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Theory of International Politics

01 Jan 1979-
About: The article was published on 1979-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 7932 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Global politics & International relations.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore state choice toward international regulatory regimes for environmental protection, and examine the divergent responses of two leading states to the core agreement of the new regime.
Abstract: International regimes develop in three general ways: through coercion, convergence ("harmony"), or mutual state choice. Lasting coercive cooperation is rare. 1 Harmony is of limited interest. 2 In the majority of cases--and those of the greatest theoretical and practical significance--regimes arise through explicit state choices to cooperate. This article explores state choice toward international regulatory regimes for environmental protection. Regulatory regimes are frequently aimed at diffuse private actors and behaviors. International regime rules are commonly transformed into binding domestic rules or standards; regulatory cooperation, and environmental cooperation in particular, is marked by the degree to which this process of implementation relies upon and is shaped by existing domestic institutions and political structures. Because regulatory regimes at the international level are nearly always administrated through regulatory regimes at the domestic level, the latter, in conjunction with the politics new regulation [End Page 482] engenders, are central to understanding state choice. While many analyses have examined the role of domestic politics in international cooperation, I focus on domestic institutions. This article shows how institutions, in conjunction with the interests of key societal actors and the political incentives faced by governments, help to determine the expected political, economic, and legal impact of international commitments. Given that states are collectively the architects of international institutions, and these anticipated effects thus partly endogenous, the domestic regulatory structures of powerful states can also be critical influences on the scope, structure, and terms of international institutions. To develop these claims, I examine an important recent case of international environmental cooperation, the protection of global biological diversity ("biodiversity"), and analyze the divergent responses of two leading states to the core agreement of the new regime. While the United Kingdom signed and ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 3 negotiated as one of the keystones of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the United States refused to do so. Both states were active participants in the negotiations and shared a host of similarities: the likelihood both of harm from biodiversity loss and of gain from biodiversity protection, positions as economic powers, intensity of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, antiregulatory leadership, and positions on critical issues like intellectual property protection. Two theoretical perspectives that examine areas of potential difference are used to explore this divergence in choice toward the CBD. Building on the seemingly central role played by science and scientists in the formation of environmental regimes, Peter Haas and others have developed a prominent knowledge-based account of state behavior in which epistemic influence, built on positive and normative understandings shared by an elite community of experts, explains much of the observed intergovernmental coordination in environmental affairs. 4 An alternative perspective, that I term "regulatory politics," proposes that variations in core domestic institutions critically shape the anticipated impact of regime rules and hence the domestic politics of international cooperation.

109 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Brian Lai1
TL;DR: The current literature examining US foreign assistance goals in the post-Cold War period has found that security is declining in importance and that the USA is aiding democracies while also support....
Abstract: The current literature examining US foreign assistance goals in the post-Cold War period has found that security is declining in importance and that the USA is aiding democracies while also support...

108 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that cooperation on a wide array of economic issues and regular meetings of high-level officials provide member states with valuable information regarding the interests and resolve of their counterparts.
Abstract: Does institutional variation have implications for questions of conflict and peace? Theory indicates that it does, but extant studies that address this question treat such institutions as homogenous. Building on recent theoretical advances, I argue that cooperation on a wide array of economic issues and regular meetings of high-level officials provide member-states with valuable information regarding the interests and resolve of their counterparts. This, in turn, reduces uncertainty and improves the prospects of a peaceful resolution of interstate disputes. To test the effect of these two institutional features on the level of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs), I present an original data set that measures variation in institutional design and implementation across a large number of regional integration arrangements (RIAs) in the 1980s and 1990s. Employing multivariate regression techniques and the regional unit of analysis, I find that a wider scope of economic activity and regular meetings among high-level officials mitigate violent conflict. These results remain intact after controlling for alternative explanations and addressing concerns of endogeneity.Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the 45th Anual Convention of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 16–20, 2004 and at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 2–5, 2004. For helpful comments and suggestions I thank the editor and two anonymous referees of this journal, as well as Paul Fritz, Yoav Gortzak, Edward Mansfield, Timothy McKeown, Brian Pollins, Peter Rosendorff, Donald Sylvan, Alex Thompson, and Peter Trumbore.

108 citations


Cites background from "Theory of International Politics"

  • ...…institutions, I find strong support for my arguments+ 1+ See Grieco 1997; Kahler 1995; and Mansfield and Milner 1999+ 2+ See Mearsheimer 1994095; and Waltz 1979+ 3+ See Keohane 1984; Mansfield and Pevehouse 2000; Russett and Oneal 2001; and Russett, Oneal, and Davis 1998+ For two recent…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
Alec Stone1
Abstract: Under the banner of “regime theory,” the study of international relations has experienced a massive if largely unacknowledged return to law, the study of the nature, scope, and relevance of norms international politics. Regime is shorthand for forms of institutionalized cooperation in the international system. The article provides one way to assess this movement. In part I, I develop an abstract conception of constitutions as bodies of metanorms, those higher order norms that govern how lower order norms are to be produced, applied, and interpreted. I then examine the extent to which international relations theory is equipped to recognize that some international regimes are constitutional in form (part II). In part III, I propose a means of situating all regime forms, from the most primitive to the full blown constitutional, along a continuum. The central claim is that the distinction made between international and domestic society, for the most part a matter of dogma in mainstream theory, is relative not absolute.

108 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, private institutions for third-party labeling of food and wood products have been a lively field of empirical research, peaking in the conception of certification as a non-state market-drive.

108 citations

References
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Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1976
TL;DR: For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge, proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses as discussed by the authors. But the notion of proven knowledge was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics.
Abstract: For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge — proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses. Wisdom and intellectual integrity demanded that one must desist from unproven utterances and minimize, even in thought, the gap between speculation and established knowledge. The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics. Einstein’s results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge. But few realize that with this the whole classical structure of intellectual values falls in ruins and has to be replaced: one cannot simply water down the ideal of proven truth - as some logical empiricists do — to the ideal of’probable truth’1 or — as some sociologists of knowledge do — to ‘truth by [changing] consensus’.2

4,969 citations

ReportDOI
17 Feb 1966
TL;DR: This book contains the collected and unified material necessary for the presentation of such branches of modern cybernetics as the theory of electronic digital computers, Theory of discrete automata, theory of discrete self-organizing systems, automation of thought processes, theoryof image recognition, etc.
Abstract: : This book contains the collected and unified material necessary for the presentation of such branches of modern cybernetics as the theory of electronic digital computers, theory of discrete automata, theory of discrete self-organizing systems, automation of thought processes, theory of image recognition, etc. Discussions are given of the fundamentals of the theory of boolean functions, algorithm theory, principles of the design of electronic digital computers and universal algorithmical languages, fundamentals of perceptron theory, some theoretical questions of the theory of self-organizing systems. Many fundamental results in mathematical logic and algorithm theory are presented in summary form, without detailed proofs, and in some cases without any proof. The book is intended for a broad audience of mathematicians and scientists of many specialties who wish to acquaint themselves with the problems of modern cybernetics.

2,922 citations

Journal ArticleDOI

2,873 citations