The basic question addressed by this group can most simply be formulated as follows: why do some efforts at solving joint problems through international co-operation 'succeed' while others 'fail'? In more technical terms: how can we explain variance in regime effectiveness?

At the most general level, there seems to be at least two possible answers. One seeks the explanation in the character of the problem to be dealt with. The basic proposition is that some problems are intellectually more complicated or politically more "benign" than others, and hence easier to solve. The research challenge is to specify which problems are the more benign and what makes them so. The alternative answer focuses on the notion of problem-solving capacity, the general argument being that some efforts are more successful than others because more powerful (institutional) tools are being used or because the problem is attacked with greater skill and energy. The challenge here is to specify which institutions or systems have the greatest capacity, and to determine precisely what makes one institution a more effective tool for problem-solving than another.

The idea was to bring together a group of Norwegian and foreign scholars in order to shed new light on this question through: (a) a careful scrutiny of conclusions and findings from previous research, with a view to determining their compatibility; (b) new and more extensive studies based on databases currently under construction; and (c) the use of a wider range of methodological tools, including particular techniques for more rigorous comparative analysis and computer simulations. We agreed to focus most of the empirical work on environmental regimes, but most of the theoretical and methodological problems addressed are equally salient in other issue-areas as well.