Latin American Integration Research Articles

A Study of Latin American Integration: Current Status, Challenges and Causes

Latin America and the Caribbean, as the first region among developing countries to practice integration, have shown a segmented development trend due to specific historical contexts. In the post-pandemic era, the development of Latin America has been severely impacted by the pandemic. The development model, where individual nations prioritize national interests over regional ones, has caused stagnation or even regression in Latin American integration. This paper will analyze the current state of Latin American integration from three perspectives: economic, political, and social. Economically, the recovery pace in Latin America lags behind other regions globally. Although there has been some economic rebound, the recovery remains weak, and economic growth continues to slow. Politically, several countries are holding elections this year. Despite the dominance of left-wing forces, right-wing forces are showing signs of gaining momentum, leading to intense struggles between left and right, impacting political stability. Socially, the poverty rate in Latin America remains high, compounded by new issues such as population aging and social stability. In the context of globalization, regional cooperation is a crucial means for countries to promote coordinated economic development and reduce development gaps among member states. It aids in the development of member states and enhances international competitiveness. Actively promoting Latin American integration is beneficial for the region's economic recovery.

The Conceptual Roots of Latin American Integration

The Conceptual Roots of Latin American Integration

Illegal pesticide trade networks on the Brazil and Paraguay border: scenarios following the Latin American Integration Route (LAIR) construction

Agribusiness has unleashed new territorial dynamics on the Brazil and Paraguay border. Derived from Brazilian public policies influenced by geopolitical objectives, the spillover of agribusiness into Paraguayan territory has created productive, commercial, and logistical networks that have intensified the porosity of this border. In light of this, criminal groups have used these networks to carry out cross-border crimes. Among these illicit acts, the illegal flow of pesticides and agrochemical inputs stands out, since they use the road network to transport and distribute these products to the thriving agribusiness segment, despite the asymmetry between sanitary and legal parameters between Brazil and Paraguay. Through a qualitative analysis of quantitative data and interviews with agents responsible for security in the Brazilian Border Strip, we identified the characteristics of this cross-border illicit flow and built a scenario for the period after the construction of the RILA, which will make the river border of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, with the department of Alto Paraguay, Paraguay, between the cities of Porto Murtinho and Carmelo Peralta, more porous and therefore more vulnerable to these crimes.

The Latin American Integration Route in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil: territorial circulation, transportation and logistics

The Latin American Integration Route in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil: territorial circulation, transportation and logistics

Latin American Integration Route and the State of Mato Grosso Do Sul: Productive Characterization, Threats, and Possibilities of Promotion

Latin American Integration Route and the State of Mato Grosso Do Sul: Productive Characterization, Threats, and Possibilities of Promotion

Impacts of road transport infrastructure investments on the Latin American Integration Route

Impacts of road transport infrastructure investments on the Latin American Integration Route

The Latin American Integration Route (RILA), in the face of the UN 2030 Agenda

The Latin American Integration Route (RILA), or bioceanic corridor, is a project aiming to integrate Mato Grosso do Sul (MS) with the Ports of Northern Chile. The city of Porto Murtinho (MS), located on the banks of the Paraguay River, is where a bridge is being built to connect this city to the municipality of Carmelo Peralta, in Paraguay. The challenge is that this corridor is not only a catalyst for development, expanding its benefits beyond the already consolidated export sectors, but that it also opens up opportunities for the promotion of intra-regional trade, tourism, culture, education, in line with the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG. This article aims to discuss the RILA in view of the UN 2030 Agenda, from a debate on the concept of development. This is a qualitative study, conducted in the SciELO database and in documents from ECLAC, IPEA, among others. Bardin's content analysis methodology was adopted for data discussion. It is concluded that the development promised by Brazilian governments with RILA must be an inclusive and sustainable development to bring prosperity and peace to everyone and not just to grain, cellulose, and meat exporters. And that the authorities of Porto Murtinho, through their public policy agendas, in line with the UN 2030 Agenda, develop programs aimed at workers, so that they can work in the jobs that will emerge.Keywords: RILA; SDG; sustainable development; work; Income.

