This book develops the idea that since decolonisation, regional patterns of security have become more prominent in international politics. The authors combine an operational theory of regional security with an empirical application across the whole of the international system. Individual chapters cover Africa, the Balkans, CIS Europe, East Asia, EU Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and South Asia. The main focus is on the post-Cold War period, but the history of each regional security complex is traced back to its beginnings. By relating the regional dynamics of security to current debates about the global power structure, the authors unfold a distinctive interpretation of post-Cold War international security, avoiding both the extreme oversimplifications of the unipolar view, and the extreme deterritorialisations of many globalist visions of a new world disorder. Their framework brings out the radical diversity of security dynamics in different parts of the world.

‘The empirical sweep of the study is monumental. This book is a major re-think of the problem of security in the post-Cold War world and successfully challenges conventional and competing approaches.’

Kalevi J. Holsti - University of British Columbia

‘The book is heroic in its ambition and Herculean in its execution. A landmark study that displays a rare combination of cutting-edge theoretical sophistication with an insatiable appetite for data.’

Peter J. Katzenstein - Cornell University

'… offers a truly global empirical overview of security dynamics in all regions of the world.'

Source: Tidsskriftet Politik

'Among its most notable aspects are the clear prose and the sharp focus of the empirical studies … The empirical study is nothing short of titanic in its ambition and breadth, and the succinct overviews of regional security dynamics will undoubtedly become required reading in graduate security studies curricula.'

Source: Slavonic and East European Review

'This is undoubtedly an important volume that makes a significant contribution to security studies'

Source: Political Studies Review

'... A sophisticated analytical toolbox equipped with a plethora of useful concepts and categories, heuristic models and methods, checklists of comparative criteria, etc. ... this is a valuable study and it should be read by both security/IR scholars and policy practicioners. As a macro-study with a global sweep, the book opens the door up to research programming to students of security, above all in terms of the more detailed micro-studies of and within various RSCs.'

Source: Journal of International Relations and Development