The theory of securitization developed by Copenhagen School provide one of the most innovative possibilities of research in contemporary security studies. There are many concept of security theory developed and explained by various scholars and prominent writers. One of them are the concept of security community.
This essay will discuss on the concept of security community by various writers as well as the theoretical approach involved. In the final part of this essay I will briefly discusses on the example of security community i.e. the European Security Community and also on the application of security community in ASEAN.
First of all, what is security community? According to Oxford dictionary the word security means the activities involved in protecting a country, building or a person against attack, danger etc. While the word community means a group of people who shared identity and common norms. Thus it can be said by a layman that security community is a group of people who shared identity and common norms with the aims to protect their country or states from being attack or danger.
The concept of security community was found by Karl Deutsch in 1957. He defined security community as a group of states that had become integrated to the point at which there is real assurance that the members of that community will not fight each other physically but will settle their dispute in some other way. Security Community formally defined by Karl Deutsch:
“a security community is considered as a group which has become integrated, where integration is defined as attainment of a sense of community, accompanied by formal or informal institution or practices, sufficiently strong and widespread to assure peaceful change among members of a group with reasonable certainty over a long period of time”.
Karl Deutsch had formulated two (2) types of security community: 1) amalgamated; and 2) pluralistic. Amalgamated security community exist when ‘ a formal merger of two (2) or more previously independent units into a single larger units with some types of common government after amalgamation . In other words, amalgamated exist when the states formally unify. The best example of amalgamated security community is United States of America. Pluralistic security community as mentioned by E. Adler and M. Barnett in their book entitle Security Community, is that when the states retain the legal independence of separate government. In other words, the states retain their own sovereignty. If United States is the best example for amalgamated, United States-Canada or France-Germany since World War II maybe the good sample for pluralistic security community.
The relations between states in a security community are categorized by the nonexistence of war and the nonexistence of significant preparation of war. For example, military contingency plan, competitive military build ups or arms races between members of the security community. Thus, according to Deutsch, communications and interactions are the essence of the development of community. He further added that those state that live in a security community had formed not only stable order but in circumstance a stable peace.
Adler and Barnett had also give their opinion on the definition of security community. They had lay out their framework for understanding the nature of security community. They define a community as having three characteristic: 1) members of a community have shared identities, values and meanings; 2) members of community have direct or face to face encounters with one another; 3) members of community develop some sense of responsibility towards one another in the long run. Thus, based on the framework given, Adler and Barnett define security community as a community that exist at the international level, among states that develops peaceful norms for the regulations of conflicts.
Adler and Barnett had also developed the literature on security community as they offered a three tier framework to explain the development they create. The three-tier framework are :1) triggering conditions are identified; 2) states and their people engage in social interactions that transform the environment in which they are embedded; and 3) necessary conditions for dependable expectations of peaceful change. In the first tier, where the triggering conditions are identified, Adler and Barnett mentioned that it will include changes in technology and the development of new interpretations of social reality and also external threats. While in the second tier, the factors encouraging to the development of mutual trust and collective identity are identified. These will include favourable development in structural categories of power and knowledge, process categories of transaction, institutions, international organization as well as the social learning. In the third tier, i.e. necessary conditions for dependable expectations of peaceful change are required. These will include the development of a reciprocal process of mutual trust and collective identity. According to them (Adler and Barnett) the development of security communities begin as a nascent phase, followed by developing into an ascendants phase and finally becoming mature.
Bellamy on the other hand has sought to outspread the scope of security community theory where he examined in the relationship between state in a security community and those outside it. He argues that there are three (3) possible outcomes: 1) the relationship between security community and states outside can become more rigid than those that existed before the states involved identified themselves as ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of security community; 2) relations between the insider and outsider can remain qualitative unchanged; and 3) the option of an integrationist community is considered. This process may lead to the development of the security community. Based on the principal made by Bellamy, he found out that ASEAN is a loosely-coupled security community. In respect to ASEAN’s relations with China, the ASEAN case suggest that the stronger security community becomes, the less likely it is to produced realist security practices and discourse. More example and explanation on whether ASEAN is a security community states will be discussed later.
Theoretical evaluation of the concept of security community can be made according to all present theoretical approach that explain the non-existence of war in which security community aim for as mentioned by Karl Deutsch. In this section the discussion will be based on approaches by: 1) realist; 2) neo-liberal institution; and 3) constructivism.
