ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 traces scholarly debates on the concept of security and securitization defined in terms of national interest. It also sets up the theoretical foundation of the book, which consists of three sections. The first section is a survey of how scholars explain the political construction of the North Atlantic security communities (NASC). The second section theorizes the concept of the regional insecurity communities of South Asia and the Middle East (ICME for the sake of brevity). The third section compares differences between the two systems of security governance. Under the subtitle “strategies of survival”, the chapter concludes with how South Asian and Middle Eastern states deal with their perpetual insecurity.
