Maull, Hanns W

Abstract
This paper compares the regional security “architectures” in Europe and Pacific Asia. It argues that the greatest difference between the two consists in a much more substantive role of multilateral elements in Europe, as compared to Pacific Asia. The principal cause for the difference lies in the fact that Europe’s security arrangements were driven intrinsically by the objective to prevent wars within (Western) Europe, as well as between East and West in Europe – a motive which largely remains absent in Pacific Asia. This led European countries to re-conceptualise sovereignty in ways which allowed for the development of intrusive, effective forms of multilateralism. In a second analytical step, the paper offers a comparative evaluation of successes and failures of regional institutions and argues that on balance Europe’s security architecture has been more effective than Pacific Asia’s since the end of the Cold War, making Europe in effect a net exporter of security. The principal reason for this seems to lie in the ability of European multilateralism to build on its “post-modern” reconceptualisation of sovereignty. By contrast, Pacific Asia remains wedded to a modern conception of sovereignty and (with the possible exception of Japan) considers the purpose of multilateralism to be the enhancement of sovereignty. Yet this perspective, which is also shared by the principal outside power in Pacific Asia, the United States, appears to be going against the grain of globalisation, which inter alia requires effective multilateral security co-operation – and hence a willingness to accept limitations on national sovereignty – to contain old and new security risks.
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