Of ‘Friends’ and ‘Enemies’: Expanding the Amity/Enmity Variable within Regional Security Complex Theory.

This essay aims to expand the concept of amity and enmity within Regional Security Complex Theory. In an initial meta-theoretical discussion as to the appropriate framework for this expansion - taking into account the theory’s fundamentally hybrid, material/ideational nature - positivist and constructivist approaches are considered, and a Wendtian framework is chosen as the suitable ‘via media’ scaffolding for this task. The amity/enmity variable in regional security is subsequently conceptualised as a series of ideal-type categories of anarchic culture (revisionist or status-quo conflict formations/thin or thick security regimes/loose or tight security communities). Macro- and micro-level methodologies are subsequently elaborated for the categorisation of Regional Security Complexes within this framework, the former based on the identification of objective, region-wide epiphenomenal criteria, the latter involving the study of discursive, unit- and sub-unit level processes of securitisation. Within these micro-level discursive processes, a distinction is made between ends-directed and means-directed aspects of security discourse - the former relating to the reasoned choice of values as referent objects of security, the latter encompassing the rational selection of security-enhancing strategies based on techno-scientific knowledge prevalent within society; on this micro-level, amity and enmity is accordingly conceived of in terms of the varying compatibility between or congruence of these ends- and means-directed aspects of securitisation. The notion of discursive stability - the groundedness of discourse in prevailing regional and domestic material and social structures - is subsequently introduced to account for possible changes in regional patterns of amity and enmity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]