The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge for governments. Questions regarding the most effective interventions to reduce the spread of the virus-for example, more testing, requirements to wear face masks, and stricter and longer lockdowns-become widely discussed in the popular and scientific press, informed largely by models that aimed to predict the health benefits of proposed interventions. Central to all these studies is recognition that inaction, or delayed action, will put millions of people unnecessarily at risk of serious illness or death.
An important issue in the study of international cooperation is whether regimes are grounded centrally on mutual interests among states or on power relations. This article presents the basic neorealist and neoliberal perspectives on this issue. It notes, however, that neorealists have failed to recognize that some regimes based on mutual interest in the protection of state political autonomy are consistent with neorealist assumptions. The article analyzes the international regimes for the shipping, air transport, telecommunications and postal service industries and focuses on the mutual interests that supported the regime norms. The analysis indicates that mutual interests in facilitating the flow of international commerce and protecting states' policy autonomy in strategic economic sectors have sustained very strong regimes since the late 19th century. The key exception to this evaluation is the crumbling of those aspects of the regimes governing prices and market shares since the late 1970s.
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