Reconstructing Regionalism: What does Development have to do with It?

Abstract

is transiting an era of redefinition through a combination of national level statecraft and the reshaping of the regional political economy. The significance of current transformations is to be seen in political reinvention of democracy and development in response to the legacies of neoliberalism in the region. The extent to which these responses are framing anti-neoliberal or post-neoliberal projects is a matter of debate. This debate is picked up in this chapter by looking at how regionalist projects are part and parcel of how development is thought of and implemented in the region. Regionalism has often been thought as a governance strategy, a pragmatic response to exogenous factors and the challenges of the global political economy. Regionalism in short has been seen as policies pursued by actors (mainly states) directed at enhancing (some aspect of) their capabilities/powers of agency. Without denying the importance of exogenous factors, the aim of this chapter is to rethink the place of development in the current transformations in the political economy of regional governance. We argue that at the core of the new strategies of cooperation and solidarity is a broader question about what sort of development is at stake in a post-hegemonic era. Emergent types of regionalism in the Americas are the embodiment of alternative models of development that contest or reframe the neoliberal orthodoxy prevailing in the 1980s and 1990s. While the terms of integration and regional governance are being redefined, in practice, however, this is not exempt of contradictions. Regional projects are faced with substantially divergent visions of what regional governance should mean and how integration projects should respond to current challenges of development in the new construction of the region Although it would be wrong to assume that we can depict a single, fixed interpretation to what are evolving regional policy responses, we suggest, that the moment of a hegemonic single mode of political economy for the region is over. Latin America is navigating in the absence of one, hegemonic, "meta-narrative" (Whitehead 2009). There is no master history or a single roadmap redefining the political economy in the region. What we rather find is that the many crises of neoliberalism gave way to a redefinition of the regional space and regional politics of cooperation and integration. A new common sense defies the accepted wisdom on development and the common sense model of society of the Washington Consensus. This chapter analyzes the new architecture of regionalism in Latin America in light of these trends, focusing not only on the factors that govern the emergence of alternative projects that contest the "open regionalism" associated with neoliberal governance, but also the factors that address 17

Pulp Friction in the La Plata Basin: The Importance of Natural Resource Governance for South American Regionalism

“…This included a renewed commitment to regionalism with a new emphasis sometimes referred to as "posthegemonic" or "post-neoliberal" (Riggirozzi, 2012b;Riggirozzi & Tussie, 2012). Reflecting developments at the national level, the two regional organizations created in that time, the Brazilian-led UNASUR and the Venezuelan-led ALBA, prioritized domestic needs such as education, health and employment, and regional needs, notably energy and infrastructure, while also seeking to limit US influence in the region (Chodor & McCarthy-Jones, 2013;Luchetti, 2015;Riggirozzi, 2012a).…”

Institutional Contestation: Colombia in the Pacific Alliance

“…Open regionalism advocates for an opening‐up of trade relations among the states and the promotion of a free market economy (Phillips, ). In contrast to this form of regionalisation, there has been a rise of leftist governments in South America, which have begun designing post‐hegemonic regionalism projects, ALBA and partly, the UNASUR are included within this category (Riggirozzi, ), and are characterised by the promotion of alternatives to liberal economic models; a focus not on the commercial dimension of regionalism, with the aim of advancing an agenda of positive integration and all of the above, in order to avoid the interference of the United States by promoting South American regional institutions and downplaying the importance of Pan‐American groupings such as the OAS (Sanahuja, ). To summarise, the PA proposes an open regionalism that is in contrast to the post‐hegemonic regionalism Brazil fosters.The PA also exhibits political tensions with leftist governments in the region, which claim that it has the potential to become an organisation of political consensus driven by the political and military interests of the United States.…”

Latin America's New Regional Architecture: A Cooperative or Segmented Regional Governance Complex?

“…Both authors stress the dynamic character of regionalism and the corresponding regional architecture in Latin America. As 2012b) remarks, older regional organizations and projects do not necessarily disappear. There is no process of substitution, but rather one that sees older and newer organizations overlap.…”