On May 23 rd , 2008, the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR) was created, bringing together all of the South American countries into a single body. This thesis reviews the origins and outcomes to date of that institution. I argue that UNASUR, represents a sort of hybrid institution, trapped between "open regionalism" and "post-neoliberal regionalism." The Latin America governments, and especially their leaders, wanted to move forward to an era of postneoliberal regionalism, with the creation of UNASUR. According to this post-neoliberal vision, the new institution should include the prioritization of the role of the state in economic development, inclusion of a social dimension for regional integration, and promotion of the participation of social actors. The shift toward post-neoliberal regionalism had a strong basis in support among domestic actors and was not just a top-down process of state elites. I thus claim that the perceptions of civil society were crucial for guiding the preferences of the states in relation to decisions to create an alternative regional institution like UNASUR, as well as domestic and regional events that conditioned its creation.
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