Security community and security governance

Abstract

This chapter explores how different forms of inclusion and exclusion relate to a broader system of security relations in post-Cold War Europe. In so doing, it utilises the notion of ‘security community’, which has features deducible from its core characteristic of regulated peace. It considers these features as a form of ‘security governance’ at the international level. Governance of this type is evidenced by reference to the categories of region, institutionalisation and compliance. These categories help in delineating relations of governance within the security community itself and, equally, help to conceptualise the ‘fuzzy’ boundary between that community and its external environment. This chapter first discusses war and conflict in Europe after the Cold War, neo-realism and neo-institutionalism, security cooperation, peace, liberal theory on European security, social constructivism and the limits of Europe's security community.