The Indo-Pacific as a macrosecuritized constellation: revising Regional Security Complex Theory for the age of the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

The Indo-Pacific is increasingly talked about as being a region. However, the sheer geographical size of the Indo-Pacific, which on a maximalist definition stretches from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of South America, makes it challenging to theoretically conceptualize as a region. This article fills this gap by revising Buzan and Wæver’s Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) and re-engaging with the concept of securitization–a central yet often ignored aspect of RSCT–to make a case that the Indo-Pacific should be thought of not as a region but rather as an active attempt at macrosecuritization by a group of like-minded actors, namely Australia, India, Japan, and the US, and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom and the European Union (and various member states). The referent and constitutive object at the heart of this macrosecuritization is the rules-based international order–more recently conceptualized as the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)–with the rise of China presented as the existential threat to this. This macrosecuritization has had some success in convincing states such as New Zealand to adopt an Indo-Pacific perspective, but it has also met resistance from active challengers in the broader region, such as China, ASEAN and the Pacific Island Countries. Conceptualizing the Indo-Pacific as a partially macrosecuritized constellation, and not as a region, super-region, or supercomplex does not necessitate a major reworking of RSCT and offers a new lens for considering how the Indo-Pacific concept is re-shaping regional geopolitics in broader Asia, while also considering the important role that external actors play.