| Despite the great interest of theorists in the role of international regimes in organizing the global political economy there has not been much attention devoted to the relationship between the creation and strengthening of such regimes and the structure of the industries involved. This thesis suggests that many of the features and functions associated with inter-state regimes can be found in inter-firm arrangements, or "private regimes," and that inter-state regimes are likely to merge and become stronger when private regimes are absent or in decay. The existence of such a relationship is established for the international banking regime organized around the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision and the international securities regime organized around the International Organization of Securities Commissions. Attention is devoted to issues involved in using an institutionalist metatheory as well as to developing a method for measuring industry structure and regime strength. |
