ABSTRACT
It is unquestionable that international organizations have become prominent agents in regional security. It is difficult today to foresee a situation where a violent conflict will not result in some form of conflict management initiative by an international organization. From a quantitative perspective, we have witnessed over the last decade an exponential increase in the number of such organizations; today there is virtually no region in the world which is not covered by some kind of institutional arrangement tailored to promote economic cooperation, development, or peace and security. From a qualitative perspective, these organizations are gradually extending their mandates and their operational experience in political and security matters, engaging not only with soft security issues but also with robust and traditional peacekeeping and even supranational political representation. For instance, the EU represents European interests in WTO negotiations and the AU participated in the 2008 G8 summit in Hokkaido. But despite their potential, these regional bodies are not flawless. In Chapter 1 we brought to light the existence of conundrums that warranted reflection and critical analysis. These included (i) capacity, (ii) partiality, (iii) hegemony, (iv) priority, (v) overlapping, (vi) absence of institutions or mandate in peace and security, (vii) inter-organizational information-sharing, and (viii) mandate. The critical analysis in the book corroborated that these puzzles are likely to set the policy and academic agenda in the future.