First approaches by realist. Realist assume that the structure of international politics is defined by the distribution of power. They emphasize on the notion that while war does not take place all the time, it is always expected. If war does not occur, because of balance of power, alliance, hegemonies and deterrence are able to prevent it though it is temporary. By beginning with the assumptions of anarchy and the states are determined by self-interest as defined by military security, realist hold that the absence of war can only be short-term and is merely attributable to material consideration.
Second approach would be from neo-liberal institutionalism. Neo-liberal institutionalism focus on how states construct institutions to encourage cooperation and further their mutual interest in survival. Here it shows that in a way their approach seems to be similar with constructivism. However, their commitment to how self-interested actors construct institutions to enhance cooperation prevents them from considering fully how a community might be forged through shared identities, rather than through pre-given interest and binding contract alone. Actually, these are mentioned in the constructivist approach. Karl Deutsch theory raised during the period of neo-liberal institutionalism approach.
Third approach is from constructivism. The idea that the security community and its objective of peaceful change might be established through the institutionalisation of common identification, transnational values, intersubjective understanding and shared identities. These illustrate the relevance of constructivism in formulating the concept of security community. Constructivism, with its focus on constitutive norms and identities in influencing state interest and policies. It allows for the possibility that under the proper conditions, actors can produce shared identities and norms that are tied to a stable peace. Constructivist argue that security community can be better understood with the principles of constructivism. Thus, it is clear that constructivism is the best suited approach to account for the concept of security community as it recognizes the importance of knowledge for transforming international structures and security politics. In fact, Adler even argues that long before the rise of constructivism, Karl Deutsch and his associates, Erns Haas had projected constructivism in the work of security community. However, Deutsch was not a constructivist.
As Constructivism mentioned as the best approach to account for the concept of security community, its influences towards security community can be seen in three (3) area: 1) social construction of security community; 2) transformative impact of norms; and 3) impact of material forces in shaping international policies. For constructivists, cooperation among states is also to be understood as a social process that may redefine the interests of the actors in matters of war and peace. The habit of war avoidance found in security communities results from interactions, socialization, norm setting and identity building, rather than from forces outside of these processes such as the international distribution of power.
All theories of international organisation, including neo-liberal institutionalism, recognise the importance of norms. But constructivism permits for a much deeper impact of norms in shaping international relations. Norms are understood as a standard of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity. Norms not only ‘regulate’ state behaviour as in neo-liberal institutionalism, but also redefine state interests and constitute state identities, including the development of collective identities. By focusing on the constitutive effects of norms, constructivism has thus restored some of the original insights of integration theory regarding the impact of socialisation in creating collective interests and identities. According to Kratochwil, the chief functions of norms are to prescribed and proscribed behaviour. Once it established, it will redefined state interest and creating collective identities. Collective identities are constructed through interaction and socialization.
According to constructivists, while material forces remain important, intersubjective factors, including ideas, culture and identities, play a determining, rather than secondary, role in foreign policy interactions. Thus, constructivism provides important insights into the role of cultural norms and the emergence of ‘we feelings’ that Deutsch identified as a crucial feature of security communities
The Welsh school approach also support the idea of security community as a specific term that can realize the aim of the common peace and security. According to Welsh School, Karl Deutsch developed the term of security community with a belief that ordinary problems and security threats can be reacted by existence of institutions and practices that promotes common interest and ideas. Under the security community peace is foreseeable with the interactions of the actors who evade from the common or ordinary threat. This approach embraces the term community since it supports to reconsider the disinclination between ‘we’ and ‘they’ in a political science. This evaluated as a necessary step for the creation of community that creates common interest and common identities.
Besides that, Ken Booth and Peter Vale also described necessary conditions for Deutsch security community’s theory in their book called Security in Southern Africa: After Apartheid, Beyond Realism. They said that, a security community grow out of the mutual compatibility of values: 1) strong economic ties; 2) the expectation of more; 3) multifaceted, social, political and cultural transaction; 4) a growing density of institutionalised relationship; 5) mutual responsiveness; and 6) mutual predictable of behaviour. Booth further mentioned that the existence of the European security community shows the possibility of a stable peace in the anarchical world politics. He evaluates that the European integration as a historic example of imagining, constructing and then practicing security in ways that have actually delivered stable peace.
As mentioned before that the essence of the construction of community for Deutsch are communication and interactions, Booth and Vale had made a comparison between France-Germany and Turkish-Greece relations. The evaluations made by them is there is a possibility of security community for the relations of France-Germany but there is no security community involved in the relations of Turkish-Greece. Their evaluations based on Turkey and Greece have a limited social interactions and reject their mistakes in the past. However, Germany accepted its Nazi past and developed opportunities for the social interactions. This is evaluated as an important step for the establishment or development of a community that creates common interest and common identities.
