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Under the conditions of change and uncertainty, countries around the world have sought regional arrangements to solve their mutual problems or to provide a common front vis-à-vis rest of the world. Despite tremendous success of the European integration and predictions during the 1990s that the post-Cold War world would culminate into a world of competing regional blocs, we are hardly close to this vision. This book highlights the unique characteristics of the North American region and addresses the question why NAFTA did not lead to a deeper and wider integration like that of Europe? Answer to this question was found in the NAFTA treaty itself. Even though Canada and Mexico were first and third largest trading partners of the United States in 1994, NAFTA negotiators took an extra care to maintain their national sovereignties. In addition to nationalism and differences in the size of economies, major reason for this attitude was a desire of the countries to maintain their independence towards rest of the world.

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Waheed Khan is currently working as Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Brescia University, Kentucky. He finished his Ph.D. in International Relations from the Department of Political Science, Purdue University, Indiana in 2007. Previously his work has appeared in International Journal on World Peace and China Report.

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