Regional Governance and Policy-Making in South America

From the summits to the plains: The crisis of Latin American Regionalism

“…Some authors introduced the concept of “positive integration” as a new approach to regional integration, based on political consensus building, the promotion of regional interdependencies, and increased cooperation on non‐trade issues (Ayuso, 2012; Sanahuja, 2010). Unasur, through its sectoral councils, covered a wide range of areas of public policies, including defense, infrastructure, health, and education (Herrero & Tussie, 2015; Hoffmann, 2019; Palestini & Agostinis, 2018; Riggirozzi, 2014), thus promoting regional cooperation in these areas.…”

“…A common technical rationality of political decision makers in specific areas facilitates cooperation based on professional arguments. In contrast, the involvement of political officials and the ideological directives of governments acted as major impediments to independent sectoral work (Hoffmann, 2019).…”

How regional organizations cope with recurrent stress: the case of South America

“…This led to a social and political repositioning of Mercosur and the creation of ALBA (2004), UNASUR (2008), and CELAC (2010), all of which are regional projects with a more political than economic agenda. With its sectoral councils, UNASUR covered a wide range of public policy areas, such as defense, infrastructure and health, and deepened regional cooperation in these areas (Hoffmann 2019;Palestini and Agostinis 2018). The liberal economic right in countries like Chile and Colombia was still in favor of regional cooperation, but with the primarily economic objective to facilitate a better insertion in the global economy.…”

Making Global Policy

“…Policy applications can be geographically specific and limited to a few countries. Or made at a regional level or via processes of trans-regionalism (Hoffmann, 2019). This differential pattern often results from policy diffusion processes which can occur between just a few countries (Evans, 2019;Orenstein, 2005: 179).…”