Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University
Abstract
How is a region defined? Who delineates it, and for what purpose? These are some of the questions that are at the center of this article which provides an interdisciplinary discussion of the way ‘regionness’ is defined with regard to western Asia. To that end, it assesses concepts developed within the fields of International Relations (IR), Area Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Political Science. Departing from a critical engagement with the theory of regional security complexes put forward by theorists of international relations, it presents an alternative, cultural explanation of the way regions are constituted with particular emphasis on the security dynamics in western Asia.
