4. Regimes and Institutions

The third of the distinctions around which this book is organized is the distinction between institutions and what the international organization (IO) literature calls international regimes. The regimes literature studies the effects of IOs on other actors in international relations, particularly states. It looks at IOs as if they were black boxes and examines the inputs into and outputs from these boxes. The institutional literature looks within the organizations themselves and asks how the structure of the organization as an institution, and the people within it, affects what the IO does. In other words, the regime approach looks at the effects of IOs on other actors, whereas the institutional approach looks at the organization itself as an actor.