Regional Security Institutions Research Articles

CICA and China’s soft balancing act towards the US

At the 2014 summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, Chinese President, Xi Jinping with New Asian Security Concept, announced the slogan of ‘Asia for Asians’ or ‘Asia belongs to Asians’, and he played a leading role in the reactivation of CICA. In this sense, it can be stated that China has aimed to play a more active role in shaping the existing regional security order in Asia-Pacific. Although the regional policies of the United States, starting with the ‘Pivot to Asia’ and continuing with the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ strategy and the regional and international developments in China’s strategic environment have increased China’s need for CICA, it served as a kind of soft balancing act, rather than hard balancing act, that increased diplomatic maneuverability for China. In this regard, the article attempts to explain why CICA remains a soft balancing act in China’s regional security policies, taking into account a number of factors such as power parity/disparity, economic dependence/interdependence, threat perception and increasing institutionalization in the international system, and attempts to explore why CICA is becoming an increasingly important regional security institution for China.

Ad hoc coalitions and institutional exploitation in international security: towards a typology

While the increasingly thick web of global, regional and sub-regional security arrangements and institutions has received ample scholarly attention, the phenomenon of ad hoc military coalitions and how they impact these institutions has been relatively little explored. We examine ad hoc coalitions in international security responses and develop a tentative typology of military responses that takes ad hoc coalitions into consideration, where we differentiate in terms of institutionalisation and duration. Following a rational-choice institutionalist logic, we argue that institutional proliferation increases the chances of institutional exploitation. We illustrate this with how states apply a pick-and-choose approach in which institutional products but not frameworks are used. They use the interoperable forces, a common culture and mainstreamed doctrine, but not the formal deployment of rapid response mechanisms of eg the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the African Union. In closing, we observe that institutional proliferation in international security facilitates a functionalist approach mainly inspired by national self-interest. Future research should examine whether this could result in dwindling relevance of international institutions, first in the domain of security, but later also in other domains.

Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change. By Kei Koga. London: Routledge, 2017. 226p. $125.00 cloth, $39.96 paper.

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古賀慶著『アジア・アフリカにおける地域安全保障制度の変化』（Kei Koga, Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change. Routledge, 2017, xii+226 p.）

古賀慶著『アジア・アフリカにおける地域安全保障制度の変化』（Kei Koga, Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change. Routledge, 2017, xii+226 p.）

ASEAN as a zone of the USA - China conflict of interests

The conflict of interests of the USA and China in the Southeast Asia was initially instigated by the creation of a “security void” in the region after the end of the Cold War. Today the states’ political claims do not seem to be limited, provoking on the contrary, new edition of rivalry and setting new agenda for further clashes. In a situation of confrontation between the two powers, such regional players as ASEAN are, on the one hand, forced to look for the ways of mitigating the negative consequences of the conflict, as well as of maintaining control over regional processes. On the other hand, the regional actors may benefit from the continuing rivalry of the two economic giants by attracting investment from both sides as well as by getting more opportunities to expand regional cooperation. This article explores key aspects of the US - China rivalry in the region - the clash of interests in the South China Sea, the Indo-Pacific format initiated by the United States, as well as the contemporary trade war - and examines the ASEAN’s response to aforementioned challenges. Since the transition of relations between Washington and Beijing into the phase of uncontrolled confrontation poses a serious challenge to the long-term development of the ASEAN, some assumptions are made regarding the Association’s key strategies over the next 5-10 years. Provided that the USA and China remain in competition for Southeast Asia, the possible political course of ASEAN is likely to be focused either on stepping up efforts to engage the US and China in regional security institutions, or on soft balancing between the US and China, involving also other “third actors” like Japan, India, Australia and Russia.

THE MODERN STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF UKRAINE IN THE FIELD OF CHEMICAL SAFETY

There are no chemical and biological weapons on the territory of Ukraine, however, in the industrial and everyday use there is a large number of chemicals, which can become chemical weapons. This determines the active participation of Ukraine in the processes of ensuring chemical safety at the global and regional levels. Ukraine takes part in the leading international agreements on chemical disarmament. Ukraine signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and their Destruction and participated in the establishment of The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Annually, Ukraine prepares national declarations on chemical industry objects on its territory, accepts inspections of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and participates in various activities of this multilateral institute. Ukraine participates in all international export control regimes and has been actively developing the national system for controlling the international transfers of military and dual-use goods since 1991. Ukraine actively builds on the cooperation with the leading countries of the world chemical industry, international organizations and regional security institutions in the field of chemical safety. The problem of neutralization and utilization of harmful chemicals is a priority for Ukraine. The development of the national chemical safety system and the international cooperation of Ukraine will make possible the development of the foreground directions of reforming the chemical industry in Ukraine.

Regional security institutions and weak states: The case of post-conflict Somalia and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

How do weak states in conflict-prone regions of the world manage crisis? This article applies a theory of international organizations as a framework to analyze how states in East Africa cooperated to address the problems associated with state collapse in Somalia. Based on a case study of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the study identifies unique factors for why weak states act through security organizations by focusing on the role of changing norms and structural factors. Finally, the article pinpoints factors that undermine the IGAD’s ability to live up to its full potential, and offers potential policy remedies.

