Maghreb as a Regional Complex

This article aims to evaluate Maghreb’s regionness by analyzing its historical experience, political organization and regional security dynamics. The concept of regionness and five levels of regionalization, which are introduced by Björn Hettne, provides a conceptual framework for the study. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that in terms of political structuring and regional security dynamics, Maghreb demonstates the characteristics of second level of regionalization, which is the regional complex. In political terms, political entities in the region are organized as nation-states. In security terms, inter-state conflicts that have arisen out of nation-state building and consolidation process, territorial and boundary disputes inhereted from the period of colonial rule, and regional power rivalry among states turn the region into “Standard Regional Security Complex”, which is composed of a group of states competing with one another in an anarchic structure. Conduct of inter-state relations through rivalries, balances and alliances results in the structuring of regional security complex as a conflict formation. The conflictual character of the region makes it a classical, state-centric, military-political type “Regional Security Complex”.