The challenges of economic integration in Latin America: searching for consensus in contexts of globalization. The case of MERCOSUR (1991–2019)

Abstract

This paper analyses the trajectory of MERCOSUR from a critical historical perspective. This interpretation presents an alternative to more Eurocentric approaches to regionalism, which tends to view MERCOSUR as a failed integration process due to the inability of governments to build supranational institutions in the image of the European Union. In contrast, I analyse MERCOSUR as a field of contestation between visions of autonomy or dependence. Consensus between national actors with different visions, material capacities and institutions varied over time with direct effects on the correlation of political forces. However, the results of this dispute remain strongly tied to the international division of labour. To demonstrate this idea, this article moves through three stages of MERCOSUR, identifying the changes in terms of consensus and dissent between national governments around the regional institutional framework and its external realignment.