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"This book aims to examine the conceptions of, approaches to and practices of security adopted by Regional Organisations (ROs) around the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased focus on regions as a relevant realm for security, with actors within regional contexts identifying a significant degree of interdependency between one another. As a consequence, international security has taken on a distinct regionally-institutionalised character, as seen by the increase in calls for greater utilisation of 'Chapter VIII: Regional Agency' of the UN, in order to create a devolved UN-led system of global security management. However, there is little evidence of similar processes towards convergence between regions. Indeed, the idea of a system of global security management is a remote prospect, as divergence seems to be as important as commonality in terms of regional security. In light of the above, Regional Organisations and Security analyses the primary ROs and their approach to security, which are active in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Middle East and South America. The findings of individual case-studies are compiled to highlight disparities and similarities in how security is seen, prioritised, understood, practised, managed and implemented across regions. On this basis, the authors reach conclusions about whether we live in an increasingly globalised or regionally distinct world, and go on to assess the prospects for a globalised system of security management and consider how this might be developed and organised. This book will be of much interest to students of comparative regionalism, international organisations, international security and IR"--

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is attracting significant attention from governments and scholars. This study examines the evolution of the SCO as a regional security provider and a framework for cooperation, drawing on fieldwork interviews with officials and experts from its member-states

This short article provides a summary of how the extraordinary events surrounding Wagner private military company's (PMC) standoff with the Russian Ministry of Defense came to pass. It then considers what, if any, role Wagner will play in the Russian security landscape in the near future, and what this might suggest about the coherence of the Russian security state in general.

This article traces the increasingly significant role played by the Wagner Group private military company (PMC) within Russia. Wagner PMC's prominent, if not officially acknowledged, role in the offensive on Ukraine has accelerated a process by which it has semi-privatised certain functions of state security. This is likely to have an impact on the nature of the Russian state in the years ahead.

Politico-security support has always been a major element of Russia's relationship with most of the post- Soviet Central Asian republics. The U.S. withdrawal from, and the Taliban's seizure of control over most of, Afghanistan has thus likely increased its value in the eyes of the region's incumbent regimes. The Russian military's potential to deter armed groups considering an incursion into Central Asia also has value for extra-regional players, notably China.

IR has long been concerned about its claim on disciplinary status. This includes concerns about its differentiation from Political Science and a divide between scholars who advocate a narrow disciplinary approach and others who conceive of IR as a pluri-disciplinary concept. Although these dilemmas revolve around its position vis-à-vis other disciplines, the vast majority of the recent disciplinary-sociology debates have focused on the extent of IR scholarship's intradisciplinary fragmentation, along epistemological, topical, national, status and other lines. However, the sociology of science literature stresses that disciplines are the product of not only internal practice but also their knowledge relations to and differentiation from other disciplines. In short, intradisciplinary fragmentation cannot be considered as detached from a discipline's relations to other disciplines – and, by extension, the differentiated knowledge relationships held by distinct intradisciplinary fragments to other disciplines. Taking this into account, this article uses bibliometric analysis of journals as a proxy for analysing the relationship between IR's intradisciplinary make-up and its interdisciplinary relations to eight cognate disciplines between 2013 and 2017. Three distinct modes of bibliometric analysis are operationalised to map three different aspects of interdisciplinary knowledge practice: (inter)disciplinary debates (direct citation), multidisciplinary knowledge bases (bibliographic coupling) and interdisciplinary knowledge production (co-citation). On this basis, the article asks, one, whether and how differences in the interdisciplinary knowledge relations practised by IR scholarship correlate with intra-IR lines of fragmentation. And two, what are the implications for how IR's socio-intellectual composition is understood and its disciplinary status evaluated?

Within the political-economy of the social sciences, Area Studies (AS) is supposed to supply contextually-informed knowledge on (non-Western) areas to the other social sciences, in exchange for theory to guide further empirical investigations. Based on this assumption, there are regular calls for greater engagement with AS to counteract the shortcomings of International Relations' (IR) knowledge-base on many areas, perspectives, and practices of the international. However, there has been little work empirically detailing knowledge-exchange practices between IR and AS, so it remains an open question if the relationship functions as an exchange of 'international' theory-for-'area' empirics. This paper provides a macro-sociological analysis of the practices of IR–AS knowledge-exchange. By focusing on citation practice, it moves beyond accounts that treat the two disciplines as 'black boxes', to trace which parts of the 'dividing discipline' of IR are active in exchanging knowledge with which 'area' scholarships. Hence, it asks: Are there 'area' blindspots in IR's knowledge-production? And, what type of IR theory is exported to AS? This analysis informs an assessment of whether AS represents a significant resource for IR in its efforts to, one, better inform its knowledge-production about 'other' areas of the international, and two, assert its disciplinary-relevance within the academy.

AbstractWithin the political-economy of the social sciences, Area Studies (AS) is supposed to supply contextually-informed knowledge on (non-Western) areas to the other social sciences, in exchange for theory to guide further empirical investigations. Based on this assumption, there are regular calls for greater engagement with AS to counteract the shortcomings of International Relations' (IR) knowledge-base on many areas, perspectives, and practices of the international. However, there has been little work empirically detailing knowledge-exchange practices between IR and AS, so it remains an open question if the relationship functions as an exchange of 'international' theory-for-'area' empirics. This paper provides a macro-sociological analysis of the practices of IR–AS knowledge-exchange. By focusing on citation practice, it moves beyond accounts that treat the two disciplines as 'black boxes', to trace which parts of the 'dividing discipline' of IR are active in exchanging knowledge with which 'area' scholarships. Hence, it asks: Are there 'area' blindspots in IR's knowledge-production? And, what type of IR theory is exported to AS? This analysis informs an assessment of whether AS represents a significant resource for IR in its efforts to, one, better inform its knowledge-production about 'other' areas of the international, and two, assert its disciplinary-relevance within the academy.

IR has long been concerned about its claim on disciplinary status. This includes concerns about its differentiation from Political Science and a divide between scholars who advocate a narrow disciplinary approach and others who conceive of IR as a pluri-disciplinary concept. Although these dilemmas revolve around its position vis-à-vis other disciplines, the vast majority of the recent disciplinary-sociology debates have focused on the extent of IR scholarship's intradisciplinary fragmentation, along epistemological, topical, national, status and other lines. However, the sociology of science literature stresses that disciplines are the product of not only internal practice but also their knowledge relations to and differentiation from other disciplines. In short, intradisciplinary fragmentation cannot be considered as detached from a discipline's relations to other disciplines – and, by extension, the differentiated knowledge relationships held by distinct intradisciplinary fragments to other disciplines. Taking this into account, this article uses bibliometric analysis of journals as a proxy for analysing the relationship between IR's intradisciplinary make-up and its interdisciplinary relations to eight cognate disciplines between 2013 and 2017. Three distinct modes of bibliometric analysis are operationalised to map three different aspects of interdisciplinary knowledge practice: (inter)disciplinary debates (direct citation), multidisciplinary knowledge bases (bibliographic coupling) and interdisciplinary knowledge production (co-citation). On this basis, the article asks, one, whether and how differences in the interdisciplinary knowledge relations practised by IR scholarship correlate with intra-IR lines of fragmentation. And two, what are the implications for how IR's socio-intellectual composition is understood and its disciplinary status evaluated?