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International Regimes: Problems of Concept Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Oran R. Young
Oran R. Young
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
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Abstract

Although we live in a world of international regimes, the scholarly literature on them remains rudimentary, especially in analytic terms. This essay examines the proposition that all international regimes are social institutions, even though there is great variation among them. Among other things, this suggests that regimes are dependent upon the maintenance of convergent expectations among actors; formalization is not a necessary condition for the effective operation of regimes; and regimes are always created rather than discovered. A conceptual framework and a research agenda for the comparative study of international regimes, as laid out in this essay, would guide studies of specific regimes and improve our ability to reach general conclusions about this fundamental, yet poorly understood, international phenomenon.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , April 1980 , pp. 331 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1980

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References

1 See, among others, Cooper, Richard N., “Prolegomena to the Choice of an International Monetary System,” International Organization, xxix, No. 1 (1975), 63–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haas, Ernst B., “On Systems and International Regimes,” World Politics, xxvn (January 1975); 147–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Gerard Ruggie and Ernst B. Haas, eds., International Responses to Technology, special issue of International Organization, xxix, No. 3 (1975); Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977)Google Scholar; Young, Oran R., Resource Management at the International Level: The Case of the North Pacific (London and New York: Pinter and Nichols, 1977)Google Scholar; Brown, Seyom and others, Regimes for the Ocean, Outer Space, and Weather (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1977)Google Scholar; and Morse, Edward L., “Global and Other International Commons in the 1980s” (mimeo., Council on Foreign Relations, 1976)Google Scholar. In addition, international lawyers have talked about international regimes for some time. To illustrate, see L.F.E. Goldie, “The Management of Ocean Resources: Regimes for Structuring the Maritime Environment,” in Black, Cyril E. and Falk, Richard A., eds., The Future of the International Legal Order, IV: The Structure of the International Environment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 155–247Google Scholar.

2 For a range of examples, see Ross, William M., Oil Pollution as an International Problem: A Study of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Sibthorp, M. M., ed., The North Sea: Challenge and Opportunity (London: Europa, 1975)Google Scholar; Dam, Kenneth, Oil Resources (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Arild Underdal, “The Politics of International Fisheries Management: The Case of the Northeast Atlantic” (unpub., 1978).

3 For example, Keohane and Nye (fn. 1), Part II.

4 See Young, “International Resource Regimes,” in Russell, Clifford S., ed., Collective Decision Maying: Applications from Public Choice Theory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 241–82Google Scholar, and Young, “Resource Regimes: Natural Resources and Institutional Design,” in progress.

5 Among other things, it will often prove necessary to rely on domestic courts to enforce the rights and rules incorporated in international regimes. See Falk, Richard A., The Role of Domestic Courts in the International Legal Order (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

6 Actors will virtually never operate behind a Rawlsian “veil of ignorance” in real-world situations. See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), chap. IIIGoogle Scholar.

7 On the notion of bundles of rights, see Reich, Charles A., “The New Property,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 73 (April 1964), 733–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Consult, among others, Furubotn, Eirik and Pejovich, Svetozar, “Property Rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent Literature,” Journal of Economic Literature, x, No. 4 (1972), 1137–62Google Scholar.

9 The result might be described as a system of “restricted” common property: see Dales, J. H., Pollution, Property, and Prices (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 61–65Google Scholar.

10 My use of the concept “rules” differs somewhat from that prevalent in recent contributions to jurisprudence. Compare Hart, H.L.A., The Concept of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar, and Dworkin, Ronald, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), esp. chaps. 2 and 3Google Scholar.

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14 Incentive systems can also be used to raise or disburse revenue. Ordinarily, however, their primary purpose is to structure the behavior of certain groups of actors.

15 See, for example, Aliber, Robert Z., The International Money Game (New York: Basic Books, 1976)Google Scholar.

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17 Problems of social choice pertaining to the selection and reform of international regimes per se are discussed in a later section of this essay.

18 The classic study (focusing on voting systems) is Arrow, Kenneth, Social Choice and Individual Values (2d ed. New York: Wiley, 1963)Google Scholar.

19 Young, “Anarchy and Social Choice: Reflections on the International Polity,” World Politics, xxx (January 1978), 241–63Google Scholar.

20 That is, reality seldom approximates the condition of “perfect compliance” discussed in Rawls (fn. 6), 351.

21 For a similar observation about domestic problems, see A. Myrick Freeman, “Environmental Management as a Regulatory Process,” Discussion Paper D-4, Resources for the Future, January 1977.

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24 For empirical examples, see Mair, Lucy, Primitive Government (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1977), esp. chap. 1Google Scholar.

25 Tauber, Ronald S., “The Enforcement of IATA Agreements,” Harvard International Law Journal, x, No. 1 (1969), 1–33Google Scholar.

