Published in in O’Hara, Phillip Anthony (ed.) Global Political Economy and the Wealth of Nations: Performance, Institutions, Problems and Policies, London: Routledge, 2004 pp. 19-38. A Global Economy, Polycentric World or System of Nation-States? Wil Hout Institute of Social Studies Correspondence address: Institute of Social Studies P.O. Box 29776 2502 LT The Hague The Netherlands Tel. +31-70-4260552 Fax +31-70-4260799 E-mail hout@iss.nl Note on the author: Wil Hout is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He is the author of Capitalism and the Third World (Edward Elgar, 1993), co-editor of Regionalism across the North-South Divide (with Jean Grugel; Routledge, 1999) and co-editor of three Dutch-language volumes on issues of international relations and political science. He has published on issues of international political economy in such journals as the European Journal of International Relations, the Third World Quarterly, Development and Change and Acta Politica: International Journal of Political Science.