Abstract:
This article addresses three questions: why there was a surge in regional cooperation projects in Latin America in the last decade; how to characterize the current multi-faceted scenario; and how to make this complexity work. After a review of six theoretical perspectives, an original conceptual approach is proposed: “modular regionalism.” This credibly answers the three questions and offers policy recommendations.

Author: Gian Luca Gardini
Full document2015, Gardini, Towards Modular Regionalism- the Proliferation of Latin American Cooperation

Abstract:
The landscape of Latin American regionalism has experienced profound transformations in a relatively short period of time. Regional organizations have proliferated; the open regionalism of the 1990s has gone into decay; new organizations, often referred to as belonging to a new wave of a more political “posthegemonic regionalism,” took center stage; only to be displaced in the attention of observers by newer trade-oriented organizations such as the Pacific Alliance. These developments have been puzzling scholars and policy makers, who for their most part have tended to converge on the view that a fragmented regional configuration with diverging or even incompatible models of regional integration is on the rise.

This article challenges this interpretation by arguing that many of the trends we observe are rather the result of Latin American states’ practical adaptation of their foreign policy strategies to the emergence of a multipolar political economy in the international system. One important consequence of this process of adaptation, I argue, is a “decoupling” of the economic function of regionalism from its other dimensions – a process that I show is facilitating the emergence of a regional architecture characterized by a finer division of labor among organizations.

Author: Jorge F. Garzón
Full document: 2015, Garzón, Latin American Regionalism in a Multipolar World

Abstract:
This paper aims to reflect on the scope and meaning of the last two decades of Latin American regional integration. Two schemes of post-liberal regionalism are studied –ALBA and Unasur. These two schemes respond to two different ways of understanding the region, one from Venezuela, the other one from Brazil.

However, up to now, they do not offer significant results or consolidate, strictly speaking, a post-hegemonic regional scenario.

We cannot forget other factors in understanding the uncertainty that characterises the Latin American regionalism: factors such as ideological polarity and Westphalian nationalism, and other economic factors such as the current political and economic crisis in Brazil or Venezuela, or the emergence of new regionalism initiatives such as the Pacific Alliance.

Resumen: 
El propósito del siguiente trabajo es reflexionar respecto del alcance y sentido de las últimas dos décadas transcurridas en la integración regional latinoamericana a nivel intergubernamental. Además, se abordan dos esquemas propios del regionalismo posliberal, como son ALBA y Unasur. Dos esquemas que aunque responden a formas diferentes de entender la región, una desde Venezuela, la otra desde Brasil, hasta el momento, no ofrecen grandes resultados, lo cual dista de consolidar, en sentido estricto, un escenario regional poshegemónico.

Si a ello se unen factores inalterados, propios de la región, como la polaridad ideológica o el nacionalismo westfaliano, y factores coyunturales como la crisis política y económica actual de Brasil o Venezuela, o la emergencia de iniciativas de nuevo regionalismo como la Alianza del Pacífico, es posible entender el momento de incertidumbre que ha acompañado al regionalismo latinoamericano en las últimas dos décadas.

Author: Jerónimo Ríos Sierra
Spanish Title: La Unión de Naciones Americanas y la Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América: ¿Otra Década Pérdida?
Full document: 2017, Ríos, La Unión de Naciones Suramericana y la Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos ¿Otra Década Pérdida?