Introduction

The Single European Act, which ushered in the single market of the European Union (EU), did far more than deepen the process of European integration: it also sparked a process of ‘new regionalism’ across the globe. States outside Europe began to construct, or revive, processes of region-building in order both to respond to the economic challenge posed them by the Single European Market and to seize the new freedom of manoeuvre for states which were not ‘superpowers’ that accompanied the end of the Cold War (Fawcett 1995). Even the world’s most powerful country – the United States – has openly taken part in the new regionalism instead of remaining a ‘ghost at the feast’, as it was with the European integration process after the Second World War. By signing up to NAFTA – the North American Free Trade Agreement – Washington sought to protect and promote its economic power and ideology (Deblock and Rioux 1993).