Clinging together: Mercosur's ambitious external agenda, its internal crisis, and the future of regional economic integration in South America

Interregionalism's impact on regional integration in developing countries: the case of Mercosur

“…The third argument, most clearly stated in Carranza (2006), was that if Mercosur policy-makers did not take the initiative in working for greater internal consolidation of the bloc, then the external agenda was meaningless and simply insufficient for Mercosur survival. In other words, the external agenda was not a substitute for facing up to Mercosur's many internal deficits (Blyde et al 2008;Doctor 2013).…”

“…In this view, interregionalism is more hindrance than help. A third view argues that the stalling of the internal agenda became the main obstacle to progress on the external (Carranza 2006). Thus, the sequence in which a policy agenda is dealt with matters for outcomes.…”

Prospects for deepening Mercosur integration: Economic asymmetry and institutional deficits

“…Not surprisingly, during the crisis, EU governments resorted to inter-governmentalism focused on preserving state preferences and national sovereignty. 11 See Carranza (2006) and Taccone and Nogueira (2004) for more details on these attempts at re-launching Mercosur. 12 Recently, both Brazil and Uruguay refused British navy vessels permission to stop at their ports.…”

“…There were those who argued that a 'regionalism from below' that put pressure on Mercosur elites to democratise and deepen the project would not only deal with the democratic deficit, but also increase Mercosur's prospects for survival and relevance (Carranza, 2006). So far, a relatively weak regionalism had led an even weaker regionalisation.…”

Towards a New Political Economy of Development

“…This has tended to crystallise most around membership competition between the two blocs (Tussie 2009: 170). But some critical scholarship has regarded such conflicts as symptomatic of deeper and longstanding divisions, not least within Mercosur itself, around fundamentally distinct models of regionalism (Carranza 2006(Carranza , 2010. As the crisis of neoliberal open regionalism has deepened over the past two decades these divisions have become more explicit and have given rise to active contestation in and around the Mercosur bloc.…”