Determining Regime Effectiveness: A Commentary on the Oslo-Potsdam Solution

The Oslo-Potsdam approach to regime effectiveness has much to recommend it, especially in conceptual terms. It yields effectiveness scores for individual regimes that range from 0 to 1 and that facilitate comparative analysis. Yet the revised version of the approach set forth in Hovi et al. (2003, this volume) fails to solve the fundamental problems evident in earlier versions regarding the no- regime outcome (NR) and the collective optimum (CO). Nor does this version address the relative merits of the Oslo-Potsdam solution and other approaches to regime consequences that do not rely on direct measurements of regime effectiveness as the dependent variable. As a result, the argument that some measure of effectiveness—however faulty—is better than none is not persuasive. Even so, the debate over the Oslo-Potsdam solution has proven fruitful. Our understanding of the issues involved in evaluating regime consequences has surely grown as a product of this debate.