Risk management as a new area of cooperation in international relations

Traditional areas of cooperation in international affairs consist of political, economic, security, cultural and social relations. They have been developed and structured on the main principles of the Westphalia Order which... [ view full abstract ]

Traditional areas of cooperation in international affairs consist of political, economic, security, cultural and social relations. They have been developed and structured on the main principles of the Westphalia Order which was based on sovereign and territorially bordered state. Since then, a qualitative and quantitative conversion of international environment has occurred where new non-state actors and non-territorial threats appeared. In the theory of international relations (IR) it was defined as a new, emerging order named – post- or late-Westphalia order. It is characterised by transnational interactions, cross-border relations, amorphous threats, blurring of what are elements of home and foreign affairs, interconnectedness and high dynamism. Definitely the most intensively in the 90’s of the 20 C. a new area of cooperation between state and non-state actors evolved. It was the ecological sphere which started to be more and more popular subject of bilateral and multilateral agreements on sate and international organisation levels. Climate change and its consequences were included to a group of real and probable threats which call for a common, coherent strategy on a global level. Afterwards more phenomenon, as a terrorism, cyber-terrorism, organised crime, illegal immigration, depletion of natural resources, falling states, financial crisis, nuclear power plants etc were added to a category of threats which require reactive and proactive strategies to fight with and prevent from them. Majority of states and supra-states entities (the European Union) incorporated risk analysis and management into security strategies as priorities for action at national and international levels. Transborder feature of many contemporary threats forced countries to establish new international groups of experts and policy makers and sign agreements on cooperation in risk analysis and management. Moreover not only state-actors are active in this sphere but international organizations and forums, as well as non-profit non-governmental organisations participate in this area of interaction in international relations.
The structure of the presentation will be based on three points: 1) determinants of incorporation of risk analysis and management in international relations; 2) examples of agreements and instruments of cooperation in this field; 3) the impact of this on the theory of IR. The main aim is to indicate the influence of risk as a theoretical and real factor expanding interactions and theory of IR.