Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:42:28.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structural causes and regime consequences: regimes as intervening variables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Stephen D. Krasner
Get access

Extract

International regimes are defined as principles, norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area. As a starting point, regimes have been conceptualized as intervening variables, standing between basic causal factors and related outcomes and behavior. There are three views about the importance of regimes: conventional structural orientations dismiss regimes as being at best ineffectual; Grotian orientations view regimes as an intimate component of the international system; and modified structural perspectives see regimes as significant only under certain constrained conditions. For Grotian and modified structuralist arguments, which endorse the view that regimes can influence outcomes and behavior, regime development is seen as a function of five basic causal variables: egoistic self-interest, political power, diffuse norms and principles, custom and usage, and knowledge.

Type
Overviews
Information
International Organization , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , Spring 1982 , pp. 185 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), p. 19Google Scholar.

2 Haas, Ernst, “Technological Self-Reliance for Latin America: the OAS Contribution,” International Organization 34, 4 (Autumn 1980), p. 553Google Scholar.

3 Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 54Google Scholar.

4 Robert Jervis's contribution to this volume, p. 357.

5 Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Relations (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar; Kaplan, Morton, Systems and Process in International Politics (New York: Wiley, 1957), p. 23Google Scholar; Kaplan, , Towards Professionalism in International Theory (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 66–69, 73Google Scholar.

6 Hirsch, Fred, The Social Limits to Growth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 78Google Scholar.

7 John Ruggie's contribution to this volume, p. 380.

8 Iran's behavior may be rooted in an Islamic view of international relations that rejects the prevailing, European-derived regime. See Rosecrance, Richard, “International Theory Revisited,” International Organization 35, 4 (Autumn 1981)Google Scholar for a similar point.

9 Susan Strange's contribution to this volume, p. 487.

10 Belshaw, Cyril, Traditional Exchange and Modern Markets (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

11 Weber, Max, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 30Google Scholar.

12 Waltz, , Theory of International Relations, p. 118Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., especially chapters 5 and 6. This conventional structuralist view for the realist school has its analog in Marxist analysis to studies that focus exclusively on technology and economic structure.

14 Robert O. Keohane's and Arthur A. Stein's contributions to this volume, pp. 330 and 300.

15 Vinod K. Aggarwal emphasizes this point. See his “Hanging by a Thread: International Regime Change in the Textile/Apparel System, 1950–1979, Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1981, chap. 1Google Scholar.

16 The modified structural arguments presented in this volume are based upon a realist analysis of international relations. In the Marxist tradition this position has its analog in many structural Marxist writings, which emphasize the importance of the state and ideology as institutions that act to rationalize and legitimate fundamental economic structures.

17 Raymond Hopkins and Donald Puchala's contribution to this volume, p. 270.

18 Ibid., p. 245.

19 Bull, The Anarchical Society, chap. 5.

20 See Lijphart, Arend, “The Structure of the Theoretical Revolution in International Relations, International Studies Quarterly 18, 1 (March 1974), pp. 64–65Google Scholar, for the development of this argument.

21 Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, especially chap. 8.

22 Toulmin, Stephen, Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), pp. 56–57Google Scholar. Toulmin's use of the term paradigm is similar to Kuhn's notion of an exemplar. See Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Specific Revolutions, 2nd ed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 187Google Scholar.

23 Stein's contribution to this volume, p. 316.

24 Keohane's contribution to this volume, p. 338.

25 There is a lively debate over precisely how much of a role Smith accords to the state. Some (see for instance Hirschman, Albert, The Passions and the Interests [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977], pp. 103–104)Google Scholar maintain that Smith wanted to limit the folly of government by having it do as little as possible. Others (see for instance Holmes, Colin, “Laissez-faire in Theory and Practice: Britain 1800–1875,” Journal of European Economic History 5, 3 [1976], p. 673Google Scholar; and Diaz-Alejandro, Carlos, “Delinking North and South: Unshackled or Unhinged,” in Fishlow, Albert et al. , Rich and Poor Nations in the World Economy [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978], pp. 124–25)Google Scholar have taken the intermediate position endorsed here. Others see Smith trying to establish conditions for a moral society that must be based on individual choice, for which a materialistically oriented, egoistically maintained economic system is only instrumental. See, for instance, Billet, Leonard, “The Just Economy: The Moral Basis of the Wealth of Nations,” Review of Social Economy 34 (12 1974)Google Scholar.

26 Hirschleifer, Jack, “Economics from a Biological Viewpoint,” Journal of Law and Economics 20 (04 1977)Google Scholar; Weber, , Economy and Society, pp. 336–37Google Scholar; North, Douglass C. and Thomas, Robert Paul, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), chap. 1Google Scholar.

27 Kindleberger, Charles P., “Government and International Trade,” Princeton Essays in International Finance (International Finance Section, Princeton University, 07 1978)Google Scholar. Adam Smith was less enamoured with leadership. He felt that reasonable intercourse could only take place in the international system if there was a balance of power. Without such a balance the strong would dominate and exploit the weak. See Diaz-Alejandro, , “Delinking North and South,” p. 92Google Scholar.

28 Kindleberger, Charles P., Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (New York: Basic Books, 1978)Google Scholar.

29 Keohane, Robert O., “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967–77,” in Holsti, Ole R. et al. , Changes in the International System (Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1980)Google Scholar.

30 For a recent discussion see Laitin, David, “Religion, Political Culture, and the Weberian Tradition,” World Politics 30, 4 (07 1978), especially pp. 568–69Google Scholar. For another discussion of noneconomic values in the rise of capitalism see Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests.

31 Hirsch, The Social Limits to Growth, chap. 11. See also Walzer, Michael, “The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class,” New York Review of Books 27 (20 03 1980)Google Scholar.

32 Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (New York: Harper, 1975), p. 370Google Scholar. For the tie between bills of exchange and Jewish bankers see Hirschman, , The Passions and the Interests, p. 72Google Scholar, and Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System (New York: Academic Press, 1974), p. 147Google Scholar.

33 Jervis's contribution to this volume, p. 361.

34 Bull, , The Anarchical Society, pp. 8–9, 70Google Scholar.

35 Weber, , Economy and Society, p. 29Google Scholar.

36 Trakman, Leon E., “The Evolution of the Law Merchant: Our Commercial Heritage,” Part I, Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce 12,1 (10, 1980) and Part IIGoogle Scholar, ibid., 12, 2 (January 1981); Berman, Harold and Kaufman, Colin, “The Law of International Commercial Transactions (Lex Mercatoria)” Harvard International Law Journal 19, 1 (Winter 1978)Google Scholar.

37 Haas, Ernst, “Why Collaborate? Issue-Linkage and International Regimes,” World Politics 32, 3 (04 1980), pp. 367–68Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., p. 368.