Michael W. Manulak and Duncan Snidal examine the emergence of the regime complex governing and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) over a twenty-year period beginning in 1991. Their coevolutionary approach brings together evolutionary perspectives based on institutional competition with rational perspectives based on institutions as intentional choices. (The presentation will emphasize the model and develop it in more detail than is presented in the paper.)

The WMD regime was rooted in preexisting international arrangements including the Nonproliferation Treaty and driven by ongoing exogenous changes in international circumstances and endogenous choices of regime participants.

The United States initiated the bilateral Cooperative Threat Reduction program at the end of the Cold War, but this proved maladapted to managing the urgent threat of the former Soviet Union’s legacy WMD after the 9/11 terrorist attack.

To mobilize a multilateral response, the G8 initiated the "Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction." The authors show how the G8 used the Global Partnership to orchestrate the WMD regime complex; this soft hierarchy promoted a differentiation among various regime complex institutions that lessened duplication and inefficient competition among them.

Speaker

Duncan Snidal, Professor of International Relations and fellow of Nuffield College and the British Academy, researches problems of international cooperation and institutions–including international law and international organizations–with an emphasis on institutional design. His current projects focus on multi-partner governance of transnational production and the emergence of informal international organizations (such as the G20) as distinctive forms of international governance. He is cofounder and editor of the journal International Theory.

CHAIR

James Hollway, Director, Global Governance Centre