1 - Cultures of Peace and Security from the Vienna Congress to the Twenty-First Century

Summary

This chapter looks at how contemporaries understood changes occurring in the structure and practices of the European security regime emerging around 1815, and how we can understand its ordering functions in international society today from a broader historical perspective by applying theoretical notions developed in regime and governance theory. By highlighting not only the innovations but also the deficiencies of the Vienna security regime, this chapter questions its 'model' character. Yet the experiences and practice of the normative order emerging from the Vienna regime contributed to later forms of international governance in the League of Nations, the United Nations and the Security Council.