South–South cooperation: What can we learn from South–South security cooperation?

Abstract To solve contemporary humanitarian, poverty, and climate crises we need to involve new or more actors and come up with innovative forms of collaborations, partnerships, finance, and solutions adapted to local circumstances. This is one of many reasons for growing interest in South–South security cooperation (SSSC). This concluding article seeks to draw parallels between the growing literature on SSSC and the broader body of literature on South–South cooperation to explore how and to what extent they enrich each other and further our understanding of South–South engagements. The article highlights the heterogeneous and relational nature of SSSC and points to a two-speed global South where larger, (geo)politically more potent and richer countries in the global South assist or export models to, or intervene in, smaller, politically and economically less powerful states. It also highlights internal power dynamics in the global South and carves out the complex ways in which traditional, historically informed power relations also affect the actions of Southern actors.