Common regional interests and particularly common regional (and, most of the times, global) concerns have been the main drivers of the proliferation of international organisations, at least since the end of World War II. Collective action at the regional level primarily aimed at strengthening links and commonalities among developed and developing countries might be the best framework to describe international relations as we know them today.
The dynamics behind the creation of cooperative bodies that protect states and their interests vary according to historical, political, social and economic dimensions, and sometimes lead to an overlap in missions and objectives. However, in the words of Professor Reyadh Alasfoor, all regional and international organizations "possess the thread of commonalities that binds together their members into an organizational fabric."
The question that remains unanswered at this stage is whether regional or global integration is truly capable of increasing and accelerating the rate of development and wealth of countries that decide to pool shares of their sovereignty and act in concert. The answer depends on where on the map we decide to focus our analysis and, even in that case, on how much sovereignty states are willing to give up. The Gulf, in particular, is a good starting point when trying to investigate different models of regional cooperation.