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Abstract
Since 1960, Latin American attempts at regionalism have undergone distinct phases. More notably, they have tended to diverge across space, gradually giving birth to separate blocs that seem to be tearing South, Central and North America apart. Additionally, within and across these regions several overlapping projects coexist. This article focuses on the dynamics of segmented and overlapping regionalism in order to describe what they look like, analyse how they articulate with one another, and explain why member states have pushed for such a messy outcome. This situation, linked to the evolution of the global context, might be indicating that regionalism in Latin America has reached its peak, beyond which it may be difficult to achieve further progress. Two conclusions are elicited: first, economic integration is becoming a geographically diffused phenomenon rather than a regional one; second, regionalism is still a compelling foreign policy but its causes, goals and outcomes are no longer what they used to be.
Notes
The authors are grateful to Federico Romero for the image of regionalism as a peaking, as opposed to linear, phenomenon, and to Lorenzo Fioramonti for valuable comments.
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2 Bhagwati, “Export-Promoting Trade Strategy”.
3 Fawcett and Hurrell, Regionalism in World Politics.
4 Milward, “The European Rescue of the Nation-State”.
5 This part draws on Malamud, “Latin American Regionalism and EU Studies”.
6 Wionczek, “The Rise and Decline”; Mace, “Regional Integration in Latin America”.
7 Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration.
8 Sanahuja, “Del ‘regionalismo abierto’ al ‘regionalismo post-liberal’”; Riggirozzi and Tussie, The Rise of Post-Hegemonic Regionalism.
9 Carranza, Mercosur, the Global Economic Crisis; Cienfuegos Mateo and Sanahuja Perales, Una región en construcción.
10 Malamud and Schmitter, “The Experience of European Integration”, 147.
11 Tussie, “Latin America: Contrasting Motivations”, 170.
12 Phillips and Prieto, “The Demise of New Regionalism”, 120.
13 Gardini, “Proyectos de integración regional sudamericana”, 26.
14 Sanchez Bajo, “The European Union and Mercosur”; Gardini, “Mercosur at 20”; and Sanahuja, “Del ‘regionalismo abierto’ al ‘regionalismo post-liberal’”.
15 See article by Draper, in this issue, 67.
16 Gardini, “Proyectos de integración regional sudamericana”.
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18 Gardini and Lambert, “Introduction”.
19 Interview with José Manuel Quijano, former Director of the Mercosur Secretariat, Montevideo, 22 July 2010.
20 Interview with Walter Cancela, Director of Mercosur at the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry until 2010, Montevideo, 20 July 2010.
21 Indeed the countries that are most supportive of the South American Initiative for the Integration of Infrastructure (IIRSA) are those that would gain the most from inter-oceanic connections, namely Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay.
22 Hurrell, “Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective”, 43.
23 Sanahuja, “Del ‘regionalismo abierto’ al ‘regionalismo post-liberal’”.
24 Muhr, “The ALBA-TCP”.
25 Riggirozzi, Region, Regionness and Regionalism in Latin America.
26 All figures from World Trade Organisation, Trade Profiles 2011, http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFHome.aspx?Language=E.
27 ECLAC, Latin America in the World Economy.
28 Montero, Brazilian Politics.
29 Bolsa Valores de Colombia, Mercados Integrados Latinoamericanos, 3.
30 Malamud and Schmitter, “The Experience of European Integration”.
31 Malamud, “A Leader without Followers?”.
32S. Castaneda, “Chinese Take-Over of South America?”, Foreign Policy in Focus, 18 April 2011, http://www.fpif.org/articles/chinese_take-over_of_south_america.
33 Government of India, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of Commerce “Focus LAC, A Programme for Enhancing India's Trade with the Latin American Region”, http://commerce.nic.in/flac/focuslac.htm.
34 Bhagwati, U.S. Trade Policy.
35 Phillips and Prieto, “The Demise of New Regionalism”, 120.
36 Mattli, “Ernst Haas's Evolving Thinking”, 328.
37 Merke, “De Bolívar a Bush”.
38 The concept of ‘low cap’ regionalism is borrowed from Félix Peña, Argentine undersecretary of economic integration and of foreign trade in the 1990s, interviewed in Buenos Aires, 18 March 2003.
39 Gardini, “Proyectos de integración regional sudamericana”.
40 Laursen, “Regional Integration”, 14.
41 Malamud, “Mercosur Turns 15”; Lagos, América Latina: ¿integración o fragmentación?