Resetting the Reset and the Rise of Regional Revisionism

Abstract

The proposed panel makes an important empirical contribution to the theoretical literatures on revisionism, regionalism and alliances by unpacking conceptual contours and security connotations of revisionism in order to comprehend and explain its importance for the emergence and evolution of regional and/or subregional security orders. Such orders can be defined as “the governing arrangements among the units of a regional system, including their rules, principles and institutions, which are designed to make security-related interactions predictable and to sustain collectively salient goals and values” (Stewart-Ingersoll and Frazier 2012: 20). Importantly, we conceive of revisionism a political-security orientation towards a given regional (sub)system, without embracing its often implicitly assumed normative connotations. Revisionist powers are therefore proposed to be studied in terms of their dissatisfaction with the distribution of power and goods; the lack of benefit from power distribution and/or goods; as well as their support for changing systemic rules (Ibid: 158). The main reason for this panel to refer to the concept of revisionism is a belief that it represents a pivotal category through which different categories of actors, with varying concerns and interests, interact. Hegemons, regional powers, and small states are all entangled in complex patterns of enmity and amity, very often directly linked to the denial, or enjoyment, of national core values. The resulting formations, i.e. regional security complexes are then produced as regional security subsystems “seen in terms of patterns of amity and enmity that are substantially confined within some particular geographical area” (Buzan, Waever and de Wilde 1997: 160; cf. also Ayoob 1991). Patterns of friendship or hostility acquire multilayered character over time (Olsen 2007; Batora and Hynek 2014) due to security institutionalizations of which military alliances (Miller 2011; Christensen 2011; Suh 2007; Snyder 1997; Walt 1986) can be as much an outcome as could be security communities (Deutsch et al. 1957; Adler and Barnett 1998; Ditrych 2014) or even more general regional organizations (Møller 2012; Acharya and Johnston 2007; Rumelili 2007). The concept of revisionism encompasses both processes and outcomes of independent decision-making within a region, as well as interdependent decision-making between regions. More specifically, the proposed panel intends to follow on the formerly widely discussed regional implications of the U.S. – Russian reset (Hynek, Stritecky et. al 2010). Contrary to the intentions of the Obama´s administration the current situation reveals revisionist surges that can be observed on national as well as regional levels. While set in the context of the recent power reconfigurations the issue would consist of three groups of articles looking at domestic revisionist processes in the Central European states, Russian assertive and subversive revisionism, and EU and NATO reactions on the revisionist challenges.

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