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The Changing Incentives for Security Regionalization

In this article I argue that the systemic shift to unipolarity has created an incentive to invest in security regionalization, both on the part of the American hegemon and on the part of the regional states. After defining what I mean by ‘security regionalization’, I examine the hegemonic incentives for encouraging the building of regional security institutions. Such institutions, I suggest, can advance its three main goals: to maintain regional stability, to maintain its unipolar position and to achieve system-maintenance at low cost. At the same time, regional states have increased incentives to invest in building regional security arrangements. Such arrangements, I suggest, are necessary should the hegemon choose to abandon them. They can also help prevent such abandonment by offering meaningful burden-sharing. They can serve as a ‘pact of restraint’ to restrain the hegemon, and finally they can be an avenue to a new division of labor. I apply this framework to the changes in security regionalization in Europe after the end of the Cold War (11/9 - beginning of the fall of the Berlin wall) and after the events of 9/11. I conclude by highlighting some of the tensions and paradoxes built into this security regionalization thesis.