Disaggregating International Regimes: A New Approach to Evaluation and Comparison

Preface

Preface This book on international regime effectiveness has been written with a wide audience in mind—scholars, students, and practitioners interested in environmental governance, the management of living resources, or cooperative problem solving in strategically contested regions. Those seeking to understand environmental governance will find new tools for evaluating the performance of international institutions— notably, a disaggregate approach to effectiveness that makes crosscomparison possible by breaking down the problem addressed by the regime and the relevant empirical evidence to make the analytical operations tractable yet broadly applicable. A technique for formalized comparative analysis based on set theory helps bring out contingent relationships—how the effects of regime features or regime-based activities often depend on factors beyond the reach of regime participants. Readers interested in the international management of marine living resources will learn how the Barents Sea fisheries regime has dealt with challenges that are highly topical worldwide, such as transshipment at sea and extensive illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing, in part by mobilizing other, broader regimes that are better placed to implement the relevant port-state control measures. Readers interested in international cooperation in conflict-ridden regions will see how members of competing military alliances—Norway, the Soviet Union and later Russia, and a range of EU states—have succeeded in building and adapting an international institution that has helped insulate collaborative management practices from fluctuations in broader interstate relations. Those who deserve warm thanks for their help during the preparation of the study are indeed many. First of all, my wife, Helene Aarseth, and our children, Jakob and Line—not for spending late nights and early mornings intensely debating the drivers and impediments of institutional effectiveness (we didn’t) or for lovingly accepting utter neglect on my x Preface part of the delights and responsibilities of family life while working on this study (little neglect, and acceptance unlikely), but for everything else. Next in line are the two people who have had the greatest influence on my thinking on international institutions and how these can help states deal with difficult challenges, Arild Underdal and Oran Young. Their candid criticism, firm encouragement, and keen eye for the larger picture have been important for this work, as always. Both have for many years been central to a transnational network of scholars that has been important for this study, also through the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (1998–2007) project under the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, as well as its successor, the Earth System Governance project (2009–). Of the team of experts surrounding this study, four others also stand out for carefully reading and commenting on every part of it: Steinar Andresen , a veteran in the study of international regime effectiveness, who shared extensive insights in his usual, amiable way; Alf Håkon Hoel, who combines a deep understanding of the politics of the Barents Sea fisheries with sophisticated institutional argument; Jon Hovi, who highlighted ways of trimming the argument to illuminate my general propositions more sharply; and Helge Hveem, who helpfully pointed out how to make the argument richer by drawing on a broader range of general propositions . Clay Morgan of the MIT Press involved three exceptionally insightful and constructive anonymous reviewers, whose attention to the work greatly influenced its structure and the clarity of the argument. As with the persons mentioned below, none of these should be assumed to agree with any of the decisions I myself have made. Warm thanks are due to the following for reading and commenting so constructively on individual chapters: Regine Andersen, Thomas Bernauer , Bjarte Bogstad, Anatoly Filin, Lars Gulbrandsen, Peter Gullestad, Bjørn Hersoug, Geir Hønneland, Anne-Kristin Jørgensen, Arild Moe, Charles Ragin, Kristin Rosendal, Peter Johan Schei, Jon Birger Skjærseth, Davor Vidas, and Jørgen Wettestad. As always, I have received excellent administrative assistance from the core team comprising Rigmor Hiorth, who maintains order where chaos would otherwise rule; Susan Høivik, who has improved not only the language but also the reasoning; Ola Just Haugbo, who has met all computer challenges with calm effectiveness and also drew several of the figures; Kari Lorentzen, for locating and quickly obtaining whatever documents I needed; Claes Lykke Ragner, who drew the map; and Maryanne Rygg, who carefully formatted my text, tables, and figures. Preface xi I am grateful to the Fridtjof Nansen Institute for directly financing part of this work, but most of...