The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes : Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms

Examines how regimes influence the behaviour of their members and those associated with them.

The book identifies six mechanisms through which regimes affect behaviour and discusses the role of each through case studies of three major environmental concerns: international vessel-source oil pollution, shared fisheries and transboundary acid rain.

The behavioural mechanisms feature regimes as utility modifiers, as enhancers of co-operation, as bestowers of authority, as learning facilitators, as role definers, and as agents of internal realignments.The book develops methods to demonstrate which causal mechanisms come into play with specific regimes.

It emphasizes the need to supplement conventional models assuming unitary and utility-maximizing actors to explain variations in regime effectiveness.