Amitav Acharaya in his book called Constructing a Security Community in South East Asia: ASEAN and Problem of Regional Order had compared security community with other framework of security cooperation i.e. collective security. He said that, collective security is a prior agreement on the willingness of all parties to participate in the collective punishment of aggression against any member state. He further mentioned that the collective security has no prior identification of enemy or threat. There will be no expectation of and requirement for economic or other functional requirement for cooperation.
For security community on the other hand, Amitav Acharaya mentioned that there will be a strict and observed norms concerning non-use of force, no competitive arms acquisitions and contingency planning against each other within the grouping. Under security community there will be an institutions and processes whether in formal or informal for the pacific settlement of disputes. There will be a long term prospects for war avoidance as well as significant functional cooperation and integration. And finally for security community he mentioned that there will be a sense of collective identity where more or less the characteristics or conditions of the states are similar.
What makes the European mostly interesting in term of security community building is that the Union now extents the whole scale from trade to military crisis management. In the post-Cold War period the European Union has been taking on an progressively significant role when it comes to keeping safety and security inside and outside of the Union. This is most obviously captured by the build-up of the Union’s military and civilian abilities for crisis management and peacekeeping operations as well as common European policies to protect people, the environment and property. It is not necessarily against the threats of foreign attack but rather to address non-military threats and trans-boundary threats such as natural disasters and terrorist attack. However, the strength and breadth in terms of policies and legislation, coupled with its supranational institution, puts the European Union apart from any other regional organization in the world.
As mentioned earlier, European integration i.e. the European security community is the best example for security community. Although the European security community is maybe the most prominent example of a security community, its borders are not clearly defined. Some scholars combine it into a broader Euro Atlantic security community and some lessen it more or less to Western Europe. Generally, membership of the European Union, NATO, or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are seen as a standard of membership of the European Security Community. However, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) contains several countries that have not developed expectations of peaceful change for instance Georgia and NATO includes Turkey with its unsolved security problems at both the intrastate i.e. Kurdistan and international i.e. Cyprus and the Aegean, levels. On the other hand, more or less safe operationalization of the European Security Community may be based on European Union membership. Here, the European Security Community is operationalized as involving of the members of the European Union including Norway and Switzerland. Greece is included because of the current revolutions in the dynamics of its relationship with Turkey. The United Kingdom is included because the peace process has made a huge violence in Northern Ireland.
Bellamy characterizes the European Security Community as a mature, tightly attached security community. It can also be explained as an inclusive security community due to the general expectation that political conflicts within the community that is, both between and within the member states will be determined in a peaceful way. Many institutions of the European security community proclaim political liberalism to be their core value. For example, the Treaty of Maastricht which took place in 1992 stated that the European Community’s policy:
“shall contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law, and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Similarly, the treaty of Amsterdam which took place in 1997 declared that the European Union is founded:
“on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States.”
Liberal beliefs are also recognized by the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO.
Another example of security community is situated in North America. It involves two distinct security communities, the USA-Canada and USA-Mexico relations. It is more convenient for cross-sectional study to simplify it by using the label NAFTA formally, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Both relations are defined as loosely coupled security communities, mainly because of the lack of formal institutions and the absence of trust and common identity in the US-Mexican relationship. However, the community has showed itself stable and can be described as a comprehensive security community. There have been only two minor intrastate conflict years documented within NAFTA after the end of the Cold War i.e. between Mexico and leftist guerillas in 1994 and 1996.
Liberal values are seen as politically applicable by both Canada and the USA, while Mexico’s somewhat uncertain attitude to democracy and democratisation has changed only recently. In contrast to Western Europe, common principles played minor role in the development of the Northern American security community and cooperation between the USA and Mexico is still shaped principally by security and economic interests.
In the issues of ASEAN, the question arose whether ASEAN is fall under a security community. ASEAN was created in 1967. Its origin members were Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The states of the region had just gone through the three-year period of confrontation, wherein Indonesia had politically and, on occasion, militarily challenged the legitimacy of the Malaysian and Singapore. The Philippines, locked in a territorial dispute with Malaysia, also questioned its legitimacy. Confrontation ended with a change of government in Indonesia, but it left lingering tensions and uncertainties within the region.
