Suchergebnisse

Economic and political environment, defense policies, and national, regional, and international perspectives.

The objective of this study is to examine the utility of three major mechanisms for regional conflict resolution. Two of the mechanisms are regional: enhancing regional legitimacy and liberalization. The third strategy is international: a concert of great powers or a stabilizing hegemon. The three strategies are deduced from the international-regional debate on the sources of regional war and peace, and also from the regional debate on democratization versus strengthening the state as the preferred strategy for generating regional peace and security. I will propose a solution to these debates by differentiating among three levels of regional peace, and relating each of the three strategies to a specific level of peace that it is expected to bring about. The pacifying value, as well as the disadvantages of the three mechanisms for regional peace, will be investigated by comparative illustrations from three regions: the Middle East, South America and Western Europe. The proposed theoretical framework will integrate the regional and international perspectives on regional peace by establishing causal linkages between different mechanisms for regional peace and the emergence of different levels of peace. I will argue that the international strategy can bring about only a relatively low level of peace (cold peace). However, cold peace can be conducive to the growing effectiveness of the regional strategies, starting from the regional legitimacy/state strength strategy resulting in normal peace. Normal peace, in turn, is conducive to liberalization and, as a result, to the emergence of the highest degree of peace-warm peace. The framework will provide an analytical tool for evaluating the current and future (short-term and long-term) progress in the Middle East peace process in comparison with past peace processes in South America and Western Europe.

Since the 19th century, Latin America has progressively become a zone of peace. Between 1800 and 2007, the region has been affected by only fourteen inter-state wars. In addition, the frequency of inter-state wars has rapidly declined over the decades, generating a consolidated zone of peace. This paper examines the reasons behind regional peace in Latin America, reviewing the main theories of war and peace and assessing their validity in explaining the absence of inter-state wars in the region. The study finds that each one of the theories considered addresses only a single aspect of this phenomenon. Based on that, a multifaceted explanation of regional peace in Latin America is proposed, combining different theories to provide a more complete analysis of the phenomenon. This explanation presents peace in Latina America as the result of two interacting elements: countries' satisfaction with their borders and the presence of weak states in the region. While recognizing that political regimes can influence countries' war-proneness (and that democratic regimes tend to be less war-prone than authoritarian regimes), this study shows that democracy is not the ultimate cause of regional peace in Latin America. Indeed, the presence of authoritarian regimes in the region did not hinder the creation of a zone of peace between the 19th and 20th century. However, the study highlights that the spread of democracy in the region helped consolidating the zone of peace and determined its evolution from mere absence of war to institutionalized security community.