ASEAN’s Evolving Institutional Strategy: Managing Great Power Politics in South China Sea Disputes

This article argues that a change in institutional strategy enables The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to manage its great power relations and prevent their abrupt political intrusion into the region by providing the policy options of pursuing institutional balancing, bandwagoning, hedging, or co-option. ASEAN’s strategy is not only to choose optimal policy under a changing security environment, but also to create an institutional division of labour by proliferating ASEAN-led institutions to ensure, as far as possible, regional autonomy and Member States’ security. Changes in ASEAN’s institutional strategy occur when its Member States expect a change in the regional distribution of power. However, due to constraints created by the existing institutional design it is difficult to make any drastic alteration to the institutional strategy unless a radical change in the regional power configuration occurs. This article examines the cases of East Asia Summit and ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM)/ADMM-Plus during the period 2005–2016, the comparison of which illuminates the causes and processes of their strategy change and helps to deepen our understanding of the roles of regional security institutions.

KOGA Kei, Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change

KOGA Kei, <i>Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change</i>

Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change

Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa: Power Shifts, Ideas, and Institutional Change

Regional Security Institutions as a Tool for “Securitization”: Comparative Case Study on ASEAN and ECOWAS

Regional Security Institutions as a Tool for “Securitization”: Comparative Case Study on ASEAN and ECOWAS

China’s Revisionist Aspirations in Southeast Asia and the Curse of the South China Sea Disputes

China has significant revisionist objectives in Southeast Asia, including revamping the existing regional security architecture and strategic realignment, reforming the current regional political and security institutions, revising the rules and norms that help regulate regional relations, and aspiring to play a bigger role in regional agenda-setting. Beijing has achieved some success in changing the regional status quo through its good-neighbourliness policy over the past 20 years. But the intricate South China Sea issue is likely to prevent China from fulfilling its revisionist aspirations in the region in the decades to come.

Счастье от разума: «умная сила» КНР и ее влияние на развитие архитектуры безопасности в Азиатско-Тихоокеанском регионе

This article considers the interconnection between the institutional change in the sphere of security and China’s smart power in the Asia-Pacific region. It explores the practical dimension of China’s smart power in the region after the Cold War, and analyzes the multilateral interaction on security issues in the Association of the Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN). The appropriate mechanisms in which all the major actors participate are the basis and essence of the macro regional security architecture. This article identifies the links between China’s smart power and the macro regional security institutionalization. It begins by describing the ideological dimension of Chinese foreign policy since the establishment of the People’s Republic. It considers the main theoretical concept constituting China’s international strategy and its economical methods of spreading soft power in the Asia-Pacific region. It goes on to analyze the process of multilateral interaction in macro regional security after the Cold War, recognizing that despite the promotion of cooperation in non-traditional security issues there are still challenges for China, the United States and ASEAN in the realm of traditional security. Moreover, the effective and efficient use of smart power in the ASEAN mechanisms helps China counteract the efforts of other countries in the region to limit its politics. The article concludes that regional multilateral security institutions have reached their limit of effectiveness due to their design and the politics of the main actors. To sustain an acceptable level of security in the region, all participants need to develop new institutions or radically reorganize the existing ones.

Regional security institutions do contribute significantly to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region

Regional security institutions do contribute significantly to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region

Perkembangan Five Power Defence Arranggements dalam Menanggapi Dinamika Keamanan Asia Tenggara pasca Perang Dingin

The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) is a regional security institution in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom as its members. As one of the oldest, and still existing, regional security institution in the Southeast Asia region, FPDA’s existence seems to be unheard of, compared to the region’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or even the Cold War’s Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Although FPDA was created in the height of the Cold War, as well as in response to the potential hegemonic Indonesian threat to former British colonies, the institution is still exist even after both original existential threat wanes. In the end, how the FPDA can maintain its existence in the changing security dynamics in the region, especially after the end of the Cold War, is an interesting piece of puzzle to be solved.

Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspectives

This book provides the comparative study of regional international organization in terms of institutional design and the nature of cooperation. The book highlights the similarities and differences in the efficacy across regional institution and relationship between institutional design and the nature of cooperation. The book starts with the central question, Why does it appear that different forms of institutions develop in different regions of the world, where States generally face similar kind of difficulties in cooperation? In this regard, the authors of the book found two puzzles, the first one being how to describe and explain any variation in the design of regional security and economic institutions across world.

