Security community

Article summary

A security community is a region in which a large-scale use of violence (such as war) has become very unlikely or even unthinkable. The concept of a security community is related to a group of states that enjoy relations of dependable expectations of a peace. The term was coined by the prominent political scientist Karl Deutsch in 1957. In their seminal work Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience, Deutsch and his collaborators defined a security community as "a group of people" believing "that they have come to agreement on at least this one point: that common social problems must and can be resolved by processes of 'peaceful change . Peaceful change was defined as "the resolution of social problems, normally by institutionalized procedures, without resort to large-scale physical force". People in a security community are also bound by the "sense of community", the mutual sympathy, trust, and common interests. The concept has not become a mainstream term in the field of international security despite its long history. After the end of the Cold War, the concept of a security community was adapted by constructivist scholars. A major impetus was the book Security Communities (1998), edited by Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett.…

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