Geographies of South-South relations and regionalisation processes in Latin America-Caribbean. In E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh & P. Daley (eds) Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations, pp. 95-111. (2019) (original) (raw)
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2017
Structured around the case of South-South cooperation in the construction of “complementary economic zones” among the member states of the ALBA-TCP, Petrocaribe, CARICOM and MERCOSUR, this article argues for a socio-spatial approach to the study of the changing Latin America-Caribbean integration and development geographies. Two interrelated, main arguments are developed: first, in contrast to methodologically nationalist approaches, which typically view the regionalisms that are to form the complementary economic zones as ideologically separate, incompatible or conflicting projects, a socio-spatial approach in conjunction with a South-South cooperation analytical lens explains their commonality and, subsequently, their interrelatedness and convergence. Second, while this South-South cooperation space is not per se non-capitalist, a socio-spatial analysis also facilitates “seeing” the production of a socialist “counter-space” within this South-South cooperation structure. ABSTRACT FOR ANTIPODEFOUNDATION.ORG Situated within human geography’s concerns with uneven development and the politics of place, space and scale, this explanatory-diagnostic article analyzes the contemporary efforts of constructing socialism in Latin America-Caribbean. Although the empirical scope of the article has become challenged by the recent government changes in Argentina and Brazil, and the impact these are having on MERCOSUR, historically, as a South-South “politics of possibilities”, the article is far from obsolete. Its political relevance is two-fold: first, methodologically, this relational analysis overcomes the inherent conservativism of methodologically nationalist and territorially nationalist approaches (mainstream international relations, international politics, international political economy), by integrating state-society dialectics with a pluri-scalar approach that “visibilizes” the transformative potential and impact of this strategy. Second, while such a strategy was mobilized during Hugo Chávez’s regional leadership, it appears to be falling into oblivion. However, socialist revolutionary praxis, the article implicitly claims, depends on precisely such a politics. ABSTRACT EN CASTELLANO Estructurado sobre el caso de cooperación Sur-Sur en la construcción de “zonas económicas complementarias” entre los estados miembros del ALBA-TCP, Petrocaribe, CARICOM y MERCOSUR, este artículo argumenta una aproximación socio-espacial al estudio de las geografías cambiantes de integración y desarrollo en Latino América-Caribe. Dos argumentos principales interrelacionados se desarrollan: en primer lugar, en contraste con aproximaciones nacionalismo metodológicas, las cuales consideran los regionalismos que forman las zonas económicas complementarias como ideológicamente separados, proyectos incompatibles o en conflicto, una aproximación socio-espacial en conjunto con una lente analítica de cooperación Sur-Sur explica sus características compartidas y, posteriormente, sus interrelaciones y convergencias. En segundo lugar, mientras este espacio de cooperación Sur-Sur no es per se no-capitalista, un análisis socio-espacial también facilita “ver” la producción de un “contra-espacio” socialista en esta estructura de cooperación Sur-Sur.
2011
These monographic papers analyze ongoing developments within the European Union as well as recent trends which influence the EU's relationship with the rest of the world. Broad themes include, but are not limited to: EU Enlargement The Evolution of the Constitutional Process The EU as a Global Player Comparative Regionalisms The TransAtlantic Agenda EU-Latin American Relations Economic issues Governance The EU and its Citizens EU Law As the process of European integration evolves further, the Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Papers is intended to provide current analyses on a wide range of issues relevant to the EU. The overall purpose of the monographic papers is to contribute to a better understanding of the unique nature of the EU and the significance of its role in the world. ABSTRACT This paper examines the complexities of regional integration in the developing world and the internal and external forces that shape regional and sub-regional groupings. The main ...
The Routledge Handbook to Global Political Economy Conversations and Inquiries, 2020
PROOFREADING VERSION. FOR QUOTATION PURPOSES PLEASE ACCESS THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION AT THE DOI. The chapter addresses the two main regionalist projects that have taken place in South America since its countries’ independence from Spain and Portugal, namely the Andean Community (AC) and the Common Market of the South (Mercosur).8 By focusing on a number of case studies for each regionalist project, it will be argued that collective identity and regional institutions played an important role in orienting state action towards regionalism, for they significantly shifted state action that could have taken another direction facing the presence or absence of certain material incentives. In the case of the AC, it will be shown that cultural, ideological and intergroup collective identities were determinant for the unfolding of regionalism in the three case studies observed, where regional institutions operated also as powerful sources of state identification with one another, and as pushers for bringing cooperation forward. In the case of the Mercosur, it will be contended that in the absence of strong regional institutions, and of a cultural and an intergroup identity, the ideological dimension of collective identity was the main driver of regionalism in the two case studies addressed. But before proceeding with this analysis, a word must be said about South America as a region and South American regionalism as distinct from a broader Latin American one.
