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Abstract
The aim of this article is to build an analytical framework for understanding regional peace and security. Building on important insights from other theoretical approaches, it proposes that in order to comprehend the complexities of each regional cluster we have to account for: (a) agents of peace and security, (b) instruments of peace and security, (c) the security pattern, (d) the conflict pattern, (e) the positive peace pattern, and (f) the level of regional integration. Secondly, the article examines how these different components relate to each another. It introduces the concept of the ‘regional peace and security cluster’ (RPSC) and proposes that RPSCs can be classified as ‘regional fragmentations’, ‘regional coalitions’, ‘regional communities’ and ‘regional governmental polities’.
Notes
1. This article has benefited from comments received by Björn Hettne, Fredrik Söderbaum, Daniel Pinéu, Elzbieta Stadtmüller, and from participants in a seminar on regional security held at the United Nations University (UNU-CRIS), Bruges, Belgium, in 2007. I also acknowledge the grant provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to carry out research on regional security.
2. In this article I contend that a geographical contiguous area becomes a macro-region when a significant number of agents perceive it as such. This minimalist and physically driven idea of region should not prevent us from acknowledging that regions are in a constant state of formation and construction (Katzenstein Citation1996, Bøås et al. Citation2005). If a minimalist and fairly static definition of region is necessary to highlight the territorial extension of peace and security relations (the focus of this article), other complementary studies should also highlight the dynamics within regions (i.e. their components and the linkages between them) (see Tavares Citation2006). Driven by this premise, it should be argued that some regions may have actor quality (Tavares Citation2004, Hettne Citation2005).
3. The term ‘zone of peace’ has been commonly associated with the long periods of peaceful interchange between democratic countries, which may be portrayed by the attainment of a security community in Western Europe. However, zones of peace have been a more prolific feature of IR than we could expect at first sight: North America (since 1917), South America (since 1883), West Africa (since 1957), East Asia (since 1953), Australasia (since 1945), and ASEAN countries (since 1967) (Kacowicz Citation1998, p. 15). Additionally, other countries have deliberately labelled their regions as ‘zones of peace’ such as, for instance, the South American ‘Zone of Peace’ (2002) or the ASEAN ‘Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality’ (1971).
4. Several regions of the world are struggling with cross-border ethnic tension, illegal immigration, transnational crime, or deficient management of common water resources. These social (ethnic), political, economic, and military linkages at the regional level that derive from intra- and inter-state disputes have, therefore, created specific clusters that are recognized in the literature as ‘regional conflict complexes’ (Wallensteen and Sollenberg 1998) or ‘regional conflict formations’ (Rubin Citation2002; see also Kanet Citation1998, Pugh and Cooper Citation2004, Sriram and Nielsen Citation2004).
5. Defined as ‘costs (negative externalities) and benefits (positive externalities) that do not accrue only to the actors that create them. They are also known as spill over or neighborhood effects’ (Lake and Morgan Citation1997, p. 49).
6. According to Peirce, the engineer behind it, abduction is merely preparatory; it is the first step of scientific reasoning (1901, para. 218). He adds that the drivers of abduction are twofold: firstly, the ability to ‘abduct’ theoretical devices is induced by the need to understand a mass of confused facts; secondly, abduction normally builds on previous knowledge: knowledge is self-corrective in so far as we inherit the findings from previous scholars and refine them.
7. Regionalism is defined as the body of ideas and definite objectives that are aimed at the creation of linkages between social actors, whereas regionalization pertains to the process through which those linkages are created. Regionalization is, in most cases, directly associated with regionalism, i.e. it is caused by a deliberate intention of specific actors to pursue integration and cooperation at regional level. However, regionalization may also come about spontaneously and unintentionally with no ideology or formal intentional process behind it.
8. These terms are somewhat associated with Hettne and Söderbaum's idea of ‘regionness’ (2000): regional space, regional complex, regional society, regional community, and regional institutionalized polity (in 2005, the different levels of regionness were re-named: regional space, translocal social system, international society, regional community and regionally institutionalized polity (Hettne Citation2005, p. 548)). My perspective is identical to Hettne and Söderbaum's in the sense that regions are approached as ‘entities in the making’: created and re-created in the process of global transformation. The authors attempt to grasp this dynamic nature of regions by using a stage approach that catalogues regional variation from regional space to regional institutionalized polity. Unlike the ‘regionness’ approach, the focus of this framework is not on regional formation in general but on the construction and development of ‘regional peace and security clusters’. Besides this, the ‘regionness’ approach does not pinpoint clearly the ingredients of ‘regionness’. What are the precise components that, indeed, change along the different levels of ‘regionness’? Mindful of Hettne and Söderbaum's handicap, the framework used in this article identifies clearly the components of each regional security environment.
