There is a rather large body of literature that examines qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the effectiveness of international environmental regimes (for examples, you can read Sprinz 2000 literature review, with reference to some early work by Bernauer 1995 and Young 1994, as well as recent work by Mitchell 2007 and 2010). I asked you to follow the two dimensions of regime effectiveness (problem solving and compliance) posed in Dr. Kate O’Neill’s (2009) recent book and explore different regimes. In this exploration, you were asked to look at the kinds of data you would need to use to assess the effectiveness of regimes and how these variables differ from issue area/case study to issue area/case study. Feel free to use this blog entry as space to discuss the challenges of selecting analytical variables to assess effectiveness.