ASEAN defined security in inclusive terms. Security for ASEAN comprised of political, military, economic and social factors interrelating at all levels of analysis. In keeping with this understanding, its member states expected that ASEAN would assist three mutually emphasizing security functions: 1) by building political and economic connections, ASEAN would mitigate hidden conflicts between its members left over from Confrontation; 2) it would benefit economic development in the member states and play a role to political stability by helping to ease the domestic social conditions nurturing communist insurgency; 3) by promoting internal security. ASEAN would make its members less exposed to the conspiracies of outside powers. ASEAN could be the tool by which the member states managed their own security environment, to the exclusion of great powers. The ASEAN states in general agreed that external interference in regional affairs was a major cause of conflict. In practice, ASEAN was most concerned about Chinese support for internal insurgencies.
In managing regional security, these are five (5) key initiatives develop by the foundation of ASEAN’s vision. They are the: 1) ASEAN or Bangkok Declaration of 1967; 2) the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN); 3) Kuala Lumpur, Declaration of 1971; 4) the associated ZOPFAN Blueprint; and 5) the Declaration of ASEAN Concord and ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation both endorsed at the Bali Conference of 1976. These initiatives express a distinct objectives of regional security in Southeast Asia.
The ASEAN Declaration of 1967 expresses the security objectives described above. The declaration mentioned that:
“the countries of Southeast Asia share a primary responsibility for strengthening the economic and social stability of the region and ensuring their peaceful and progressive national development, and…they are determined to ensure their stability and security from external interference in any form or manifestation”.
The “external interference” mentioned above addresses that ASEAN’s concern
to guarantee that member states respect each other’s’ sovereignty. It is also a denial of the military activities of external actors. The preamble goes on
to “affirm” that “all foreign bases are temporary.” The stated objective of excluding
all external actors from the region, however, was not shared by all the ASEAN
states and was the source of considerable disagreement at ASEAN’s founding meeting in Bangkok.
Later on a special meeting of the foreign ministers of the ASEAN countries was held on November 1971 in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting produced the Declaration on a zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in Southeast Asia. The operative paragraphs of the ZOPFAN Declaration were:
I. that Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are determined to exert initially necessary efforts to secure the recognition of, and respect for, South East Asia as a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, free from any form or manner of interference by outside Powers;
II. that South East Asian countries should make concerted efforts to broaden the areas of cooperation which would contribute to their strength, solidarity and closer relationship.
The word Neutralization was mentioned in the preamble of ZOPFAN Declaration as a desirable objective and because of that, the ASEAN states should discover ways and methods of getting about its recognition. Even though, the word neutralization had been used in the preamble, the concept was really that a political neutrality. Therefore, the ZOPFAN Declaration was a political compromise cobbled together to help ASEAN states with strongly divergent strategic perspective.
Following the Kuala Lumpur meeting, the ASEAN states formed a Senior Officials Committee to draft a ZOPFAN blueprint to build a common understanding of the interpretation of ZOPFAN. The Senior Officials Committee did not complete its work until 1976. So long as ZOPFAN was unrealized, the blueprint required no obligations on the ASEAN states. Though, the blueprint specified that ZOPFAN could only be realized when the region is free of ideological, political, economic, armed and other forms of conflict. The blueprint was a stronger replication of a few basic principles i.e. requests from the ASEAN states for the freedom to practice unconditional sovereignty and to control the affairs of their own region. However, the conditions under which ZOPFAN could be succeeded were ideal and represented a lack of responsibility to the concept on the part of the majority of ASEAN states.
ASEAN then arranged the Bali Conference in February 1976. This was the very first meeting of the ASEAN heads of state, and it created two fundamentally important agreements: 1) the Declaration of ASEAN Concord; and 2) the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC). The Declaration of ASEAN Concord mainly focused on the economic side of the security equivalence. The Declaration talk about areas of social and cultural cooperation, but its most focus was in defining areas of economic collaboration between the ASEAN states. It also encouraged military cooperation between its members.
The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) on the other hand was both a non-aggression deal between the ASEAN states and a code of conduct for state relations in Southeast Asia. Technically, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation was part of ZOPFAN. The Senior Official Committee suggested that a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation be part of the process of carry out ZOPFAN. However, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation has since gained a life of its own, and is best thought of as separate from ZOPFAN even though they are related. The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation’s goals were to promote perpetual peace, everlasting unity and co- operation among the people which would contribute to their strength, solidarity and closer relationship. It explicitly allowed for the attainment of non-ASEAN states. It required its participants to settle disputes peacefully over discussions and consultation. It aimed to promote cooperation in many different areas, with the objective of furthering economic development, peace and stability in Southeast Asia. It also ordered respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all nations.
