| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The ordering principle of international relations varies widely across regional
security complexes and has profound effects on regional order. States form hierarchies over
one another based on relational authority, which itself rests on social contract theories that
posit authority as an equilibrium of an exchange between a dominant state and the set of
citizens who comprise the subordinate state. Regional orders emerge because of the strong
positive externalities of social order and economies of scale in its production, and the mutually
reinforcing legitimacy accorded the dominant state by local subordinates. This implies that
regions characterised by the hierarchy of single dominant states will possess more peaceful
regional orders. Regions often described as pluralistic security communities in which cooperation
is understood to have emerged spontaneously from anarchy are better described as
regional hierarchies in which peace and conflict regulation are the products of the authority of
a dominant state.
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