Building Regional Security in the Middle East: International, Regional and Domestic Influences

Taboos and Regional Security Regimes

JANICE GROSS STEIN

A security regime is an uneasy compromise where the relationship among the parties is generally undefined, limited in scope, and transitional. The relationship is undefined, because the parties are usually former adversaries who, for the moment, do not think of war as a feasible or practical, or, under some conditions, even a possible instrument. Yet they are far from being allies. A security regime differs in important ways from an alliance or a security community. A security regime is also limited. What happens inside the regime is only a part of what happens in the larger relationship. Participation in a regime does not imply clear behavioral expectations outside the security arena. Finally, the parties to a security regime are usually in a transitional relationship; although the parties have moved away from a full-scale adversarial relationship, where they are going is less clear. Security regimes do not develop in a linear sequence to become 'securitycommunities'.

Domestic Politics of Regional Security: Theoretical Perspectives and Middle East Patterns

ZEEV MAOZ

Three general perspectives on national security have dominated the literature. The realist perspective focuses on the effects of the power-related aspects of an anarchic system on the security calculus of states and on the conflict and alliance diplomacy outputs of national security policies. On the regional level, this perspective emphasizes the practices of balancing and counterbalancing as the key aspects of regional and global security

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