Political reconfiguration and regional governance in Latin America. Where does post-liberal regionalism go?

El presente artículo se propone analizar los conceptos de regionalismo Post-Hegemónico y regionalismo Post-Liberal a la luz del recambio electoral que desde el año 2015 se ha ido desarrollando en diferentes países de América del Sur. Para ello, el trabajo intentará contribuir al debate y dar respuestas sobre algunos interrogantes, tales como: ¿A qué hacemos referencia cuando hablamos de regionalismo post- hegemónico y regionalismo post-liberal? ¿Cómo debemos considerarlos? ¿Se constituyen como una nueva fase de la integración regional latinoamericana o representan más bien un modelo de cooperación internacional? ¿Cómo afecta el supuesto final del ciclo progresista y la nueva reconfiguración política de la región a la supervivencia de este fenómeno?This article aims to analyze the concepts of post-hegemonic regionalism and post-liberal regionalism in light of the political reconfiguration that has been taking place since 2015 in different countries of South America. For this, the paper will try to contribute to the debate and give answers on some questions, such as: What do we refer to when we talk about post-hegemonic regionalism and post-liberal regionalism? How should we consider them? Do they constitute a new phase of Latin American regional integration or do they represent a model of international cooperation? How does the end of the progressive cycle and the new political reconfiguration of the region affect the survival of this phenomenon

“Stranger Things”: o futuro do regionalismo latino-americano

Latin American attempts at regionalism have been pursued through different waves. The last wave, post-liberal or post-hegemonic regionalism, is fading without having even peaked. Building on contributions from International Political Economy, European Studies and International Relations, the paper aims at answering two main questions: how can we characterize the current paths of regional integration in Latin America considering the trends of the last ten years? What can we expect of Latin American regionalism over the next decade? We address three premises –membership of regional organizations, institutional design and the role of the United States– lying under the large volume of regionalist research in Latin America. We then test them vis-à-vis the latter developments in the aftermath of the collapse of post-liberal regionalism. Also, addressing these three premises we attempt to make some predictions about possible forthcoming regional scenarios. We explore two possible developments –a short-term scenario and a longer-term scenario–, mainly but not exclusively drawn from the three premises studied in the paper. Maybe we are about to witness some “stranger things” in the future of Latin American regionalism, opening up to different realities, different explanations and alternatives.As tentativas latino-americanas de regionalismo têm sido perseguidas através de diferentes ondas. A última onda, o regionalismo pós-liberal ou pós-hegemônico, está desaparecendo sem sequer ter atingido o pico. Com base em contribuições da Economia Política Internacional, Estudos Europeus e Relações Internacionais, o artigo tem como objetivo responder a duas questões principais: como caracterizar os caminhos atuais da integração regional na América Latina considerando as tendências dos últimos dez anos? O que podemos esperar do regionalismo latino-americano na próxima década? Abordamos três premissas – filiação de organizações regionais, projeto institucional e o papel dos Estados Unidos – sob o grande volume de pesquisas regionalistas na América Latina. Testamo-los em relação aos últimos desenvolvimentos após o colapso do regionalismo pós-liberal. Além disso, abordando essas três premissas, tentamos fazer algumas previsões sobre possíveis cenários regionais futuros. Exploramos dois desenvolvimentos possíveis – um cenário de curto prazo e um cenário de longo prazo –, principalmente, mas não exclusivamente extraídos das três premissas estudadas no artigo. Talvez estejamos prestes a testemunhar algumas “coisas estranhas” no futuro do regionalismo latino-americano, abrindo-se para diferentes realidades, diferentes explicações e alternativas

Clubs within clubs: The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and the Benelux as Macro-regions within the EU

This paper deals with two examples of macro-regions in the EU: the Benelux and the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Building on the distinction between “old” and “new” regionalism, it discusses some characteristics of regions in general, and of sub-integration schemes within the EU in particular. These characteristics are applied to the two regions at hand. From this application it follows that the CBSS can be regarded as a “new” region, whereas the Benelux is an “old” region with some elements from new regionalism.\ud The paper subsequently discusses some explanations for the emergence of macro-regions in the EU as well as the implications of this phenomenon for research on European integration

