This article broadens the understanding and empirical study of regime complexes by shifting the focus from the negotiation outcome to the processes of negotiating new international agreements. Although they are important to regime-complex formation and delimitation, the sites where states negotiate new agreements are rather neglected. We aim to enhance the methodological toolbox available to scholars studying global governance in two ways: (1) by demonstrating how dynamic relationships between states and international organisations (IOs) unfolding within the social space of international treaty negotiations contribute to regime-complex formation; and (2) how social network analysis (SNA) can help us to detect patterns in these relationships. Combining participant observation and collaborative event ethnography (CEE) with social network analysis, we present new empirical material illustrating how we delimited a regime complex and how IOs interact throughout the negotiation process. We applied our methodology to the case of marine-biodiversity governance and use observational data collected during three intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) (2018–19) on a new treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) for our analysis. We discuss the results in relation to our approach’s strengths and weaknesses and implications for future research on regime complexity.

International environmental cooperation can impose significant costs on private firms. Yet, in recent years some companies have been supportive of international climate agreements. This suggests that under certain conditions environmental accords can be profitable. In this paper, I seek to explain this puzzle by focusing on the interaction between domestic regulation and decisions at international climate negotiations. I argue that global climate cooperation hurts the profits of polluting firms if domestic governments do not shield them from international compliance costs. Vice versa, if firms are subject to protective (i.e., insufficiently severe) policy instruments at home, firms can materially gain from international climate agreements that sustain expectations about their profitability. I test the argument with an event study of the effect of decisions at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on major European firms that received free carbon permits in the early stages of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The analysis suggests that financial markets carefully follow the international climate negotiations, and reward the regulated firms based on the outcome of UNFCCC decisions. The evidence also indicates the advantageous interplay between certain types of domestic regulations and international regimes for business. More generally, the results show the perils of privately supported policy for the effectiveness of international public good provision.

This special issue focuses on the difficulties of negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), with contributions by scholars from different perspectives. This introductory article briefly examines the trend to mega-FTAs of which TTIP is a leading example. It then reviews the contributions to this special issue, drawing on an analytical approach that reflects extant work on transnational and transgovernmental relations. This approach, we contend, helps to understand the stark mismatch between the desire of some parties to negotiate binding trade rules on behind-the-border regulatory policies in certain key sectors of national economies and the progress made in TTIP talks. We then highlight the significance of some key actors in a case study of failed E.U. attempts to include financial sector reforms and associated regulatory processes in TTIP.

Despite initial intentions to better align transatlantic regulation and associated practices in the negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), this was not possible for rules concerning genetically modified organisms and data privacy. By 2016 both matters effectively fell off the TTIP negotiating agenda. This paper identifies the factors responsible, specifically the critical role played by independent regulatory agencies and associated bureaucratic politics, transnational coalitions of private sector organizations, and non-government organizations and contingency. These factors are not exclusive to the two salient regulations considered here, with the implication that the identification of cross-border spillovers is at best a necessary condition for the successful negotiation of binding trade rules on behind-the-border government policies.

This article explores if (and how) national elections affect the chances of concluding an international agreement. Drawing on a literature about the informational efficiency of elections, it examines how political uncertainty in the run-up to an election impacts the dynamics of international negotiations. Using the case of decision making in the European Union (EU), it finds that (1) pending national elections significantly reduce the chances of reaching an agreement at the international level (2) this effect is strongest during close elections with uncertain outcomes and (3) the effect is particularly pronounced in the case of elections in larger member states. The findings highlight the fruitfulness of further research on the dynamics between national and international politics. The article has positive and normative implications for the literature on two-level games, international negotiations and legislative bargaining in the EU.

This paper develops the normative logic of two-level games linking international negotiation and domestic acceptability. The kernel of the logic is to be found in the claim that normatively governed relations involve agents simultaneously asking whether the expectations that they have under an agreement are reasonable given the expectations of others under that agreement. This normative logic mirrors the empirical logic that Putnam (1988) identified in his seminal account.

The normative logic is derived from a consideration of relevant concepts of representation, and in particular the concepts of authorization in international negotiation and accountability in domestic ratification. Rawls’ (1996) distinction between the reasonable and the rational is then deployed to state normative conditions of domestic acceptability as well as the obligations of fairness that states owe to one another. Two implications for democratic theory are drawn.