Integration law and harmonization of law in the context of RILA

The Latin American Integration Route (RILA) is a proposal for regional development based on the economic, political, and social integration of Latin American countries. Its objective is to better develop the interaction between countries and the utilization of regional resources and opportunities, aiming at strengthening economic and social development. Integration Law is the field of International and Community Law responsible for governing relations between countries during the implementation of regional integration. It encompasses the norms and principles regulating the commercial, political, cultural, and social relations among the member countries of RILA. In this context, the main goal of this article is to present conceptual aspects of Integration Law and Harmonization of Law, and to reflect on their roles within the context of Latin American integration. The current text is a qualitative approach and bibliographical research, drawing from thinkers that bring the Integration Law and Harmonization of Law scheme to the regional economic integration scenario. It comes to the conclusion that International Law is fundamental to the maintenance and economic integration of the member countries of MERCOSUL, since it creates norms and principles by which the members of this bloc (nations and civil society) can guide themselves.

Constructing Collective Identities within European and Latin American Integration Frameworks

This paper seeks to highlight the importance of creating a collective identity and strengthen the relationship between regional alliances and the civil society to achieve, not only economic, but political goals, concerning the implementation of effective national and international policies, and the influence of political leaders’ positions on the resolution of contemporary crisis. Radical political discourses have gained strength through some of the most important social challenges nowadays such as pandemic, migration, armed conflicts and social inequality, among others. This has resulted in a global phenomenon of fragmentation and decline of regional powers. In a contrasting process, different nations have joint forces to prevent a social, economic and political collapse, and, in this framework, regional integration becomes a fundamental strategy to build international cooperation and stability.

JENGA DOS ALCANOS: UMA ADAPTAÇÃO PEDAGÓGICA E LÚDICA PARA ENSINAR QUÍMICA PARA ALUNOS SURDOS

There are several contents of complex nature in chemistry teaching. Teaching such contents to deaf students requires re-signification, in addition to the Cultural-Historical Theory, the appropriation of these concepts demands the development of voluntary attention, perception, memory and thought. So, is possible to consider that the adapted games are mediating tools for the appropriation and generalization of Chemistry concepts by deaf students? The development and application of the Jenga Game resulted from studies developed in the subjects "Instrumentation for Teaching Chemistry II" and "Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) II" at the Federal University of Latin American Integration (UNILA). The research of qualitative approach, is participatory with intervention and occurred in a Bilingual Education school for the deaf, located in western Paraná, in a high school class, with a sample of 12 deaf students over 18 years. The qualitative analysis revealed that: i) the stimuli that induced the voluntary attention of students occured only after the second round of the game ; ii) the proposed game led them to perception, because building structures, recognizing the correct pieces to be removed, was determinant; iii) the game promoted memorization, demanding from students, the structures building with the correct number of bonds for each compound; iv) the presence of the Translator and Interpreter of Sign Language (TILS) and the mastery of sign language, were essential for the access and appropriation of scientific concepts. As for the generalization of the concepts, this study would demand more time and conditions to fully explore the proposed content.

Regional Integration in Latin America: States, Markets and Organizations

This paper is based on the research related to regional integration attempts in Latin America and their effect on the economic development of Latin American countries. Recent analyses clarify that the US’ intervention in the politics of Latin America has been the main obstacle of the regional integration process. Most importantly, political fragmentation of the countries in the region affects the success of the organizations that are formed for the regional integration. This is especially visible in the political processes of the countries such as economic crises in Argentina, political instability in Venezuela and increasing migration to the US from Latin American countries. Notable studies reveal that despite the regional integration efforts, the economic benefits to the region has been limited compared to the benefit of the global economic powers. Different from the current literature, this paper focuses on the internal dynamics of Latin American countries. In this respect, this paper investigates the effect of the regional integration attempts for the economic development of the countries in Latin America. In this regard, the rational state behaviour was found as an important element to explain in relation to the Latin American integration attempts. With a liberal intergovernmentalist perspective, this paper aims to reveal the success of regional integration attempts in Latin America with the cases of Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) and Andean Community (CAN). The main argument of this paper is that increasing economic cooperation and creating a reconstruction model with a financial assistance to the less developed countries in the region have led to a regional economic development in cohesion with the policies of the regional powers of Latin America.