Regional governmentality: neoliberalization and the Caribbean community single market and economy

Formally launched on 30 January 2006, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) is, like many other regional economic initiatives, designed to create an economic space in which the uninhibited flow of goods, capital and skills across the borders of member states is anticipated to generate competitive business opportunities and external investment. Despite the intensification of such regional programmes, promoters and critics alike continue to consider CARICOM to be an intergovernmental organization dependent on the political will of member states as they negotiate the pressures of neoliberal globalization. In this paper, I argue that such a framing of regional integration in the Caribbean misses some of the tangible ways that CARICOM works beyond the sovereign intent of member states to enable the encroachment of neoliberal-style economic orders across the space of the region. I adopt a Foucauldian analytics of governmentality to unhinge CARICOM from the governments of its member states. Once freed from a persistent statism it becomes possible to consider the technical competencies through which CARICOM initiatives increasingly connect and cohere with neoliberal rationalities. My goal in developing such an analytics is not to suggest CARICOM operates as a superstate but rather to broaden the sites considered relevant to understanding the encroachment of neoliberalism in the Caribbean

Conceptualizing the EU model of governance in world politics

While the field of EU studies has generated a rich theoretical literature, the usefulness of analyses of the EU for broader processes of regional governance has been questioned. At the same time much recent scholarship on the EU has examined the Union’s external relations as opposed to its internal governance. At stake in both of these debates are questions about the nature of the EU, what it represents and how it should be conceptualised. By examining the conceptual literatures on EU ‘actorness’, the governance of EU external relations and policy and academic discourses of comparative regional integration, this paper argues that approaches informed by broadly constructivist insights carry significant promise and can help to answer questions about the EU’s role in world politics that perplex both the policy and the academic imaginations

In search of Karl Polanyi’s international relations theory

Karl Polanyi is principally known as an economic historian and a theorist of international political economy. His theses are commonly encountered in debates concerning globalisation, regionalism, regulation and deregulation, and neoliberalism. But the standard depiction of his ideas is based upon a highly restricted corpus of his work: essentially, his published writings, in English, from the 1940s and 1950s. Drawing upon a broader range of Polanyi’s work in Hungarian, German, and English, this article examines his less well-known analyses of international politics and world order. It sketches the main lineaments of Polanyi’s international thought from the 1910s until the mid-1940s, charting his evolution from Wilsonian liberal, via debates within British pacifism, towards a position close to E. H. Carr’s realism. It reconstructs the dialectic of universalism and regionalism in Polanyi’s prospectus for postwar international order, with a focus upon his theory of ‘tame empires’ and its extension by neo-Polanyian theorists of the ‘new regionalism’ and European integration. It explores the tensions and contradictions in Polanyi’s analysis, and, finally, it hypothesises that the failure of his postwar predictions provides a clue as to why his research on international relations dried up in the 1950s

Comparative Regionalism - A New Research Agenda

After the end of the Cold War, students of International Relations observed an expansion of inter-state activities at the regional level. Regional and sub-regional groupings appeared to gain momentum as the way in which countries cooperate and should cooperate to pursue peace, stability, wealth and social justice. The surge and resurgence of regionalism has triggered the proliferation of concepts and approaches. The focus of this paper will be on processes and structures of state-led regionalism driven by the delegation of policies and political authority to regional institutions. Based on this understanding of regionalism, the existing literature will be reviewed with regard to three general questions. These questions do not only require research across regions but also allow developing a common research agenda to accumulate knowledge generated about specific regions. First, what are the outcomes of regionalism? How can we describe and compare the results of the delegation of policies and political authority? Second, what are the drivers of regionalism? Why do some governments choose to delegate policies and political authority while others do not? Finally, what are the internal effects of regionalism? How does the delegation of policies and political authority impact back on the domestic structures of the states involved?regional development; Europeanization; Europeanization

