Week 2 - Summarized Notes + Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts in regional studies, regionness levels, regional security complex theory (RSCT), nascent RSCs, and European identity construction.

Region

A cross-national geographical space or set of states defined and distinguished along geographical, economic, political, cultural, historical, or security lines, which is socially and politically constructed through power constellations, political processes, and discourse rather than being purely geographically determined.

Regionness

A concept propounded by Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum (2000) referring to the process whereby a geographical area is transformed from a passive object to an active subject capable of articulating transnational interests, existing across five distinct levels that can increase or decrease over time.

Regionalisation

The empirical process that leads to patterns of cooperation, integration, complementarity, and convergence within a particular cross-national geographical space, occurring intentionally or unintentionally along multiple dimensions.

Regional Space (Proto-region)

The first level of regionness in Hettne and Söderbaum's framework, defined as a recognized geographical area delimited by physical or socially and diplomatically recognized boundaries.

Regional Complex

The second level of regionness, characterized by a regional space with high levels of economic and/or security interdependence among regional actors.

Regional Society

The third level of regionness, characterized by high levels of regional interaction between state and non-state actors without strong overarching institutional structures.

Regional Community

The fourth level of regionness, characterized by high levels of cooperation achieved through enduring regional organizations and structured around distinct regional values.

Region-State

The fifth and highest level of regionness, defined by regional institutions possessing strong capacity to act, layered authority, and pooled political power.

Regional Security Complex (RSC)

A concept developed by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver (2003) defining a set of units whose major processes of securitization, desecuritization, or both are so interlinked that their security problems cannot reasonably be analyzed or resolved apart from one another, structured by durable patterns of amity and enmity.

Securitisation

The discursive process through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a political community to treat something as an existential threat to a valued referent object, enabling a call for urgent and exceptional measures.

Desecuritisation

The discursive process by which a political community downgrades or ceases to treat an issue as an existential threat, returning it to standard political bargaining and procedures.

Nascent Regional Security Complex (n-RSC)

An analytical framework propounded by Dennis Senam Amable (2022) to describe a set of geographically proximate states with interconnected security problems that lack meaningful security interaction among themselves, requiring an adjacent great power to initiate securitization or desecuritization and region-building.

Security Externality

Any form of interconnected security threat emanating from a distinct geographical area that extends beyond local boundaries and directly impacts neighboring states or adjacent great powers.

Hybrid Actor

A term introduced by Dennis Senam Amable (2022) describing an external great power actively involved in an adjacent unstructured region, functioning simultaneously as an insider participant and an outsider contributor in the region-building process.

Unstructured Security Region

A geographic setting defined by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver where local states have low power projection capabilities or geographic insulation makes security relations difficult, resulting in an absence of local security interdependence.

Great Power Management (GPM)

An English School concept detailing the special rights, duties, and crisis management responsibilities recognized in great powers to maintain international or regional order and manage security threats in adjacent areas.

Liminal Others

Actors or states (such as Russia and Turkey in relation to Europe) occupying 'betwixt and between' or partly-Self/partly-Other positions in identity discourses, giving them the capacity to negotiate, contest, and subvert hegemonic identity constructs.

Strahlenberg Boundary

The geographical division proposed in 1721 by Swedish prisoner of war Johann von Strahlenberg using the Ural Mountains as the principal border between Europe and Asia following Russia's proclamation as a European colonial empire.

Local States

Core units within a regional security complex whose localized, short-distance patterns of amity and enmity generate security interdependence and form the primary boundaries of the region.

Regional Powers

Dominant actors within a regional setting possessing sufficient power and capability to shape local alignments, rivalries, and regional security orders.

Insulators

Smaller states or locations situated between regional security complexes that act as separators or transition zones, preventing direct interaction between adjacent security complexes.

Sovereign Democracy

A political doctrine developed in Russia during Vladimir Putin's second presidential term that adopted the language of Western democratic discourse while emphasizing state sovereignty and Russia's right to develop its own authentic version of democratic society.