The challenges of economic integration in Latin America: searching for consensus in contexts of globalization. The case of MERCOSUR (1991–2019)

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the trajectory of MERCOSUR from a critical historical perspective. This interpretation presents an alternative to more Eurocentric approaches to regionalism, which tends to view MERCOSUR as a failed integration process due to the inability of governments to build supranational institutions in the image of the European Union. In contrast, I analyse MERCOSUR as a field of contestation between visions of autonomy or dependence. Consensus between national actors with different visions, material capacities and institutions varied over time with direct effects on the correlation of political forces. However, the results of this dispute remain strongly tied to the international division of labour. To demonstrate this idea, this article moves through three stages of MERCOSUR, identifying the changes in terms of consensus and dissent between national governments around the regional institutional framework and its external realignment.

KEYWORDS:

• Regionalism
• Latin America
• globalization
• political economy
• MERCOSUR

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for comments from the reviewers, and especially the collaboration with Ernesto Vivares and Rowan Lubbock.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Presidential intergovernmentalism’ creates problems in decision-making, as it requires first the unanimity of the partners and then the internalization of what is decided by each of them. Added to this decision-making inefficiency is the execution, since the authority to implement regional policies resides in national bureaucracies that lack incentives to prioritize them(Malamud, 2013).

2 In his work on how to define the MERCOSUR External Tariff (CET), he demonstrates how subnational entrepreneurs, especially those in Brazil, who had parliamentary representation ended up imposing their needs and demands on regional negotiation (Pezzola, 2018).

3 Had a gradual freeing of trade been accompanied by the free mobility of persons across borders been implemented (expressed in the Treaty of Asunción), the gaps between countries would have narrowed and interdependence deepened (Blyde, 2006).

4 As a counterpoint to mainstream/Eurocentric approaches to MERCOSUR, the relative sophistication of the European Union, in the form of supranationalism, does not exempt this regional space from socio-economic crisis and relative disintegration, as the Eurozone crisis and recent exit of Great Britain has shown (see Lapavitsas et al., 2012; Jessop, 2017).

5 Only smaller countries in Central America and the Andean region integrated their markets for consumption and production, such as the Central American Common Market (CACM), created in 1961; and the Andean Community (AC) in 1969. Progress in CACM and AC were obstructed by inter-state conflicts, in addition to physical barriers which were impossible to be overcome without infrastructure projects (Sunkel, 1995).

6 As with much scholarship on the EU, ‘success’ in the case of NAFTA is very much dependent on the perspective taken. From the perspective of transnational capital, NAFTA created a virtual gold mine in the form of the ‘maquiladora’ complex of low-cost (sweatshop) labour, while, from a different perspective, both labour and the environment became over-exploited resources with devastating consequences to both (Robinson, 2008, pp. 106–107; Ciccantell, 2001).

7 In 1997, three protocols were signed, those being the Protocol of facilitation and cooperation of intra-MERCOSUR investment (in force); Montevideo Protocol on MERCOSUR trade and services (in force).

8 There is a widespread confusion in the IR literature around the leadership of Brazil (e.g. Vigevani & Ramazzini, 2009). This paragraph is not intended to discuss the existence or not of (regional) political leadership, but rather Brazilian economic leadership. During the first years, Brazil received few benefits of intra-regional trade. While after the crisis, it became the regional economic leader not only as a provider of industrial manufactures but also as a significant importer of intra-regional commodities (Burges, 2008; see also Figure 1).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mercedes Botto

Mercedes Botto is a Sociologist and holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences (European University Institute, 1999). She is currently a member of the National Scientific and Technical Research System (CONICET) and a Director in the Program of Regional Cooperation and Integration Studies (PECIR) of the Argentina office of the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO). The subjects she focuses her research and teaching activities on are regional governance and the impact of global organizations on public policies in Latin America. The following are her main publications and books: Teoría y práctica de la integración latinoamericana. La Integración Regional en América Latina: Quo Vadis? El MERCOSUR desde una perspectiva sectorial y comparada (Eudeba, 2015). El Mercosur, ¿para qué sirve? Claves para el debate sobre los alcances de la integración (FLACSO/CTA, 2012); Research and international trade policy negotiation (Routledge, 2008); El ALCA y las Cumbres de las Américas. ¿Una nueva relación público-privada? (Biblos, 2004).