Description
This paper examines the extent to which regional regimes that have been developed since the 1990s to facilitate conflict prevention and peacebuilding may be resilient in the context of increased global geopolitical tensions. It develops a framework of assessing the resilience of such regimes to increased constraints and challenges arising from increased great or regional power rivalries, and the applies it briefly to assess the determinants of resilience of conflict-prevention regimes in several sub-regions, including West Africa, East Africa, and SE Asia. The paper then develop its analysis through a more detailed case study of the resilience of the regional and international mechanisms for conflict-prevention and peacebuilding in South East Europe – particularly the Western Balkans. It argues that although OSCE conflict prevention measure are largely blocked by the tensions between Russia and NATO/EU, in practice the sub-regional conflict prevention regimes established in Europe since the end of the Cold Wat are constituted by a complex of institutions and arrangements that remain functional in South East Europe; contributing to their wider resilience . Thus the increased risks of conflicts and instability in this region can still be addressed by the remains of the conflict prevention and peacebuilding regime clusters, but with better prospects for success for some conflict risks than others.
