Powerful political actors in the international system quite frequently adopt unilateral policies whose implications extend beyond their respective borders. Examples include financial market regulation as well as taxation, trade and environmental policies. They do so to avoid lowest...

We draw on the policy diffusion literature to shed more light on the determinants of treaty ratification, a crucial step in the formation of international regimes. Our hypotheses stipulate that a country's ratification behaviour is influenced by the ratification choices of other countries in...