Regional Security Orders: Institutional Change and Adaptation

The paper addresses a concept of regional security order and looks into regional security processes, threat perceptions, and dynamics, as well as continuous institutional adaptation to internal and external challenges and threats. A paper attempts to explain the interplay of regional power dynamics, institutional system, and regional identity; it focuses on the regional security threat analysis and aims at extending the perception of regional security order and explaining its evolution. It discusses how regional organizations are adapting institutionally and functionally to meet reality and respond to major challenges. Together with the traditional focus on regional power structures and national interests, it addresses regional identity and institutions, enabling a broader and more systematic analysis of regional security. The paper explains how the interplay of the regional power structure, institutions, and identity, may contribute to the analysis of the evolution of regional security, the emergence of regional security threats, their perception, and the possibility to explain the regional change. It also addresses the role of international organizations and their capabilities and restrictions while attempting to stabilize major crises in the region. The empirical part of the analysis is designated to the transatlantic region and the evolution of NATO as an international institution. Focusing on how NATO evolves as a regional security order, what are the main internal and external implications for the perceptions of changing regional security threats within the transatlantic security community.