Why do actors in international society succeed in forming institutional arrangements or regimes to cope with some transboundary problems but fail to do so in connection with other, seemingly similar, problems? This article employs a threefold strategy to make progress toward answering this question. The first section prepares the ground by identifying and critiquing the principal models embedded in the existing literature on regime formation, and the second section articulates an alternative model, called institutional bargaining. The third section employs this alternative model to derive some hypotheses about the determinants of success in institutional bargaining and uses these hypotheses, in a preliminary way, to illuminate the process of regime formation in international society. To lend empirical content to the argument, the article focuses throughout on problems relating to natural resources and the environment.

International regimes have received increasing attention in the literature on international relations. However, little attention has been systematically paid to how compliance with them has been achieved. An analysis of the Mediterranean Action Plan, a coordinated effort to protect the Mediterranean Sea from pollution, shows that this regime actually served to empower a group of experts (members of an epistemic community), who were then able to redirect their governments toward the pursuit of new objectives. Acting in an effective transnational coalition, these new actors contributed to the development of convergent state policies in compliance with the regime and were also effective in promoting stronger and broader rules for pollution control. This suggests that in addition to providing a form of order in an anarchic international political system, regimes may also contribute to governmental learning and influence patterns of behavior by empowering new groups who are able to direct their governments toward new ends.

Slavery and war have both historically been considered inevitable consequences of human nature. Yet slavery has been abolished, and moral progress may have contributed to slavery's disappearance. Both realists and Marxists are skeptical about the impact of ethical constraints on political decisions, while idealists as well as at least some regime analysts emphasize the role of those constraints. However, elements of all of these approaches support the proposition that moral progress may bring an end to international war.

Some historical trends do not support the idea that international war is on the verge of disappearance, but there has not been a war between major powers since 1945. In addition, norms against colonialism are strong. No war has occurred between democratic states, nor does a war appear likely among the rather sizable number of industrialized democratic states in the international system today. Explanations of these pockets of peace based on caution induced by nuclear weapons or on economic interdependence, for example, are certainly not beyond question. Therefore, it may be that norms inhibiting the initiation of international war have already made obsolete not only wars between the richest and most powerful states in the world but also some forms of depradation by the strong against the relatively weak states.

Recent developments in the philosophy of science, particularly those falling under the rubric of “scientific realism,” have earned growing recognition among theorists of international relations but have failed to generate substantive programs of research. Consequently, the empirical relevance of much philosophical discourse, such as that centering on the agent-structure problem in social theory, remains unestablished. This article attempts to bridge the gap between the philosophy and practice of science by outlining a model of international structure based on the principles of scientific realism and by considering its implications for a structural research program in international relations theory. Appealing to Imre Lakatos's methodology of theorychoice, the article presents an ontological case for adopting a “transformational” model of structure over the “positional” model developed in the work of Kenneth Waltz. The article demonstrates that the positional approach offers no conceptual or explanatory hold on those features of the international structure that are the intended products of state action. In conclusion, the article argues that the stakes in the agent-structure debate include the capacity to generate integrative structural theory and the ability to theorize the possibilities for peaceful change in the international system.

Recent interest in cognitive approaches to international interaction in general and international regimes in particular has not been matched by development in theory and methodology. This article details a systematic “subjective” approach that seeks to meet this need. Its claims are developed through its comparison with the accomplishments and shortcomings of more established approaches to the study of international interaction and, in particular, microeconomic formal theory. The subjective alternative can model both individual subjects and the systems in which they are participating. As such, it offers much more in terms of continuities and connections between agents and system structure than do traditional psychological analyses in international relations. The theoretical arguments proceed in the context of a study of cooperation and conflict over Antarctica and its evolving regimes.

This article presents a cross-national analysis of the relationship between domestic political regime changes and voting realignments of Third World nations in the United Nations (UN). It seeks to move beyond existing research that has assumed that foreign policy is rooted in political and economic structures and changes only when a political revolution occurs. It argues that a wider variety of regime changes—ranging from those involving mainstream political parties to milder ones such as factional shifts in single-party regimes—can also provoke major realignments. Using a new data set on Third World regimes, the article examines the impact of regime changes for eighty-seven nations on their UN voting patterns during the period from 1946 to 1984. Although the findings indicate that revolutions are most likely to provoke major voting realignments, they also show that the more frequent, nonrevolutionary types of regime change are associated with many voting realignments. A major implication of these findings is that foreign policy changes reflect a complex set of domestic regime factors, including leadership belief systems and internal political constraints, as well as aspects of political structure.