The authors of this edited volume make a useful contribution to scholarship by bringing negotiation theory into the analysis of international regimes. As they note, the approach builds on earlier work on bargaining and regime formation. (See especially two seminal works by Oran Young, “Regime Dynamics,” in Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes, 1983; and “Politics of Regime Formation,” International Organization 37 [no. 3, 1989]: 349–76). Getting It Done further examines how regime participants continue to negotiate rules after the ink has dried on their foundational agreements. In doing so, the volume serves as a helpful reminder that regimes evolve in response to changes in the international and domestic environments. Gauging the effectiveness or strength of a regime, as these authors suggest, requires analyzing the negotiations that occur after a regime is established and evaluating whether, indeed, the collective action problem the regime was intended to resolve is being resolved.

To accomplish the theoretical task of explaining how regime theory and negotiation theory come together, editors Bertram I. Spector and I. William Zartman have divided the book into two sections: Part I (chapters by Zartman, Spector, and Gunnar Sjöstedt) sets out the theoretical framework; and Part II provides cases studies that apply the framework to regimes for cleaning up the Mediterranean Sea (Lynn Wagner), fostering security in Europe (Janie Leatherman), halting ozone depletion (Pamela S. Chasek), and preventing the use of torture (Anna R. Korula). A final chapter by the editors provides a summary.

Zartman's chapter sets forth a series of propositions about regimes, how they are negotiated and implemented, and how they evolve. Implicit in his analysis is the goal of creating regimes that exhibit “dynamic stability,” which regimes may or may not achieve, depending on a combination of system maintenance, adjustment, learning and information feedback, and exogenous factors. Spector's contribution to the theoretical framework traces negotiation through the regime life cycle, beginning with the preagreement stage and continuing through postagreement negotiations. Spector further emphasizes the two-level game character (Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 [no. 3, 1988]: 427–60) of negotiations at all stages. Outcomes, according to Spector, can be judged on regime stability versus instability and on maintaining the status quo versus expanding governance. Sjöstedt rounds out the theoretical framework by focusing on the interaction of the principles, norms, rules, and procedures.

An important point that Zartman makes is that regimes impose “an agenda for combat as well [as cooperation] by providing justifying norms and limiting constraints” (p. 14), a proposition that is well supported by the evidence he and the case study authors present. The idea that regimes provide the context for contestation has usually been ignored, though there have been some exceptions, including my own work (Food Fights: International Regimes and the Politics of Agricultural Trade Disputes, 1993) and that of William Coleman and Melissa Gabler (“Agricultural Biotechnology and Regime Formation: A Constructivist Assessment of the Prospects,” International Studies Quarterly 46 [no. 4, 2002]: 481–506).

Also on the positive side, the case studies provide extremely detailed histories of negotiations, with emphasis on the postagreement negotiations. Judged on their own, each provides a highly usable history and analysis. However, the case studies do not follow the same organizational structure, making it difficult for the reader to compare across cases, even after looking to the final synthesizing chapter for guidance. Thus, Wagner, in her discussion of the Mediterranean Action Plan, stresses the negotiating process at the domestic and international levels; Leatherman focuses on institution building as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was transformed into an organization; Chasek shines a spotlight on how an individual, in this case Mostafa Talba, the executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme, affects regime negotiation; and Korula puts special emphasis on the postagreement problem of governments avoiding implementation of the antitorture rules they have agreed to.

A useful addition to the theoretical chapters would have been a discussion of the constructivist writings on norms, norm entrepreneurs, and norm evolution. This literature provides analyses of norm change and the role of learning that are similar to those of negotiation theory, albeit relying on different terminology. Although there are a few relevant citations (e.g., Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions, 1989), a good deal of extant scholarship that focuses on the negotiation of norms remains unexplored. For example, works by Audie Klotz (“Norms Reconstituting Interests: Global Racial Equality and U.S. Sanctions Against South Africa,” International Organization 49 [no. 3, 1995]: 451–78; and Norms in International Relations: The Struggle Against Apartheid, 1995) and Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 1998) are highly relevant examinations of how transnational activist groups have an effect on global norms.

The concluding chapter, coauthored by Zartman and Spector, identifies possible regime outcomes in terms of stability: Regimes remain fairly static, grow and evolve steadily through postagreement negotiations, or grow and contract unsteadily. The authors show how efforts at regime maintenance, feedback and learning, adjustment to changing circumstances, and exogenous effects add together to explain different stability outcomes. As can be expected from a thought-provoking work, this book raises many more questions. When normative goals are being renegotiated, how can the effectiveness of regimes be evaluated? Is there an important analytical point at which a regime has evolved so far from its initial set of principles, norms, rules, and procedures that there has been a change of, and not just a change in, the regime? Are static regimes more effective (in terms of resolving the problem they were set up to address) than growing regimes? Is “dynamic stability” a necessary or a sufficient condition for regime effectiveness? By raising these questions and by introducing regimes theorists to negotiation theory, Getting It Done makes a worthwhile contribution.