The end of the Cold War has seen an international proliferation of parliamentary bodies of all types and at all levels. How can this process of parliamentarization be assessed and under what conditions do these institutions operate? This book explores how regional integration and globalization are developing from a parliamentary perspective.1. Introduction; Olivier Costa, Stelios Savridis and Clarissa Dri 2. International Parliamentary Institutions: a Research Agenda; Zlatko Å abi? PART I: SUPRANATIONAL PARLIAMENTS 3. The Role of the European Parliament in Europe's Integration: a Critical Reassessment; Olivier Costa and Nathalie Brack 4. The MERCOSUR Parliament - A Challenging Position between Late Institutionalization and Early Stalemate; Clarissa Dri and Deisy Ventura 5. The Brazilian Parliamentary Delegation to Mercosur: its Functions in the Brazilian National Congress; Maria Claudia Drummond PART II: NON-SUPRANATIONAL REGIONAL PARLIAMENTS 6. Integration Parliaments in Latin America: the Cases of Parlandino and Parlacen; Juliana Erthal and Juan Albarracín 7. The Baltic Sea Region as a Laboratory for Inter-parliamentary 'Dialogue'; Cristina Fasone 8. African Regional Parliaments: Legislatures without Legislative Powers; M. A. Mohamed Salih 9. Participation without Democratization: The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) and ASEAN's Regional Corporatism; Jürgen Rüland PART III: INTER-PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLIES: EUROPEAN UNION'S EXPERIENCES 10. Talking Shop or Relevant Actor: The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly; Sarah Delputte 11. The Origins, Structures and Functions of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly; Stelios Stavridis, Roderick Pace and Natalia Ajenjo 12. Conclusions; Olivier Costa, Stelios Savridis and Clarissa DriOlivier Costa is Senior Research Fellow at CNRS (National Center for ScientificResearch), Centre Emile Durkheim, University of Bordeaux, France.

Clarissa Dri is Lecturer in the Department of Economics and International Relations, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil.

Stelios Stavridis is ARAID Senior Research Fellow, Research Unit on Global Governance and the European Union, University of Zaragoza, Spain.