Overall, the various aspects of the international system have enabled the expansion of global economic integration. Regimes, institutions, and regional interests bring nations together to meet common objectives. As rational actors, nations sometimes impede global integration, be it over a domestic issue or a transnational one. No aspect of the current international system, however, specifically impedes global economic integration. Only when a nation takes itself out of the international system, as has occurred in North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and a handful of other countries, does economic integration become fully impeded. Therefore we can reasonably conclude that the international system, on balance and with a modicum of cooperation on the part of individual nation states, enables global economic integration.

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