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Structural causes and regime consequences: regimes as intervening variables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

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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.

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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1982

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References

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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. 6465Google Scholar, for the development of this argument.

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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.

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