The authors of the study focus on the trends of socioeconomic and political change in the contemporary global world and on approaches to their analysis. Prospects and restrictions that global governance encounters are evaluated, and regional integration trends are examined with special attention to Europe and the EU. The first volume of the two-part edition concentrates on the models of social development of the leading countries of the world and on the alternatives for global and national that political and economic transformations in the USA, in China, India, Brazil and Japan bring to the forefront. The analysis of the trends of social and political change in Europe highlights the problems that institutions of representative democracy and traditional political parties have encountered and evaluates their possible future transformations. Special attention is paid to Russia’s political and economic agenda and to her role in a changing world.