Attention to health policies in Southern regional organisations reveals a new 'social turn' in the regional political economy of international cooperation. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it aims to establish the extent to which the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has adopted and sustained policy interventions committed to addressing social inequities and asymmetries in relation to health, as indicated by regional policy agendas, policy development processes and resourcing. Second, it seeks to understand how UNASUR is mobilising national and regional actors in support of such policies. Our analysis of documentary sources and interviews leads us to draw the following conclusions. First, we argue that the UNASUR regional framework has a committed social equity/rights focus in relation to access to health care and medicines, with a clear focus on reducing asymmetries between countries. Second, although UNASUR does not enforce national commitments on health and medicines, it nonetheless plays a role in expanding domestic policy horizons and policy capacities. In this respect, we find that UNASUR interventions lead to initiatives and actions aimed at implementing reforms, setting targets and defining goals nationally. Third, in global arena, UNASUR enhances the visibility and 'voices' of the member states.

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There is consensus in Latin America that the modern states of the region emerged from a communal project based on the existence of pre-national societies. It remains important, however, to ask who the actors behind this construct are and how they understand the discourse of the nation promoted by those states. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, who took a critical view of the processes of construction of this modern organizational form, approached the concept of the nation as a construct that took into account the coalition of prevailing forces and could be disputed by those seeking to play a leading role in it. En América Latina, ya constituye un consenso afirmar que los estados modernos de la región emergen de un proyecto comunitario a partir de la existencia de sociedades pre-nacionales. Resulta urgente preguntarse por los actores que forman parte de dicha construcción y la forma en que reciben el discurso nacional promovido por el Estado. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, quien sostuvo una mirada crítica sobre los procesos de construcción de esta forma organizativa moderna, nos permite pensarla como una construcción que puede dar cuenta de la coalición de fuerzas vigente y ser disputada por aquellos que exigen tener un rol protagónico en la misma.

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