Getting It Done: Post-Agreement Negotiation and International Regimes

Getting It Done: Post-Agreement Negotiation and International Regimes. Edited by Bertram I. Spector and I. William Zartman. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace, 2003. 332p. 39. 95 cloth, 17. 50 paper. The authors of this edited volume make a useful contribution to scholarship by bringing negotiation theory into the analysis of international regimes. As they note, the approach builds on earlier work on bargaining and regime formation. (See especially two seminal works by Oran Young, “Regime Dynamics, ” in Stephen Krasner, ed. , International Regimes, 1983; and “Politics of Regime Formation, ” International Organization 37 no. 3, 1989: 349–76). Getting It Done further examines how regime participants continue to negotiate rules after the ink has dried on their foundational agreements. In doing so, the volume serves as a helpful reminder that regimes evolve in response to changes in the international and domestic environments. Gauging the effectiveness or strength of a regime, as these authors suggest, requires analyzing the negotiations that occur after a regime is established and evaluating whether, indeed, the collective action problem the regime was intended to resolve is being resolved.