Regional Clustering of Peace and Security

The aim of this article is to comprehend how peace and security cluster at the regional level. In a globalized and interconnected world, each polity engages in a wide range of different relationships with other polities. Peace and security embody one of these relationships, since to feel secure or to be in peace entails managing a relationship with the ‘other’. This article is divided in three parts. First, it briefly assesses classical theories of regional security in order to detect some of their shortcomings and to propose an alternative path. Second, it breaks down the concept of regional security in order to pinpoint two different (albeit sequential) empirical manifestations of regional security: regional violence-insecurity and regional peace-security. This dichotomy is associated to the passive and active components of peace and security. Third, the article describes the different paths that lead to the regionalization of peace and security (in its dual dimension).