Peter M. Haas is Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, USA.

• Contents: Introduction; Part I History of Environmental Governance: Methods to expedite environmental protection: international ecostandards, Paolo Contini and Peter H. Sand; One year after Stockholm: an ecological approach to management, Maurice F. Strong. Part II Nature of Environmental Governance Problem: The tragedy of the commons, Garrett Harden; The struggle to govern the commons: tragedy of the commons, Thomas Dietz, Elinor Ostrom and Paul C. Stern; The environmental information needs of the decision-maker, Martin W. Holdgate. Part III Realism and Power Politics: The management of international affairs, Kenneth N. Waltz. Part IV Institutional Bargaining: The politics of international regime formation: managing natural resources and the environment, Oran R. Young; Institutions for the earth: promoting international environmental protection, Marc A. Levy, Peter M. Haas and Robert O. Keohane; The interest-based explanation of international environmental policy, Detlef Sprintz and Tapani Vaahtoranta; Constructing effective environmental regimes, George W. Downs. Part V Scientific Governance, Learning to learn, Peter M. Haas and Ernst B. Haas; The role of science in environmental regimes: the case of LRTAP, Rolf Lidskog and Göran Sundqvist; Conclusions:patterns of regime effectiveness, Arild Underdal. Part VI Private Governance: Private environmental governance and international relations: exploring the links, Robert Falkner; Bargains old and new: multinational corporations in global governance, David L. Levy and Aseem Prakash; Talking with the donkey: cooperative approaches to environmental protection, Kathryn Harrison; Legitimacy and the privatization of environmental governance: how non-state market-driven (NSMD) governance systems gain rule-making authority, Benjamin Cashore; Green by choice? Cross-national variations in firms' responses to EMS-based environmental regimes, Kelly Kollman and Aseem Prakash; The privatization of global environmental governance: