Journal of Regional Security

Climate Security in the Northern Mediterranean: Threats and Prospects for Resiliency

Mark Boyer — 2023-07-05

To be added soon.

Underbalancing in a Regional World

James Wesley Hutto — 2023-10-25

This paper adapts underbalancing theory to explain regional powers’ decisions when faced with the politics of great power intrusion. The paper finds two situations where regional powers defy expectations and details the causal models using India (1979-1980) and Russia (1996-1999) as illustrative cases. The cases find underbalancing theory wanting at the regional level. In each case, the regional power performs a variety of diplomatic maneuvers—including but not limited to balancing and underbalancing—to mitigate the fallout of great power decisions. This is explained by the power asymmetries dividing great and regional powers, both constraining the actions of regional powers while motivating more creative diplomatic practices. It is said that great powers are “Gullivers,” tied down by their many responsibilities. This paper tells a different story, in which obstinate great powers make decisions without consideration for the locale where those decisions are carried out. It is the regional powers that are tied down by geostrategic position and regional security externalities. However weak or strong, these externalities create threats too salient to ignore. The findings suggest international political processes and outcomes can only be comprehensible by accounting for regional contexts and regional powers.

Achilles Steel?

Reade Ben — 2023-12-19

The term “corrosive capital” has become a popular phrase in Serbia and across the Western Balkans used to describe opaque and scandalous foreign investments that are believed to enable state capture. Particularly in Serbia, existing approaches to corrosive capital have certainly identified which investments are problematic. However, there is still a lack of understanding about which key actors are culpable for corrosive investments and the practices that enable them. Responsibility is often binarily assigned, either to the Vučić regime or non-Western actors. This paper, however, uses qualitative and quantitative methods to more rigidly investigate the networked structures and practices that bring about corrosive capital. Through the development of an analytical framework and an investigation of the Smederevo Železera privatization, this paper argues that corrosive capital is a multi-level phenomenon enabled by interactions between various domestic and foreign actors used as a tool of state capture and personal enrichment. This paper also notes that informal practices and deal-making between these actors in a project’s early stages generate various spillovers that create an overall mosaic of corrosiveness.

Book Review of "Political Leadership in the European Union"

Marcos León Santiago — 2023-11-14

A Book Review

Milan Varda — 2023-12-19

Balkan Peace Index 2022: Trends and Analysis

Tijana Recevic — 2023-08-27