Whither the push and pull for integration : taking stock of Latin America’s declaratory regionalism

Repeated setbacks to a regional project in Latin America have given rise to a narrative portraying the region’s integration endeavor as a succession of failed attempts. Analysts concordantly highlight that Latin America’s institutional development and actual policy output do not live up to the integrationist discourse sustained in the region, and point to a series of obstacles standing in the way of deep integration. Such a perspective misses out, however, on an intriguing persistence of Latin American regionalism both in discourse as well as in repeated attempts to induce new impetus into the regional project. In an attempt to map out the basis for a more rigorous, theoretically guided approach to the subject, this paper brings the debates on the different push and pull factors of Latin America’s regionalist project together. Based on the premise that forces pushing towards integration are present within the region, it is argued that the dominant hypotheses in the study of regional integration do not address Latin America’s declaratory regionalism in a conclusive manner. The key to the broader picture of the region’s integration gap lies with a lack of determination to let the word follow the deed, and needs to apprehend of the political function declaratory regionalism has come to fulfill in the Latin American international system

Globalization in a Time of Neoliberalism: Politicized Social Movements and the Latin American Response

This article examines the emergence of new, highly politicized social movements in Latin America as a response to deteriorating economic and social conditions and the related growth of neoliberal economic policies advocated by International Financial Institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and by national political elites. It argues that the decline of bureaucratic authoritarianism and the growing democratization in the region have helped to move the struggle for more equitable societies and the empowerment of popular sectors away from armed struggle toward new repertoires of action conducted in civil society by new social and political movements. An overview of the phenomenon, examines the Zapatistas in Mexico, the National Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the breakdown of traditional parties and the rise of the Chávez movement in Venezuela, recent political movements in Bolivia, the rise of neo-populism in Peru, and the political and economic crisis that delegitimized governments and politics in Argentina and led to popular assemblies and demonstrations that removed successive governments from power in 2001 and 2002. Finally, a case study of the Landless movement in Brazil (the MST) is offered as an example of how such movements develop and contest power