9. According to the authors, ‘the internal dynamics of a security complex can be located along a spectrum according to whether the defining security interdependence is driven by amity or enmity’ (Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde Citation1998, p. 12). Later, Buzan and Wæver underline the fact that ‘RSCs are defined by durable patterns of amity and enmity taking the form of subglobal, geographically coherent patterns of security interdependence’ (2003, p. 45).
10. I propose that the formation of regional clusters is a process that was initiated with the formation of the independent modern state in the international system. In the case of Europe, this typology can be applied with a timeframe that encompasses the last four centuries. In the South Asian case, given that most countries gained independence only in the mid-twentieth century, the framework will necessarily have a much shorter timeframe.
11. European history is replete with examples where balance of power was assumed to be the most suitable instrument to order international politics. In the Modern Age, the Thirty Years War (1618–48), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–13), or the Concert of Europe (1815) designed by Metternich, Talleyrand, Castlereagh, von Hardenberg and Tsar Alexander I to curb the development of great powers with expansive claims, are all examples of balance-of-power politics.
12. A characteristic of South Asia is that countries balance each other predominantly through military means in an attempt to acquire national security. Arms races and the upgrade of defensive strategies are a common attribute. By comparing the military expenditures as a share of GDP of India and Pakistan from 1988 to 2005 it is immediately apparent that there are symmetric oscillations. The figure ranges between (percentage of GDP) 3.6% in 1988 to 2.8% in 2005 in the case of India, and from 6.2% to 3.5% in the case of Pakistan (SIPRI data). Pakistan's endeavour to match Indian military capabilities so that it guarantees reasonable power equilibrium in the region ignited its nuclear programme and still guides its foreign policy. In 2003, in a gathering of investors in California, President Musharraf urged the international community not to upset the present balance of power between India and Pakistan:
India has increased its defense budget by 15 percent, it has a multi-billion dollar weapons acquisition program with several countries including the US, Russia, Britain, France and Israel. While Pakistan is under sanctions, please do not disturb the conventional balance and I mean every word of it. (Daily Times, 29 June 2003) | |||||
13. In South Asia, among the seven countries, one stands out naturally as a hegemonic power: India. Demographically, India has over 1 billion inhabitants, which corresponds to two-thirds of the total population living in South Asia and roughly one-sixth of the world's population. Geographically, it accounts for nearly three-quarters of the South Asian landmass. Economically, it has a GDP of US$805.7 billion (in 2005), which represents 79% of South Asian GDP (United Nations Citation2007). Militarily, India's armed forces manpower is 1.1 million (550,000 for Pakistan).
14. Presently, all seven countries of South Asia, to varying degrees, are witness to internal upheaval. Bangladesh's main problem is associated with the autonomy claims made by the 12 ethnic groups in the hilly province of Chittagong Hill Tracts and with implementation of the peace accord signed in 1997. Bhutan is still facing the economic and political consequences of legislation passed in the mid-1980s that attempted to aggressively protect the cultural, religious and political identity of the ruling Drukpas by marginalizing the Nepali/Lhotshampas minority. In India, the main flashpoints are the communal violence between Muslims and Hindus, political violence exerted by Maoist insurgent groups, or ‘Naxalite’, in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and the secessionist movements in Jammu and Kashmir, and in the north-eastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura and Assam. In Nepal, a 10-year civil war ended in November 2006 with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The Maldives, although it has experienced relative stability under the rule of President Gayoom, suffered one attempted coup in 1988 carried out by Sri Lankan mercenaries, and the latest report by the Amnesty International accuses the government of political repression, citing the “unfair trials” of its critics and the torture of prisoners (Amensty International, 2007). Almost since independence, Pakistan has seen a confrontation between Sindhis and Mohajirs in the south, nationalistic effervescence in Balochistan and to some extent also in the Pashtun areas, and religious violent quarrels along the Shiite/Sunni Muslim divide. Finally, since the late 1970s Sri Lanka has seen protracted civil conflict in which the Tamil minority (under the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – LTTE) opposes the Sinhalese majority.