The private sector's role in and contribution to the Pacific Alliance, 2012–2021

Abstract

The Pacific Alliance deviates from other Latin American integration agreements due to its close association between governments and the private sector. Analysts have assessed the agreement as a pragmatic experience of regional integration to facilitate the free movement of production factors, a "tail moves dog" project, or an example of deep integration to diffuse liberal normative principles. This article analyzes the Pacific Alliance Business Council discourse to identify how the private sector perceives its role in the agreement and expresses it in the group's external negotiations, for example, Pacific Alliance-Mercosur, before contrasting its selfdefined role with those assumed by interpretations in the literature. We argue that the private sector sees its role as multifaceted, and this self-perception escapes the limits of normative deep integration notions, allowing business to adapt to changes in internal and external factors. Business self-perception contributes to enhance Pacific Alliance pragmatism and the application of an inductive micro-negotiation methodology, but transversality may also influence the Business Council to support normative issues.