26 International regimes, like other social institutions, will ordinarily exhibit the attributes of collective goods (that is, non-excludability and jointness of supply) to a high degree. For further discussion of the problems of supplying collective goods, see Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

27 For a variety of examples, see Burke, William T., Legatski, Richard, and Woodhead, William W., National and International Law Enforcement in the Ocean (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

28 Christy, Francis T. and Scott, Anthony, The Common Wealth in Ocean Fisheries (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

28 For the background of earlier efforts to reach agreement on a regime for the territorial sea, consult Jessup, Philip C., “The United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea,” in Essays on International Law from the Columbia Law Review (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 197–231Google Scholar.

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32 A regime for some natural resource with no private property rights, no liability rules, and allocation based on the principle known as the “law of capture” might approximate this extreme case.

33 United Nations, International Compensation for Fluctuations in Commodity Trade (New York: United Nations, 1961)Google Scholar.

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36 Mair (fn. 24), Part I.

37 See Haveman (fn. 31), 21, for a description of markets in precisely these terms.

38 See Falk, Richard A. and Barnet, Richard, eds., Security in Disarmament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as well as Tauber (fn. 25).

39 This is, for example, the classic argument developed by Locke and similar con-tractarians concerning the origins of government. See John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, paragraphs 123–131.

40 See, for example, Brown (fn. 1), arid Hardy, Michael, “The Implications of Alternative Solutions for Regulating the Exploitation of Seabed Minerals,” International Organization, xxxi, No. 2 (1977), 313–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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42 Recent changes in regimes for marine fisheries arising from unilateral extensions of jurisdiction on the part of coastal states exemplify this prospect. In the case of the United States, the transition was accomplished through the passage of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 (PL 94–265).

43 For a case in point, consult the analysis of the proposed International Seabed Authority, in Young, “International Resource Regimes” (fn. 4).

44 Fisher, Bart S., “Enforcing Export Quota Commodity Agreements,” Harvard International Law Journal, XII, No. 3 (1971), 401–35Google Scholar.

45 It is not necessary to subscribe to Marxian precepts to realize that domestic as well as international regimes ma y be heavily influenced by actors who are, in principle, subject to regulation under the terms of these regimes. In fact, this is the central insight of the “capture” theory of regulation.

46 Compare this view with the analysis of conventions in Lewis, David K., Convention: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969)Google Scholar.

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49 This point of view may seem conservative (in the Burkean sense), but surely it is more than that. There are similar themes in many of the anarchist criticisms of Marxian or authoritarian socialism, as well as in many contemporary expressions of libertarianism. Skepticism about the efficacy of social engineering, therefore, is not a good indicator of ideological orientation.

50 On the concept of a “constitutional” contract, see Buchanan, James M., The Limits of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar.

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52 Note that it was formalized or codified in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Outer Continental Shelf. For relevant background, see Jessup (fn. 29).

53 Lindberg, Leon and Scheingold, Stuart, eds., Regional Integration: Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

54 On the resulting problems of treaty interpretation in international law, see McDougal, Myres S., Lasswell, Harold D., and Miller, James C., The Interpretation of Agreements and World Order (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

55 The classic early expression of this reasoning appears in Mitrany, David, A Wooing Peace System (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943)Google Scholar.

56 Lindberg, Leon and Scheingold, Stuart, Europe's Would-Be Polity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970)Google Scholar.

57 See Brown (fn. 1).

58 The distinction between this type of pressure and redistributive pressure frequently becomes blurred in practice because it is politically more acceptable to cloak redistributive desires in the guise of promoting good management practices. Numerous illustrations of this phenomenon can be found in the debates over the American Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976.

59 See Young (fn. 19), 260–62.

60 This argument is set forth clearly in Olson (fn. 26), for the general case of social institutions.

61 Compare the views expressed in Young, “International Resource Regimes” (fn. 4), with those advanced in Eckert, Ross D., “Exploitation of Deep Ocean Minerals: Regulatory Mechanisms and United States Policy,” Journal of Law and Economics, XVII (April 1974), 143–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Some analysts favor unanimity as a decision rule, especially at the level of “constitutional” contracts: see Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus oj Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rawls (fn. 6) suggests that individuals contemplating principles of justice in the “original position” would reach unanimous agreement.

63 “Thaw in International Law? Rights in Antarctica under the Law of Common Spaces,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 87 (March 1978), 804–59.

64 See, for example, Gilpin, Robert, “The Politics of Transnational Economic Relations,” International Organization, xxv, No. 3 (1971), 398–419CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 A Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Act (H.R. 3350), setting forth a unilaterally imposed regime for deep seabed mining, narrowly failed to pass in the 95th Congress. Similar legislation (S. 493) has been introduced in the 96th Congress, and stands a relatively good chance of passing.

66 For a review of recent thinking about power in international relations, see Baldwin, David A., “Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends versus Old Tendencies,” World Politics, XXXI (January 1979), 161–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 For a more extensive development of the analogy between oligopolistic industries and international relations, see Young, “The Perils of Odysseus: On Constructing Theories of International Relations,” in Tanter, Raymond and Ullman, Richard H., eds., Theory and Practice in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 190–95Google Scholar.