Dr. José Antonio Sanahuja Perales

Professor Sanahuja is a professor of international relations and a specialist in development cooperation, a field in which he has a good number of publications and reference studies. In addition, he has specialized in relations between the European Union and Latin America, from a pro-European perspective, and has published various works on Spanish foreign and cooperation policy. As a Latin Americanist, he has also studied foreign policy, regionalism and Latin American integration, conducting critical studies on "open regionalism", and has raised the need for a "new regionalism" and a "post-liberal regionalism" with stronger institutions .El profesor Sanahuja es catedrático de relaciones internacionales y especialista en cooperación al desarrollo, campo en el que cuenta con un buen número de publicaciones y estudios de referencia. Además, se ha especializado en las relaciones entre la Unión Europea y América Latina, desde una visión europeísta, y ha publicado distintos trabajos sobre la política exterior y de cooperación española. Como latinoamericanista, ha estudiado también la política exterior, el regionalismo y la integración latinoamericana, realizando estudios críticos sobre el "regionalismo abierto", y ha planteado la necesidad de un "nuevo regionalismo" y un "regionalismo post-liberal" con instituciones más fuertes

La influencia del regionalismo post-liberal en la cooperación sur-sur dentro de la Unasur

El interés de este estudio de caso es analizar la influencia del regionalismo post-liberal en la cooperación sur-sur (CSS) de América Latina. Se analiza y explica cómo las dinámicas del regionalismo post-liberal del nuevo milenio, mediante esquemas de integración regional como la UNASUR, dieron paso al resurgimiento de la CSS en América Latina, no como una herramienta a favor de la integración, sino como un instrumento del liderazgo regional. Siguiendo finalmente la perspectiva neorrealista de Kenneth Waltz, con la cual se explican las transformaciones estructurales que dieron paso a un nuevo modelo de integración y los procesos de CSS que dentro de éste se desarrollan.The interest of this paper is to evaluate the influence of the post-liberal regionalism in the south south cooperation (SSC) of Latin American. The investigation analizes and explains how dynamics of post-liberal regionalism of the new century, through integration squemes such as UNASUR gave the space to the reborm of the SSC in Latin American, not as a tool for the actual integration but an instrument to regional leadership. Following the perspective neorrealism of Kenneth Waltz which is used to explains the transformations of a new model of integration and the SSC processes that are developed in it

Modelos de integración en América Latina: : objetivos, mecanismos y actores

Since the second half of the twentieth century, different integration experiences have been developed in Latin America; depending on their objectives, applied mechanisms and actors who intervened, these can be grouped into different integration models. This is: analytical constructs that try to explain in a simplified way the structural characteristics of the integration processes and that allow describing, explaining and comparing, for example, to MERCOSUR with the European Union This paper compares three Latin American models: the structuralist, open regionalism and post-liberal regionalism, pointing out their links with the development models and proposing discussions with the literature on the subject. In particular, we try to argue that the category of “post-liberal regionalism” has certain weaknesses that make it difficult to use it to explain recent experiences of integration in the region.Desde la segunda mitad del Siglo XX se han desarrollado en América Latina distintas experiencias integracionistas; en función de sus objetivos, mecanismos aplicados y actores intervinientes, éstas pueden agruparse en distintos modelos de integración. Esto es: construcciones analíticas que intentan explicar de forma simplificada las características estructurales de los procesos de integración y que permiten describir, explicar y comparar, por ejemplo, al MERCOSUR con la Unión Europea En el presente trabajo se analiza comparativamente a tres modelos específicos de América Latina: el estructuralista, el regionalismo abierto y el regionalismo post-liberal, señalando sus vinculaciones con los modelos de desarrollo y planteando discusiones con respecto a la literatura sobre el tema. En particular, se intenta argumentar que la categoría de “regionalismo post-liberal” presenta ciertas debilidades que tornan dificultosa su utilización para explicar las experiencias recientes de integración en la región