Institutionalising a Radical Region? The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America

Abstract

This paper explores the diplomatic potential of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People's Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP). It does so by refusing to take the region as a fixed, given actor and, instead, suggests that regional organisation is better understood as a process of construction that involves diverse actors and a plurality of interests. Rather than assuming commonality – be it a shared series of beliefs, or, in a more practical sense, a collective policy position – the paper examines the process in which certain beliefs and expectations come to be shared (or resisted). Far from forestalling collective action, however, in acknowledging this instability the paper also reveals how ALBA-TCP has the capacity to affect inter-American relations. It highlights how the potential re-admission of Cuba into diplomatic institutions within the Americas, combined with the regional response to the 2009 Honduran golpe, demonstrates both the limits and possibilities of ALBA-TCP as a diplomatic actor in the Americas.