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This chapter focuses on South Korea’s newly found regional leadership, as the emergent middle power of East Asia, in order to advance regional integration and institution-building. Policy leadership is observed and analyzed from an international lens, linked to the literature of middle powers. The chapter first conceptualizes middle powers in connection with the issue of international leadership, since such states often play important roles in promoting cooperation. The chapter looks especially into South Korea’s foreign policy behavior toward East Asian regional processes and how it has manifested innovative and capable leadership. More specifically, the last three presidencies of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2002), Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008), and Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) are scrutinized in the hope of underscoring how their particular administrations, political leadership, and strategic approaches to foreign policy toward the region influenced South Korea’s regional leadership attempts and middle power status.

This article explores the ways in which hegemony and power impact on the emergence, development and conflict management function of regional organizations. It compares the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), both of which include a strong regional power. These powers have contrasting postures: South Africa is a keen regionalist, a reluctant hegemon and a pacific power, whereas India is a keen hegemon, a reluctant regionalist and a militarist power. The presence of the hegemon has stimulated regionalism in Southern Africa but retarded regionalism in South Asia. Despite these differences, SADC and SAARC have similarly failed to manage regional conflict effectively. This has been due in large measure to the conflictual relationship between the hegemon and another powerful state in each region, Zimbabwe in the case of South Africa, and Pakistan in the case of India. Some of these dynamics are well explained by neorealist theory, but other dynamics are best explained by constructivist and liberal positions. This supports the argument by Katzenstein and Okawara (2001–2002) that in the field of international relations an eclectic analytical approach is required to comprehend complex processes that combine material, ideational, international, domestic, contemporary and historical factors.

This chapter examines the relationship between state failure, state-building and regional security through a thick qualitative and historical analysis of a single case: the Russia–Georgia relationship. Its principal finding is that the two sides’ conceptions of state-building contained incompatible identity projects that significantly increased the potential for conflict. This potential emerged in the context of a highly asymmetrical distribution of power in the region. The balancing strategies that Georgia pursued to compensate for this asymmetry aggravated the relationship further and were significant in provoking the August 2008 war between the two states. In making this argument, the chapter begins with a discussion of the relationship between state-building and security. It then turns to an account of the near failure and recovery of the two states and a discussion of the relationship between their state-building projects. It proceeds to situate this unit-level analysis in the regional systemic context. After a discussion of the war itself, the chapter provides concluding remarks on the implications of the conflict for regional security and for the wider discussion of state-building and security. The major implication is that, although state-building is seen as a domestic endeavour, the way in which the project is defined and develops has significant external and regional implications, which may enhance the potential for inter-state conflict. As such, international engagement should take account of the regional environment in efforts to foster the re-building of states.

For over three decades, Afghanistan has been a battleground in which many of the states of the wider neighbourhood have been involved. The importance of fostering a concerted effort for Afghan peace and stability is widely agreed upon, yet such a process remains difficult to bring about. Some analysts emphasize states and their security relationships, seeing Afghanistan as an ‘insulator’ caught between different regional state systems, each with a strong dynamic of its own. Other analysts emphasize various transnational networks and see Afghanistan as the ‘core’ of a larger conflict formation. This chapter takes as its starting point the former perspective, which has been codified by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver (2003) as the regional security complex (RSC) approach. The chapter examines the security dynamics of each of the regions surrounding Afghanistan – South Asia, the Persian Gulf and South Asia – adopting a comparative and historical perspective, with an emphasis on the period since the late 1970s. It concludes that each of Afghanistan's three surrounding regions is characterized by deep security concerns of its own. These concerns nonetheless inform the engagement of neighbouring countries in Afghanistan, which then comes to reflect conflicts and cleavages specific to the respective regions. One central implication is that a more promising strategy for Afghanistan might be to seek a unilateral non-offensive or neutral status, rather than full security integration with its neighbours. Although such a strategy would necessitate the creation of a forum for Afghanistan's neighbours to foster understanding for the Afghan position, it represents a dramatic departure from mainstream policy proposals with their emphasis on an integrated regional approach.

This chapter aims to analyze whether European security shapes future American grand strategy or not. For restrainers, the present American grand strategy has to be revisited due to the fact that there is no balance of power logic for further American presence in Europe. Moreover, China is a great power to be balanced in Asia. The chapter problematizes the assumptions provided by restrainers. It will argue that the United States has been acting in Europe as the pacifier, and it has a deep-seated interest in European peace. European security has been built upon the American preponderance of power, and a potential imbalance of power is a threat to the United States. While Russia is a revisionist power in Europe intended to change the status quo in Europe, China is a great power in Asia. However, the United States has both sufficient material power and allies to balance Russia and China simultaneously, and pivoting to Asia requires no American pullback in Europe.