ASEAN has moved away from the idea of ZOPFAN in the post-cold war era. ASEAN now views ZOPFAN as impractical because international economic interdependence and Southeast Asia’s need for access to the world economy, requires that the region be closely integrated with the rest of the world. It can be said that ASEAN states now believe their security is best served by pursuing a policy of equilibrium between the great powers and themselves which means establishing a balance between powers in the region.
ASEAN’s efforts to manage regional security in the post-cold war era are demonstrated by the creation of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). This is a group of twenty-one regional states that meet annually to talk over and discuss on security issues in the Asia-Pacific. The ASEAN Regional Forum is modelled on ASEAN and promotes the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation as the code of conduct for regional state behaviour. It is meant to engage techniques of diplomacy developed within ASEAN to the Asia-Pacific region. The ASEAN Regional Forum comprises all of the great powers and provides regional states with a chance to build social and political connections. It is expected it can soothe conflict situations before they become dangerous. However, there are many significant problems with the ARF, and many reasons to believe that it cannot work as ASEAN envisions.
This general idea of ASEAN’s security initiatives underlines two points: 1) the ASEAN states developed a consensus on the need for stable and peaceful intra-ASEAN relations; 2) historically, the ASEAN states were unable to agree on the appropriate role of external powers in Southeast Asia.
According to Nicholas Khoo in his article called The ASEAN Security Community: A Misplaced Consensus, he mentioned that the Southeast Asian states do not meet the requirement for a security community for two reason: 1) the reality of states preparing for and actually using force against associate ASEAN members; and 2) the dynamics of intra-ASEAN relations with solid and repeated proof of interference in the internal affairs of other ASEAN states.
There is an evidence shows that ASEAN states have highly sophisticated, organized preparations for war against other members of ASEAN states such as military contingency planning prove that ASEAN is not a security community. For example, the relationship between two (2) founding members of ASEAN i.e. Malaysia and Singapore. According to Tim Huxley, the Singaporean Armed Forces (SAF) order of battle appears to be designed for the possibility of war with Malaysia, with the objective of to disable the Malaysians in a brutal and fearless preemptive strike. This is deterrence based security relationship, concurrently categorized by considerable tension and mutual distrust. It does not look like anything which could form a significant component of security community.
Next, on the dynamics of intra-ASEAN relations. If ASEAN really is a developing security community, it would be estimated that member states to be engaging in exercises and integrative processes that are systematically moving it in the direction. It cannot be expected that there will be a significant intervention in the internal affairs of other ASEAN member states. For example, the relationship between Malaysia and Singapore propose that the tools identified by Karl Deutsch are weak. The absence of trust appears to be defining elements in the relationship. Both states have commented freely on the other’s internal affairs since Malaysia remove Singapore’s from the Malaysian Federation in 1965. As a consequence of that, Singapore survival as a state was in doubt. On that time, the Vietnam war had just started and the communist threat either domestic or regionally was still take place in Southeast Asia. In addition, this development happened just prior to the actual take-off in export growth by the newly industrialized Asian states, a category in which Singapore fall under. This history more or less had coloured the relationship between Malaysia and Singapore.
The endless ASEAN summits and meetings cannot seriously be taken as an evidence that ASEAN is a security community. It is only a mere trivial sense. Indeed, ASEAN members also have not been able to produce convincing evidence to show that they are a security community. Thus, Alice Ba mentioned that whether or not ASEAN is a security community, Southeast Asia is today more stable, cooperative and coherent than it was four decades ago.
As a conclusion, for a security community to exist, it is not sufficient that states have a formal commitment to pacific relations, that they feel the risk of war among them as low or even that they have avoided conflicts for a long period. Formal commitments can be breached or the absence of war might be due to factors which are not related to security community. For instance, balance of power, material constraints of successful of force or geo-political dynamics. Instead, a security community exists where states have achieved a sense of community and a level of mutual trust and collective identity which are sufficiently strong for them to consider the use and threat of force against each other as ridiculous and to avoid preparations for fighting one another.
Thus it can be said that not all international communities will automatically develop into security community. State belong to security community have created not only a stable order but more than that they have created a stable peace. One of the fundamental criteria for the existence of a security community is the ability to develop mature institutional mechanism together with a solid institutional culture which would be able to combat and prevent potential crises and conflicts. It is also necessary a common perception of the member states of security community over the external threats that they must use the same patterns of analysis when they classify the risks and vulnerabilities of the regional security.
Whether ASEAN is a security community or not, it can be said that much effort and development on the policies and the requirement to be a security community state have to be fulfill and improved. currently, ASEAN is not a security community region yet. However, ASEAN is moving towards a security community region. Perhaps one day ASEAN will declared as a security community region.