This timely volume critically examines the inter-American system--its problems and its potential. Focusing on the Organization of American States (OAS), the author assesses the system's realities, describes its successes and failures, and discusses the lessons it holds for the entire global system of international organization. The author argues that federalism and decentralization are vital to the structure of our global networks and that the inter-American system is one of the important models to make it work. Although the OAS has for years been the cornerstone of the inter-American system, the author demonstrates how this agency has become, on the operational level, unmanageable and unresponsive to the real interest of the member nations. On the political level, Scheman describes how the distinct and largely incompatible interests of the Caribbean and South American nations will lead to a different kind of hemispheric system in the coming century.