Stemming from an international and multidisciplinary network of leading specialists, this best-selling text is fully updated with new chapter additions. With the first edition prepared at the end of the last century and the second edition adding inter-regional relations, this new edition focuses on competing models of regional cooperation within a multipolar world and the role of European Union.This new edition offers:- A comparative analysis of regional cooperation and of both US-centred and EU-centred interregionalism.- A fresh exploration of key issues of regionalism versus globalization and the potential for world economic and political governance through regional cooperation, notably in hard times.- A vigorous response to conventional wisdom on the controversial EU international identity- An appendix on regional and interregional organizations.- A key resource for postgraduate or undergraduate study and research of international relations, European integration studies, comparative politics and international political economy.