Regime Theory and International Relations

International regimes are systems of norms and rules agreed upon by states to govern their behavior in specific political contexts or 'issue areas' whether this is trade policy, proliferation of nuclear weapons, or the control of transboundary air pollution in a particular region of the world. In this volume experts from the United States and Europe join forces for the first time for a rigorous exploration of the concept of international regimes. They discuss the fundamental conceptual and theoretical problems of regime analysis, study how regimes are formed and how they change, examine approaches to explaining the success or failure of attempts to form regimes, and look at the consequences of regimes for international relations.