ABSTRACT
In the context of globalization, interdependence and institutional proliferation, it is increasingly difficult to understand regimes or issue-areas in compartmentalized ways. Rather, there is a need to recognize and understand the ways in which they overlap and intersect and the impact this has on international politics. The increasing recognition of a vast range of nexuses such as the “development-security nexus,” the “trade-development nexus” or concepts such as “human security” or “sustainable development” that group issue-areas is a testimony to the growing range of intersections between policy fields. However, international relations as a discipline has struggled to fully conceptualize the implications of these intersections. Global governance has traditionally been studied using regime theory and its basic unit of analysis – the regime – is assumed, by definition, to be issue-area specific. Based on Krasner’s (1983: 2) definition, regimes are defined as norms, rules, principles and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issuearea. Yet, in an increasingly complex world, most political problems are no longer confined to a single, isolated issue-area; they cut across and transcend particular policyfields.2
