater regional or international security cooperation through either bilateral or multilateral means. The steady rise or remit expansion of international organizations provides ample evidence of such a shift in state behavior (Tavares 2010). However, in part due to difficulties encountered by the United Nations (UN) (e.g. veto power by individual states), global security governance has been more difficult to advance than regional security governance. But, despite the UN’s deficiencies as a global security provider, its role of encouraging, supporting and legitimating regional organizations in the provisions of security should not be underestimated (Thakur and Van Langenhove 2006: 235). Regional organizations have therefore taken on a more prominent role as regional security governance providers, but the degree to which they can actually deliver collectively remains also largely an empirical question.