This article seeks to develop alternative ways to conceptually grasp international prohibition/regulatory regimes. It attempts to go beyond existing, and piecemeal, analysis of regimes within the intellectual field of IR based on conventional grand/mid-range theorization.
It is argued that traditional theorization of regimes fashioned as IR theory has hindered, rather than helped, to understand regimes in their complexities, vagaries, and in terms of various forces simultaneously involved. The article answers a question of how to strike a balance between theoretical eclecticism, which is believed to be vital for a comprehensive analysis of security regimes, and the need to have a uniting device to organize such research.