Counter-Terrorism and Institutional Design

North American Regional Security: A Trilateral Framework? By Richard J. Kilroy Jr., Abelardo Rodriguez Sumano, Todd S. Hataley. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2013. 255 pp., $58.50 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-588-26854-9). 9/11 and the Design of Counterterrorism Institutions. By Karlsson Michael. Surrey: Ashgate, 2012. 195 pp., $94.95 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-409-43456-6). These books address the question of the development of counter-terrorism institutions from opposite scales. 9/11 and the Design of Counterterrorism Institutions is a microlevel investigation of counter-terrorism policy in Northern Europe in the first weeks after 9/11. North American Regional Security , by contrast, looks at the development of regional security institutions in North America at a macrolevel, over the long term. Reviewing the two books together shows the different conclusions that can be drawn from these disparate analyses, and how they contribute to the research program of understanding counter-terrorism institutions. The first months after 9/11 were characterized by an intensive period of institution building that, in some cases, constituted a significant restructuring of government. Not surprisingly, much of the early analysis of this period was punditry rather than social science. With a decade of hindsight, however, political scientists have begun to use their theoretical tools to analyze the creation, structure, and functioning of those institutional and political changes. These books are part of that research program, drawing on theories about institutional design ( 9/11 and the Design of Counterterrorism Institutions ) and regional security complex theory ( North American Regional Security ). While it would be impossible to expect any single research project to incorporate both a micro- and a macroperspective, the insights from each could be fruitfully applied into the other in order to provide a fuller perspective. Regional security complex theory, which Richard Kilroy, Abelardo Rodriguez Sumano, and Todd Hataley use to analyze North American security, is part of Buzan and Waever's attempt to further integrate the constructivist bent of their securitization theory with the recognition that the regional, and the material, still matter (2003; see also Lake and Morgan 1997). They borrow Buzan and Waever's definition of a regional security complex as “a set of units whose major processes …

Practical continentalism: North America, territorial security and the European model

The lack of formal regional security institutions and the persistence of national border controls seems to indicate that in North America, unlike Europe, a truly post-national approach to territorial security has failed to materialise. Recent policy experiments with territorial security in the USA, Canada and Mexico, however, are not as removed from their transatlantic counterparts as is often claimed. This paper contends that a kind of practical continentalism underlies the governance of territorial security on both sides of the Atlantic. This system of governance has not completely displaced the state-centric model upon which the modern approach to territorial security is based. It has, however, reformulated some of its core principles, resulting in a more complex and regionalised model of territorial security. To illustrate this argument, this paper first presents the key principles underlying the approach to territorial security that has emerged in North America after 9/11, highlighting the parallels ...

&lt;em&gt;A Curious Case of Hybrid Paternalism:&lt;/em&gt; Conceptualizing the Relationship Between the UN and AU on Peace and Security

This article conceptualizes the working relationship between the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). The depth of the AU-UN partnership is unparalleled in terms of the UN’s relations with other regional security institutions in the world and it even transcends the traditional classification of the UN’s relations with regional organizations (ROs). We suggest that the concept of hybrid paternalism, when disaggregated and used as a multidimensional analytical framework, provides an accurate and convincing description of the complex nature of the AU-UN relationship. The article identifies five different dimensions of hybrid paternalism, namely: legal paternalism, resource-based paternalism, political paternalism, normative paternalism, and ideational paternalism. When examined from the perspective of the five elements of hybrid paternalism, it becomes clear that the relationship between AU and the UN is inherently symbiotic and codepen-dent. Both institutions share Africa’s peacemaking burden and have each other to use as a scapegoat when peacemaking activities do not go according to plan. In addition, while the UN has a partner it can use to gain consent to intervene in all the states in Africa (except Morocco), the AU has a counterpart it can go to for financial, technical, logistical, and human resources assistance to fulfill its mandate. The codependent nature of the relationship opens up opportunities for each institution to influence decision-making processes and the organizational behavior of the other. To ensure nuanced, textured, and in-depth discussion, the article draws information primarily from the relationship between the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) to illustrate the argument.

Critical Perspective on ASEAN Security Community under ASEAN Political and Security Community

Despite economic integration challenges, ASEAN faces greater security challenges. It is obvious to assert that a stable economic development requires a secure regional atmosphere. The traditional and nontraditional threats encounter ASEAN home land security. The most probable threats portraying ASEAN are hostile foreign entities infiltration, intra and inter states disputes, radical religious movements, human trafficking, drugs and narcotics smuggling, and even cybercrimes. To this point, ASEAN has taken constructive measures such as establishing consultative forums, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Defense Minister’s Meeting (ADMM) and ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crimes (AMMTC). In 2009, ASEAN adopted the ASEAN Political and Security Community. One of its stated purposes is to share security responsibility of each ASEAN member through constructivist approach. However, APSC has far of being success to achieve its ideal mission. Therefore, this piece would critically examined the fundamental questions: how does ASEAN security policy through APSC meet its interest to secure ASEAN region? To search for the answer it would apply constructivism approach. Constructivism ponders the significance role of regional security institution such as APSC in security structure. It suggests that regional security community should be build based on shared values among states in a region. Constructivist’s regional security model will be used as the explanatory model for APSC case. While the Regional Security Complex (RSC) theory would be employed to analyze the security dynamic is ASEAN. Itargues that the APSC is able to create pivotal security forums but lack of confidence in tactical level. It also suggest that APSC’s policies are laid in triangualar basis; rely on dialogue, establishing forums and innitiatives, and rely on non-legal binding principle.