Ever since its inception in the 1970s at the intersection of theoretical curiosity concerning the increasingly complex interdependence and burgeoning institutionalised regulatory frameworks in international politics on one hand, and the concern about the ability of the USA to sustain the liberal order as a composite of various regimes formed after the WWII on the other (cf. Little 2014), international regime theory has generated a wealthy tradition of research of emergence and evolution of variable forms of international cooperation . The present volume benefits from this tradition by means of reflecting on three successive waves of regime theory (Hynek, this volume) while providing a comprehensive comparative analysis of the assemblage that we term ‘global security regulation ’. (The notion of succession suggests theoretical progression that indeed can be identified in the field. It should not, at the same time, obfuscate the durability of the field’s neoliberal core challenged by realist or critical constructivist dissent but continually reinforced by the extant power-knowledge nexus.)
This analysis depends on empirically rich accounts of a wide array of both the established and more recently evolving regimes or, in broader terms, regulatory frameworks. It comprises a unique collection of expositions to these frameworks that is at once descriptive and seeking to reveal deeper causal mechanisms explaining emergence, consolidation and contestation they betray. Therefore, in addition to introducing the reader to the complexities of individual regime cases, the selection of which comprises WMDs , humanitarian agendas (SALW , landmines , cluster munition, refugees ) and unconventional agendas (drugs , endangered species , cyber security), the volume’s ambition is to reinvigorate theoretical thinking about global security regimes /regulation that has been losing traction since the late 1990s even as the agenda has lost nothing of its relevance.
When devising a comparative framework for the study of security regulation, our primary source of inspiration was the concept of global prohibition regime coined by Nadelmann (1990). Nadelmann defined the prohibition regimes as institutionalisations of explicit and implicit norms prohibiting certain activities of both state and nonstate actors through systemic diffusion in the international space, in international public law as well as domestic criminal law, and processes by which these norms are enforced with prohibitive but also disciplinary and regulatory effects. We use this framework as a point of departure but refine to underline Nadelmann’s distinction between the regimes that are prohibitive stricto senso and that are regulatory (but indeed global in the sense of the ambition to universally prevent regime leakage ). To that end, we propose a scale of security regulation formed by five ideal types in relation to which the regimes covered in this volume may be positioned.
The first type is strong global (security) prohibition regimes as an institutionalisation of norms prohibiting certain activities that result in the significant reduction of the incidence of the proscribed activities. Second, weak global (security) prohibition regimes ensure that certain activities become subject of criminal laws and police action throughout much of the world, with international institutions and conventions playing a coordinating role. The regimes have a globalising ambition to eliminate leakage (i.e. ongoing behaviour defying the core prohibitionist rationality of the regime ). At the same time, adherence to the core prohibition norm is constrained due to deviant and weak states and dissident individuals and criminal organisations that continue to thrive. Third, strong global (security) regulatory regimes seek not to prohibit , but to regulate (i.e. circumscribe conditions of participation in) certain activity by state and/or nonstate actors. Like the strong prohibition regimes, these regimes are institutionalisations of norms achieved through systemic diffusion and both international and domestic law; and processes for these norms enforcement that can generally be deemed successful. Fourth, weak global (security) regulatory regimes achieve a certain form of legalisation (Abbott et al. 2000) in terms of imposing obligation, comprising precise rules defining the conduct authorised or proscribed and involving elements of delegation (i.e. granting authority to third parties to interpret and implement the rules, resolve disputes and possibly make further rules). At the same time, the normalisation to be effected by the regime , while having a globalising ambition, remains incomplete. Finally, global (security) nonregimes are functional and thematic instances of absence concerning the formation of regulating rules and institutions, and of transnational policy arenas characterised by the void of multilateral agreements in spite of the discursively salient global(-ising) processes of securitisation of the relevant themes.
Second, we draw, in an analytically eclectic manner (Sil and Katzenstein 2010; Bennett 2013) inspiration from successive waves of international regime theory , from the perspectives focused on (material and coercive) power and interest; to the cognitive approaches focusing on problem structure (reconceptualising regimes as a form of conflict management) and the situation structure to provide for contextualised explanatory propositions grounded in extensive quantitative research (cf. Rittberger and Zürn 1991) while focusing on the role of ideas , nature of arguments, social identities and learning dynamics; to strong/critical constructivist and poststructuralist interrogations emphasising not material factors or issues such as compliance but rather political construction or constitution of the materialities (positivities) around which regimes emerge and develop. These interrogations, like the erstwhile realist perspectives, accentuate the importance of power , but differ in how it is ontologically conceived, and instead of seeing power as independent variable for regimes’ emergence and operation consider these regimes as sites where power is continually exercised (cf. Keeley 1990) while examining epistémés as broader ideational fields in which the discourses of the particular regime are situated, as well as subject constitution practices and their effects that can be related to these regimes. For instance, what categories of subjects the regime discourse produces, how is the particular subject to whom the prohibited behaviour is attributed to (or even one who has chosen to stay out of the regime ) stigmatised—is the subject rendered morally inferior, hors humanité, irrational, deviant or barbaric as a result of his transgressing (or even a lack of support for enforcement of) norms of civilised—what attributes are associated in these discourses with the idealised Self (e.g. as humane, rational, normal, civilised) or how does perspective influence these discourses of association and dissociation (e.g. nuclear weapons ’ possession can be stabilising or destabilising the status quo depending who owns them, and correspondingly it confers a ‘great power ’ or ‘rogue state’ status).
The case studies in this volume were selected broadly to cover a diverse set of issue areas grouped into three regime ‘clusters’: weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological); humanitarian (small arms, landmines , cluster munitions); and unconventional (drugs , endangered species , cyberspace ) that expands the reach beyond weaponry while maintaining the focus on the realm of global security. These studies are preceded by twin introductory chapters on the characteristics of regime theorisation, conceived in terms of successive waves by Nik Hynek; and the international legal perspectives on global security regimes , and security regulation more broadly by Veronika Bílková. The first cluster then opens with Jan Ruzicka’s analysis of the Non-Proliferati...