Overlapping regionalism, no integration : conceptual issues and the Latin American experiences

Abstract

Twenty years after its foundation, MERCOSUR has failed to meet its declared goals. Far from being a common market and not yet a customs union, it has neither deepened nor (legally) enlarged. All the other regionalist projects in Latin America fare even worse, although they have arguably fostered domestic democracy, economic reforms and more peaceful regional relations. This paper introduces a conceptual toolkit for comparing regional integration, and then applies it to explain the dispersed goals and declining performance of the Latin American experiences. The aim is to show how the strengthening of national sovereignty – as opposed to its pooling or delegation – is at the heart of most contemporary regionalist strategies.