Regionalism in Latin America. Navigating in the Fog.

SECO Working Paper 25/2017 by Alberto van Klaveren

ABSTRACT: The more recent waves of regionalism in Latin America have been associated, respectively, with structuralist, neo-liberal and post-liberal economic and political experiments in the region. Structuralist realism was inaugurated in the 1950s and somehow survived until the 1970s, open regionalism followed in the 1980s and 1990s, and was replaced, to a certain extent, during the next decade by post-liberal regionalism. However, the limits, if not demise, of post-liberal experiments in the most important economies of Latin America, pose the question of the future of regionalism? In this changing situation, this paper explores several questions that arise about the future of regionalism in Latin America.