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Regime Complexes as a Model of Multilateral Governance: The Case of the Environment

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Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience

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Abstract

In the early 2000s, scholars of global environmental governance were questioning regime complexes as the potential new form of multilateral governance. Characterized by the interactions between different international regimes governing a common subject matter, “regime complexes” were, at the time, praised for their flexibility, horizontality and adaptability. Have regime complexes now fulfilled their promises as multilateral governance arrangements? This contribution aims at dealing with this important research question in three steps. First, it reviews the literature on international regime complexes and questions the evolving definition of the concept that has now competing interpretations. Second, it presents the current state of knowledge on specific regime complexes from the environmental field, a field of study where many regime complexes have been identified and analyzed. Such examples enable to evaluate the heuristic potential of regime complexes as a concept to better understand global environmental multilateralism. Third, it questions the utility of regime complexes as multilateral governance arrangements in domains that go beyond the environmental field. Overall, the contribution presents an update of existing research on regime complexes and questions its relevance in face of the current new dynamics shaping multilateralism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Saint-Louis, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Amandine Orsini

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  1. Amandine Orsini
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Correspondence to Amandine Orsini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Paris 8, Paris, France

    Auriane Guilbaud

  2. Institute of Political Studies, University of Grenoble Alps, Grenoble, France

    Franck Petiteville

  3. Sciences Po, Paris, France

    Frédéric Ramel

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Orsini, A. (2023). Regime Complexes as a Model of Multilateral Governance: The Case of the Environment. In: Guilbaud, A., Petiteville, F., Ramel, F. (eds) Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_13

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