This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the processes of regional integration and cooperation in South America. It discusses the tradition of regional cooperation and various regional initiatives in South America from the 1960s onwards, despite cycles of progress and setbacks. It analyses country perspectives on regionalism by looking at some of the more active cooperation partners like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and also Mexico vis-à-vis South American regionalism. The handbook discusses conceptual topics such as the links between regionalism and globalization, the place of regionalism in South American foreign policies, the geopolitics of regional integration, and the institutional and legal dimensions of South American regional organizations. Finally, it covers the economic, political and social dimensions of South American regional processes.
The handbook fills a significant gap in the literature in English by taking a broad, multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach, and covering historical examples and theoretical and analytical perspectives. This is an innovative contribution to the study of South American regionalism, with contributions from leading experts based in South America and Latin American specialists from elsewhere.
PART I Regional spaces in South America.- Introduction: the building of
South America as an international region.- Regional Agreements in the New
International Scenario: the Andean Region Case .- The Amazon Cooperation
Treaty Organization (ACTO): a historical balance.- Mercosur: challenges and
prospects towards a new global landscape.- The Construction, De-construction,
and Reconstruction of UNASUR.- Pacific Alliance in Times of Global
Transition.- PART II Country perspectives.- Brazil and Leadership in South
American regionalism.- Argentina and regionalism in the Southern Cone: from
prominence to decline.- Alternative Integration and Venezuela.- Colombia and
regional integration. Rhetoric and results.- So close, yet so far awayMexico
and South American regionalism.- PART III Conceptual and analytical
perspectives.- Globalization, Deglobalization, and the Geostructural
Foundations of Regionalism in South America.- Security Governance in South
America.- Foreign policy and regionalism in South America: the place of
autonomy.- The actors of South American regionalism.- Liquid Institutional
Designs and South American Regionalism.- From a Landlocked to a Water-Centric
South American Integration.- PART IV Economic dimensions of South American
regionalism.- Regionalism and Development in South American: Between
Industrialization, Sustainability, and Human Well-Being.- The trade dimension
of South American regionalism.- South American Infrastructure Integration:
Background and Challenges.- Financial Cooperation in South America.- South
American regionalism and asymmetries.- PART V Political and legal dimensions
of South American regionalism.- Regionalism and democracy in South America:
achievements and limitations.- One Hundred Years of Populist Regionalism in
South America.- Imagining the Region Otherwise: Emancipatory Ideologies in
the Making of South American Regionalism.- The right and far-right in South
American regionalism.- The right and far-right in South American
regionalism.- Civil society and regionalism in South America.- Indigenous
peoples in South America regionalism.- PART VI Social dimensions of South
American regionalism.- Environment and climate change in South American
regionalism.- Gender Governance in South American Regionalism: Institutions,
Norms, and Policy Frameworks.- South American regionalism and migration
governance.- Health Cooperation in South America: making the case of a
multilayered regionalism.- Cooperation for Development in South America: the
South-South and Triangular Cooperation contributions to regionalism and to
interregionalism.
José Briceño Ruiz has a PhD in political science from the Institute of Political Studies of Aix-en-Provence Science Po Aix, France. He holds a masters degree in international relations (Durham University, England) and a DEA in comparative political science (Science Po Aix). He is a professor-researcher at the Research Center of Latin American Studies and Caribbean (CIALC) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He was professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, the Instituto Luis María Mora and Universidad de las Americas, Mexico.
