regime

regime, an institution with clear substantive and geographical limits, bound by explicit rules, and agreed on by governments.

The concept of regime is often preceded by a spatial adjective—international, national, or urban, for example—that refers to the area over which it has jurisdiction and can be used to refer to all manner of substantive remits over which it has control—development, environment, labour, trade, and so on. A more-detailed definition documents the means through which an institution forms. The emphasis is on the principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which the expectations of individual actors (normally governments) converge and are institutionalized.

Uses of the regime concept often involve an association with a specific individual (e.g., Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime in Romania), ideology (e.g., a fascist regime), approach (e.g., a military regime), or political project (e.g., a neoliberal regime). In theory, the term need not imply anything about the particular government to which it relates, and most social scientists use it in a normative and neutral manner. The term, though, can be used in a political context. It is used colloquially by some, such as government officials, media journalists, and policy makers, when referring to governments that they believe are repressive, undemocratic, or illegitimate or simply do not square with the person’s own view of the world. Used in this context, the concept of regime communicates a sense of ideological or moral disapproval or political opposition. Regime change thus refers to the overthrow of a government considered illegitimate by an external force and its replacement with a new government according to the ideas or interests promoted by that force. In the case of the Iraq War (2003–11), a U.S.-led coalition of national armies spearheaded the overthrow of the Ṣaddām Ḥussein regime and oversaw its replacement by, first, a U.S.-led interim government and then, subsequently, an elected regime.

Two other uses of the regime concept have been advanced, and they remove the usage of referring to one national government or another. The first describes supranational agencies, often involved in the regulation of one or more issues. Examples include the International Labour Organization and its regulation of labour conditions and the European Environment Agency and its regulation of the environment. These have a different set of resources—economic, political, and social—to draw on than national governments do, and their activities can either empower or constrain individual nation-states. The second alternative use of the regime concept is in describing the formation of institutions to govern urban relations. Implicit and explicit norms and rules inform the decision-making procedures in and through which urban regimes make judgments over the types of strategies to be pursued in, for example, balancing the need for cities to be economically competitive while, at the same time, ensuring citizens enjoy a good quality of life.