Definition
An international regime is a set of rules, norms, and procedures around which the expectations of actors converge in a certain issue area. The convergence of expectations means that participants in the international system have similar ideas about what rules will govern their mutual participation: everyone expects to play by the same rules. Regimes are an important and widespread phenomenon in IR. Scholars conceive of regimes in several different ways, and the concept has been criticized as being too vague. But the most common conception of regimes combines elements of realism and liberalism. States are considered the important actors, and states are seen as autonomous units maximizing their own interests in an anarchic context. Regimes do not play a role in issues where states can realize their own interests directly through unilateral applications of leverage. Rather, regimes come into existence to overcome collective goods dilemmas by coordinating the behaviors of individual states. Although states continue to seek their own interests, they create frameworks to coordinate their self-interest. Thus regimes help make cooperation possible even within an international system based on anarchy.
Regimes Theory
Farm Wars - The Political Economy of Agriculture and the International Trade Regime by Robert Wolfe
AchesonInternational Regimes for Trade Investment and Labour Mobility in the Cultural Industries