ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overall view of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the complex relationship between intergovernmental negotiation, transnational and transgovernmental networks, and domestic institutional constraints, as facets of an already-established but still-evolving complex of regional governance. Although this book covers a wide variety of puzzles and problems, there are two main concerns that hold it together: The main aim is to try to identify a predominant or characteristic mode of regional governance in post-North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) North America, and to map out some of the variation across bilateral relationships and issue-areas. The secondary aim is to try to explain how this particular mode of regional governance was created and has been sustained, with attention to the prevailing global context, domestic political institutions, the configuration of domestic and transnational coalitions, and the worldviews and attitudes of the general public, in each of the three countries.
