ABSTRACT
The study of international relations ultimately is about how human beings organize and conduct their political affairs. The field of international relations has had its share of both "bad realists" and "bad idealists". Regarding the normative question, many arguments can ensue over the criteria to be applied in evaluating the merits of alternative world order models. Should the integrative, centralizing forces currently at work prove dominant, then one possible world order model that could materialize in the twenty-first century is regionalism. Although the European Union is commonly seen as a manifestation of a new regionalism, it could just as easily be viewed as the leading edge of a "new feudalism". The chapter also looks at two sets of issues that have been the focus of regime-building efforts recently and see how the state system has responded: combating global warming and ozone layer deterioration and regulating Internet usage.
