The implementation of international regimes : The case of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty

Abstract: The dissertation seeks to discern the political and administrative factors that determine the results of international environment and development policies. On the one hand, it makes a contribution to the broader theoretical debate on international regimes by combining regime theory and theories on domestic policy results into an integrated framework for the analysis of international policy results (theoretical objective). The resulting framework applies a process-oriented and multi-theoretical perspective emphasising that factors in the formation and implementation of policies impinge on policy results. More often these factors also tend to interact. Moreover, the framework is also applied and partly tested in an empirical case study intended to explain why the implementation process of the so called Amazon Cooperation Treaty needed more man 15 years to take off and materialize (empirical objective). This particular treaty was signed in 1978 by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela with the broader ambition to jointly preserve and develop Amazonia. However, it remained essentially inactive until 1989 when it was given a renewed diplomatic impulse. From that moment it has also witnessed increasing and sustained activity. This part of the discussion is carried out as a historical analysis considering both specific and contextual factors. The empirical case study concludes that the overall development of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty results from formative moments where major contextual changes have interacted with more specific factors, such as individual leadership. These findings support thereby the stage-oriented and multi-theoretical approach suggested by the integrated analytical framework. In addition, the study also provides an additional overview of the emergence of Latin American development and environment policies.