Regime decay: conflict management and international organizations, 1945–1981

Abstract

This article updates earlier work by Haas, Butterworth, and Nye on conflict management by international organizations. In addition, it seeks to answer the question of whether one can fruitfully interpret conflict management as a case of regime growth and regime decay. For this purpose I develop indicators of regime coherence and regime effectiveness, and illustrate them by subjecting the management of disputes to time-series analysis. The discussion identifies when and under what global conditions the regime began to decay. Finally, I explain that decay in terms of four mutually supportive hypotheses. In this article I thus offer a statistical history of the conflict management functions of the United Nations and the major regional organizations, and use it to probe the limits of the utility of the regime literature.

Organizações Regionais para o Ordenamento Pesqueiro: O poder ouve a ciência?

“…Foi Ernst Haas, na década de 1980, que sugeriu uma reflexão sobre os processos de cooperação internacional baseados na aprendizagem, isto é, na introdução à política de conceitos científicos consensuais (HAAS, 1983). E. Adler e P. Haas 5 desdobraram tal problematização em um programa de pesquisa alinhado geralmente à perspectiva construtivista e que ficou conhecido como "comunidades epistêmicas" (ADLER; HAAS, 1992).…”

The Genesis, Design and Effects of Regional Institutions: Lessons from East Asia and the Middle East

“…Egypt could not invariably impose its will but came close to doing so under Nasser (Hasou 1985). Saudi Arabia assumed a “quite hegemonic rule” (Haas 1983) by the late 1970s by underwriting the League economically. Egypt resumed its influence when the League returned to Cairo and Egypt’s “treacherous” Camp David commitments to Israel were “forgiven.” The League was expected to enhance collective Arab power vis‐à‐vis the rest of the world, particularly the superpowers.…”

The case for a united nations dispute settlement commission

“…Since Security Council resolutions are often of a sanctioning or censuring nature, states sometimes perceive them as a limitation on sovereign freedom, and in certain cases, a Security Council reprimand after the fact has merely hardened positions. Regrettably, evidence suggests that disregard for Security Council recommendations is on the increase (Haas 1983;Luard 1988;Peterson 1986;Pogeny 1984;Riggs and Piano 1988). Moreover, when the Security Council does enforce its recommendations, it has to rely on the action of its member states.…”

“…The Organisation of American States which has a fairly prescribed set of arrangements for handling disputes has been more successful than the Arab League, whose arrangements are less formal and whose members are not obligated to bring their disputes to the League (Haas 1983;Merrills 1984). Of course, divisions within these groups also impact upon their effectiveness, as demonstrated by the recent split within the Arab League.…”