Regional Security Complex Theory: Why Is this Concept Still Worth Developing?
- Institution: University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin
- Year of publication: 2022
- Source: Show
- Pages: 137-153
- DOI Address: https://doi.org/10.15804/athena.2022.75.08
- PDF: apsp/75/apsp7508.pdf
The Theory of Regional Security Complexes (RSC) provides a conceptual framework to encompass the emerging new post-Cold War international security order. It proposes a model of regional security which makes it possible to analyse, explain and predict the development of the situation in a given region. It is based on the assumption that it is the regional level, not the global or the level of a single state, that constitutes the optimal basis for conducting security analyses. So far, few researchers have attempted to challenge the theoretical assumptions of the RSC concept, and few have tried to develop or supplement it. At the same time, it is clear that the emerging new types of challenges, changing the state’s behaviour, force the revision or updating of some existing theoretical frameworks. It also applies to the Regional Security Complex theory and the adaptation of its conceptual framework to the surrounding reality so that it can continue to be reliably studied. This article considers the possibilities of further evolution of the RSC theory and, in particular, analyses the state of its development to date and proposes solutions to complement it and adapt it to newly emerging phenomena.