Regional Orders

This book explains cooperative and confrontational regional orders in the post-Cold War era. Applying a push-and-pull framework to the evolution of regional orders, the book’s theoretical section compares regional dynamics and studies the transformation and authority of governing arrangements among key regional actors who manage security and institutional cooperation. This presents a novel approach to comparing non-Western regional orders, and helps forge a better integration between International Relations disciplinary approaches and area studies. The empirical section analyzes Central Eurasia and South America within the period 1989-2017, using case studies and interviews with decision-makers, practitioners and experts. The volume demonstrates that soft engagement strategies from extra-regional great powers and internationalist domestic coalitions framed in a stable democratic polity are forces for peaceful interaction, while hard engagement strategies from great external powers plus nationalist coalitions within democratic backsliding in key regional powers present negative outlooks for regional cooperation. This book will be of much interest to students of regional security, comparative politics, area studies and International Relations.

Etel Solingen provides a comprehensive explanation of foreign policy based on how states throughout the world have confronted the rapid emergence of a global economy and international institutions. A major advance in international relations theory, Regional Orders at Century's Dawn skillfully uses a key issue--internationalization--to clarify other recent debates, from the notion of a democratic peace to the relevance of security dilemmas, nationalism, and the impact of international institutions. The author discusses in rich detail the Middle East, Latin America's Southern Cone, and the Korean peninsula, and builds on examples drawn from almost every other region of the world. As Solingen demonstrates, economic liberalization--with its dramatic political and economic consequences--invariably attracts supporters and detractors, who join in coalitions to advance their agendas. Each coalition's agenda, or "grand strategy," has consequences at all levels: domestic, regional, and international. At home, coalitions struggle to define the internal allocation and management of resources, and to undermine their rivals. Throughout their regional neighborhoods, coalitions opposing internationalization often compete for dominance, sometimes militarily. Coalitions favoring internationalization, instead, often cooperate. At the global level, each coalition finds support for its "grand strategies" from different international institutions and from competing global economic trends. Solingen's concept of "grand strategy" proposes more than a theory of foreign policy and explains the role of nationalism and ethno-religious revivalism in the politics of liberalization.

Regional Powers and Regional Orders presents a re-examination and re-conceptualization of the concept of 'region' and its function within power and order systems. Utilising a comparative and case study approach, the volume examines 'new' regional powers such as Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa. These territories as regional powers are novel phenomenon in the field of international politics and even more so in the field of international relations. The book focuses on the emerging role of these new regional powers within their respective region, and asks how other members of these regions cope with and react to that role. Regional Powers and Regional Orders will be of interest to students and scholars of international and regional politics and power, and international relations.

Conflict among nations for forty-five years after World War II was dominated by the major bipolar struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War; states in differing legions of the world are taking their affairs more into their own hands and working out new arrangements for security that best suit their needs. This trend toward new &"regional orders&" is the subject of this book, which seeks both to document the emergence and strengthening of these new regional arrangements and to show how international relations theory needs to be modified to take adequate account of their salience in the world today. Rather than treat international politics as everywhere the same, or each region as unique, this hook adopts a comparative approach. It recognizes that, while regions vary widely in their characteristics, comparative analysis requires a common typology and set of causal variables. It presents theories of regional order that both generalize about regions and predict different patterns of conflict and cooperation from their individual traits. The editors conclude that, in the new world of regional orders, the quest for universal principles of foreign policy by great powers like the United States is chimerical and dangerous. Regional orders differ, and policy artist accommodate these differences if it is to succeed. Contributors are Brian L. Job, Edmund J. Keller, Yuen Foong Khong, David A. Lake, Steven E. Lobell, David R. Mares, Patrick M. Nlotgan. Paul A. Papayoanou, David J. Pervin, Philip G. Roeder, Richard Rosecrance and Peter Schott, Susan Shirk, Etel Solingen, and Arthur A. Stein.

This book explains cooperative and confrontational regional orders in the post-Cold War era. Applying a push-and-pull framework to the evolution of regional orders, the book’s theoretical section compares regional dynamics and studies the transformation and authority of governing arrangements among key regional actors who manage security and institutional cooperation. This presents a novel approach to comparing non-Western regional orders, and helps forge a better integration between International Relations disciplinary approaches and area studies. The empirical section analyzes Central Eurasia and South America within the period 1989-2017, using case studies and interviews with decision-makers, practitioners and experts. The volume demonstrates that soft engagement strategies from extra-regional great powers and internationalist domestic coalitions framed in a stable democratic polity are forces for peaceful interaction, while hard engagement strategies from great external powers plus nationalist coalitions within democratic backsliding in key regional powers present negative outlooks for regional cooperation. This book will be of much interest to students of regional security, comparative politics, area studies and International Relations.

Great Powers and Regional Orders explores the manifestations of US power in the Persian Gulf and the limits of American influence. Significantly, this volume explores both the impact of US domestic politics and the role played by the region itself in terms of regional policy, order and stability. Well organized and logically structured, Markus Kaim and contributors have produced a new and unique contribution to the field that is applicable not only to US policy in the Persian Gulf but also to many other regional contexts. This will interest anyone working or researching within foreign policy, US and Middle Eastern politics.

"The book examines the relationship between nuclear proliferation and regional order in East Asia and the Middle East, looking at what factors shape the perceptions and responses of relevant regional actors to North Korea and Iran, why some of these regional actors cooperate with the United States while others do not, and the consequences of shifting relations among these countries"--

Focused on a set of overlapping international orders of regional scope present in the Middle East and North Africa, this book argues that rules and primary institutions have sanctioned the foreign behavior of the sub-system’s international actors since 1945. The author avoids recent IR trends focused on narrow case studies, instead providing a comprehensive overview of the MENA’s regional politics. The normative content and evolution of multiple international orders are examined, constituting the intra-Arab order, the Arab-Israeli order and the Arab-Iranian order, as well as the expression of the global order in regional interactions. Drawing on Area Studies and English School and constructivist IR theories, the author argues that a plurality of overlapping regional orders have coexisted since 1945, not just one as is commonly suggested in the literature. Each of these orders is integrated by different participants and has developed its own differentiated norms and institutions setting parameters on legitimate behavior. This analytical proposal helps make sense of foreign relations otherwise labeled as incoherent. The book has wide appeal, accessible both to students wishing to learn about the politics, history and sociology of the Middle East, as well as to specialists seeking original research on the functioning of the MENA’s regional orders.