Paths to compliance: Enforcement, management, and the european union

In recent years, the question of what determines compliance with international regulatory agreements has gained an increasingly prominent position on the research agenda through a burgeoning literature on international regime effectiveness and international legal systems. The contemporary debate is framed in terms of two alternative perspectives on compliance: enforcement or management. The two perspectives present contending claims about the most effective means of address-ing non-compliance in international cooperation. Whereas enforcement theorists characteristically stress a coercive strategy of monitoring and sanctions, manage-ment theorists embrace a problem-solving approach based on capacity building, rule interpretation, and transparency. The two approaches are widely regarded as competing, both in theory and practice. Kal Raustiala and David Victor emphasize: “The two schools of thought re ect different visions of how the international system works, the possibilities for governancewith international law, and the policy tools that are available and should be used to handle implementation problems.”1 Similarly, a recent review of compliance theory concludes: “[The debate between management and enforcement theorists] has deep roots; at its heart it re ects a fundamental division about the nature of law that permeates domestic as well as international jurisprudence.”2 In this article, I challenge the conception of enforcement and management as competing strategies for achieving compliance. Based on the case of the European Union (EU) and a comparison with other international regimes, I nd that enforce