2011
These monographic papers analyze ongoing developments within the European Union as well as recent trends which influence the EU's relationship with the rest of the world. Broad themes include, but are not limited to: EU Enlargement The Evolution of the Constitutional Process The EU as a Global Player Comparative Regionalisms The TransAtlantic Agenda EU-Latin American Relations Economic issues Governance The EU and its Citizens EU Law As the process of European integration evolves further, the Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Papers is intended to provide current analyses on a wide range of issues relevant to the EU. The overall purpose of the monographic papers is to contribute to a better understanding of the unique nature of the EU and the significance of its role in the world.
Regional integration and regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean: a diasporic perspective
This panel puts forward a considerable conceptual challenge, that is to link and prospect the role of Latin American and Caribbean diasporas in United States' foreign policy-making towards Latin America and the Caribbean. Within the study of US international relations and foreign policy the influence of ethnic groups in US foreign policy has been analyzed. What is totally new to this debate is the hemispheric context, a XXI century where US policy towards the region limits itself to bilateral free trade agreements and contestation strategies against left-wing governments. Rodolfo O. De la Garza (2000) book Latinos in US Foreign Affairs, Jorge Dominguez's essay Latinos in US foreign affairs (2003) and the report of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs on the matter have elucidated key aspects of the Latino involvement and mentalities regarding US engagement in world affairs. Now, the scope of our questions, hypothesis and possibilities of action today in 2015 must change to analyze Latinos' impact in US foreign policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean in times of increasing political coordination among sub-regional multilateral institutions, projection of regional institutions as entities with international juridical personality, new alliances, strategic regionalism and the role of regional powers in an emerging multipolar world. We will briefly explain the determinant phenomenon in the region's international relations to understand the regional landscape and how it works; first, a regional space formed by superimposed regional integration and regionalist schemes; and secondly, the role of the leadership of regional and secondary powers in the political and institutional makeup of some of the multilateral regional and sub-regional institutions. The books presented today will help us in this effort. The book " Breve Historia de la integración de América Latina y el Caribe: Un sueño bicentenario " by Sergio Guerra Vilaboy is a detailed work that scrutinizes the power and development of the Latin American and Caribbean integrationist thought. The work is an exhaustive account of region-building and the ways its citizens have been defining themselves and carving their aspirations based on values and interests from the XIX century to the XXI century's post-liberal and post-hegemonic regionalism. It explains in a succinct and clear way the legacy of the so-called conceptual capacities of the Latin American and Caribbean region and the conceptual tools the region has built over time to face structural and regional challenges. In the chapter about ALCA, the book analyses the hemispheric project of the US in the post-Cold War era based on free market multilateralism. A project designed to create a single market on goods and services for the entire Western Hemisphere (Free Trade Area for the Americas) within the norms of the WTO, a concept that was later replicated at the sub-regional scale by CARICOM, the Andean Community and others in the form of a CEPAL's sponsored model called open regionalism.
2015
Regional economic and political integration is not a new phenomenon. The study of regional integration has a long-standing tradition in the field of international relations and has arguably never gone out of fashion. Instead, over the past decade, scholarly attention in this area has increased due to the numerous and far-reaching effects of regional integration on nation states, their sovereignty, and their economic clout. Be it trade in goods and services, health care and medicine, legal jurisdictions, media and communications, or energy and other resources, regional integration has far-reaching consequences on countries globally. After the European Union (EU), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is one of the most developed and functioning unions in the world1. Yet this is a little known, often ignored, and usually discarded fact. Moreover, most literature on regional integration is centered around the EU and other unions such as Mercosur, Asean etc. It is also a general tendency of...
Region, regionness and regionalism in Latin America: Towards a new synthesis (NPE)
New Political Economy, 2012
regional governance today represents a conglomerate of commercial, political and trans-societal welfarist integration projects. In this overlapping and sometimes conflicting scenario what Latin Americanness should mean, and how integration projects should respond to current challenges of global political economy are being redefined. The focus of the paper is twofold: to better understand current regional transformations and to discuss what new developments mean for how we theorise non-European regionalism. Looking at the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas and the Union of South American Nations we ask: How are we to understand regional agreements that are grounded in different systems of rules, alternative ideas and motivations that contest 'open regionalism'? We argue that Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) represent different pathways to regional building, creating foundations for post-hegemonic and post-trade regional governance. We thus challenge New Regionalist approaches that assume regionalism as taking place within and modelled by neoliberal economics, establishing the debate around 'old' vs. 'new' regionalism. As these categories are limited in grasping the full meaning and implications of post-hegemonic regional orders, we discuss UNASUR and ALBA as 'arenas for action' to understand divergent practices, outcomes and types of regionness emerging in alternative regional spaces in South America.
2011
This paper examines the complexities of regional integration in the developing world and the internal and external forces which shape regional and sub-regional groupings. The main contention is, moments of uncertainty and stagnation at the regional level act as an incentive for deeper sub-regionalism. The paper argues further, given that the European Union (EU) is the most advanced regional project, despite its contradictions, it has emerged as a benchmark to be emulated by other regional schemes. The paper explores the challenges and prospects within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and compares the extent to which the EU model has influenced regional integration in the Caribbean.