This article calls for closer attention to the Middle East in the wider debate on the purported rise of new modes of armed conflict following the end of the Cold War, particularly in relation to the notion of ‘regional conflict formations’ (RCFs). In so doing, it presents and analyses three main paradoxes. First, though the contemporary Middle East had its own share of intrastate conflicts that generally grew into regional constellations, a look at the region's post-colonial history suggests that such trends are not as novel as has often been claimed. Second, the striking longevity of regionally entwined conflict in the Middle East calls into question the common and generalizing argument that it was the end of the Cold War, together with the alleged disengagement of the superpowers, that constituted the radical shifts – including the rise of RCFs – that signalled the demise of old forms of politics and conflict involving weak states. Third, Middle Eastern states, mostly authoritarian in outlook, have over recent decades become stronger despite prevailing conditions of regionalized conflict; indeed, as tentatively suggested in this article, to some extent because of those factors.

In the spirit of ‘Europe of the Regions’, local authorities are responsible for responding to the main interests, needs and preferences of the country’s citizens. Regional and local administrative authorities provide citizens with the necessary public goods, which reflect the trend towards ‘glocalisation’ in public administration at the European level, more significantly in the states in which the political system recently became democratic. With this background, the effectiveness of local self-government depends not only on local authorities’ decision-making freedom but also on (financial) support for it through decentralisation, and the member states of the European Union (EU) employ different strategies to achieve the same goal, with varying degrees of success. Within this context, our chapter offers a comparative analysis of the administrative, financial and local self-government decentralisation in member states, which include the southern and eastern regions on the outer edges of the EU. The general goal of our study is to identify the main trends in the present administrations and their challenges, as well as best practices that can offer lessons to other member states which are reforming their administration through decentralisation. In addition to the identified challenges, solutions and best practices, our study reveals a tendency towards consolidation at the level of regional government not only in the terms of legal responsibility but also of administrative budgets, thus generating an assumption of improvement in the general quality of governance in the member states.

Since the first days of its independence, Kazakhstan has been overwhelmed by security issues involving its neighbors. It also recognized a number of conventional and unconventional security threats that might undermine stability and development in the region, as well as in the republic. One of the first official documents produced by the Kazakhstan government was the Strategy of Establishment and Development of Kazakhstan as a Sovereign State, initiated by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in May 1992.³ Although specific security threats in Kazakhstan were obvious (as the direction post-Soviet security, military arrangements and the CIS had yet to be determined), three sections of this document dealt specifically with security issues, albeit in relatively vague form.⁴ In the document, President Nazarbayev highlighted the fact that the national security of Kazakhstan had a regional dimension, and that relations with CIS members and other states with interests in Central Asia were very important.⁵ He stressed particularly that his country needed a military doctrine to “prevent and defend against (external) military threat.”⁶ It took several years for this concept of national security to be clarified and conceptualized in a comprehensive document, the Law on National Security of the Republic of Kazakhstan.⁷

The research question is how home country corruption and nationalism may affect operations of BRIC multinational enterprises. BRIC composition permits a comparison of two authoritarian regimes and two constitutional democracies. Each BRIC features a different combination of corruption and nationalism. The chapter adds South Africa information for two limited reasons. First, from 2010 South Africa is a member of the BRIC summit process. South Africa is an important entry point to Africa, for BRIC multinationals and particularly for China. Second, concerning corruption and nationalism South Africa is analytically useful as a control context that helps illustrate but does not appear to change highly exploratory BRIC findings.

The chapter draws on limited literature and information concerning corruption and nationalism in BRICs to suggest tentative possibilities. Transparency International provides bribe payers index estimates for 28 large economies, with important multinational enterprises, and corruption perceptions index estimates including those 28 countries. These estimates include the four BRICs and South Africa. The available sources suggest some suggested findings about varying impacts of home country corruption and nationalism on operations of BRIC multinationals.

China and Russia are authoritarian regimes in transition from central planning-oriented communist regimes. They are global military powers, expanding influence in their respective regions. Brazil, India, and South Africa are constitutional democracies. India, a nuclear-armed military power, seeks a regional leadership role in South Asia. Brazil and South Africa are key countries economically in their regions. BRIC multinationals are positioned between home country and host country conditions. Chinese and Russian multinationals may reflect a stronger nationalistic tendency due to home country regimes and ownership structure.

The chapter is an original but highly exploratory inquiry into impacts of corruption and nationalism on BRIC multinationals. Extant BRIC literature tends to understudy effects of home country corruption and nationalism on managerial mindset and incentives in either commercial or state-owned enterprises.