EU studies increasingly recognize the salience of new regional insights. Hence, this collection of original essays provides a broad overview of regionalism, together with detailed analyses on the construction, activities, and implications of both established and emerging examples of formal political and economic organizations as well as informal regional entities and networks. Aimed at scholars and students interested in the continuing growth of regionalism, The Ashgate Research Companion to Regionalisms is a key resource to understanding the major debates in the field. Organized into three main sections, this volume deals with a wide range of issues covering the following important research areas: -Section one covers theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of established and formal regionalism, emerging and informal regionalism, inter-regionalism, and levels of regionalism. -Section two provides detailed case-studies of established and formal regionalisms: EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, SAARC, OAS, MERCOSUR, AU, ECOWAS, and SADC. -Section three offers case-studies that investigate emerging and informal regionalisms in Oceania, the Arab League, BRICSAM, and the Commonwealth(s) as well as thought-provoking chapters on micro-regional processes evident in spatial development initiatives, transnational gangs, transfrontier conservation areas, and the migration-conflict nexus in natural resource sectors. With the study of regionalism becoming an increasingly important part of politics, international relations, development, and global studies courses, this comprehensive volume is a valuable addition for classroom use.

"The twenty-first century is witnessing a profound shift in global dynamics of unprecedented speed and scale, driven by the fast-rising powers of the developing world. What are these countries doing right? What are their biggest challenges in the years ahead? How will this dramatic reshaping of world politics and economics affect the wealthy industrial North, as well as the poorest nations now clustered at the bottom of the Human Development Index? UNDP's widely praised 2013 Human Development Report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, addresses these questions by analysing more than forty countries in the developing world that have posted unusually rapid human development gains in recent decades, drawing heavily on background research commissioned from eminent economists, demographers and social scientists. This companion volume to the 2013 Human Development Report presents nine of those research papers."--Publisher website.

Brazil, Russia, India, and China are expected to become the four most influential economies and surpass the current richest economies by the middle of the 21st century. With the inclusion of South Africa in 2010, the BRICS spans across four continents, creating an abundance of geopolitical clout, in addition to its potential economic dominance. This book examines the economic developments of individual BRICS countries, the current politico-economic condition of the BRICS vis-à-vis non-BRICS countries or groups, and the potential of the BRICS to bring about changing paradigms in the global political economy.

The Yearbook of International Organizations provides the most extensive coverage of non-profit international organizations currently available. Detailed profiles of international non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations (IGO), collected and documented by the Union of International Associations, can be found here. In addition to the history, aims and acitvities of international organizations, with their events, publications and contact details, the volumes of the Yearbook include networks between associations, biographies of key people involved and extensive statistical data. Providing both an international organizations and research bibliography, Volume 4 cites over 46,000 publications and information resources supplied by international organizations, and provides nearly 18,000 research citations under 40 subject headings. This volume also includes a research bibliography on international organizations and transnational associations.

The last half century has seen the rise across Europe of a new intermediate level of government and politics, usually referred to as a region. However the term 'region' means many different things and can be approached from many different angles - geographical, historical, cultural, social, economic and political. Although it is in Europe that regionalism as a multiform phenomenon has developed furthest, the European experience resonates in other parts of the world, where some of these elements also exist. In this volume, Michael Keating has selected some of the most significant previously published articles which provide a comprehensive overview of past and current thinking on this subject.