Transnationalism: The fifth element of the Pacific Alliance's deep integration process

AbstractSince the governments of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru inaugurated a new Latin American integration mechanism, the Pacific Alliance, in 2011, the bloc has recorded both encouraging and disappointing results, depending on the evolution of the Alliance's main five aspects—political, economic, institutional, cooperative, and societal linkages. Although economic integration did not advance at the expected pace, owing to the abolition of a Mexican visa for Peru and Colombia, between 2011 and 2019, there has been a significant increase in social exchanges of nationals of the four countries, which included activities such as tourism, education, business trips, and others of similar nature (the Pacific Alliance's fifth element). Yet, despite these developments, scholars did not attempt to examine the societal linkage within the bloc, referred to in this article as the “fifth element” of the Pacific Alliance. To narrow the gap, this article examines the path of the Alliance toward deep integration by identifying the effect of strengthening social interactions, using a transnationalist framework and paying particular attention to the changing patterns of individual trips over more than 10 years of the Alliance's existence.

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

AbstractThe 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 self‐defined 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.

The convergence between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur: Advances, stagnation, and contemporary challenges

AbstractThis article investigates the relational dynamics between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur from 2011 to 2022. It seeks to understand the moments of advancement and retraction of both regional processes by discussing the current situation and the prospects for strengthening the convergence between them. The study is based on data analysis—documents, reports, news, and institutional archives—that highlight how the negotiations between Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance were conducted. A literature review complements the analysis by reinforcing the concepts applied in this study to support the research hypothesis—that initial competition between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur was overcome by efforts to manage the differences between them, which culminated in an ongoing dialog between the blocs. Still, the endogenous problems of Latin American integration processes and ideological differences between the national governments have resulted in challenges for the advancement of a convergence and the establishment of common trade policies. To overcome such differences, it is essential to reach cooperation agreements that transcend the elimination of tariffs between the two regional projects. The first steps toward restoring the convergence agenda require political willingness to overcome ideological differences, as well as clear interest and engagement from the economic elites.

European Union and Latin American integration schemes: finding the route of approach

The article is devoted to the analysis of the economic relationships of the European Union with the integration associations of Latin American and the Caribbean countries (LAC) on the basis of agreements in force for two decades of the 21st century. The article shows that, despite the different formats of Latin American integration process and its difference from the European model, the European Union is progressively negotiating the development of existing trade agreements. It includes the need of their modernization taking into account new areas of cooperation: the issues of sustainable development and the environmental component, digitalization trend, and post pandemic recovery. The author comes to the conclusion that cooperation through the processes of regional integration on both sides of the Atlantic will remain one of the main features of interregional relations in EU-LAC format. The experience of such an economic partnership can be useful for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), as well as for Russia's international economic positions in the LAC countries.

Mato Grosso do Sul na rota: uma análise em imagens

This study analyzes the spatial segment of the Latin American Integration Network (RILA) route that crosses the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, in order to identify possible changes in territorial dynamics caused by the implementation of this road corridor, which has gradually reconfigured the territorial planning of the state, especially with regard to the logic of enabling circulation infrastructure, which sometimes conditions the speed of fluidity, sometimes shows the transformations embedded in this space.

Evolution of Mercosur intra-regional trade from 2016 to 2020

The first attempts at the Latin American integration process showed a highly pragmatic character, without many concerns for medium and long-term projects. The main concern was to expand intra and extra-regional trade. However, since the 1980s (the decade considered the lost decade for Latin America), when the external debt crises and the adjustment policies recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led the region to a higher poverty rate due to the social costs of such policies, Latin America has been rethinking its integration. The creation of LAIA (Latin American Integration Association), in 1980, replacing LAFTA (Latin American Free Trade Association), in 1960, and its sub-regional integration have changed Latin America’s economic growth trajectory from the 1990s. Within the scope of LAIA, Mercosur was created in 1991, with the objective of promoting intra and extra-regional trade expansion through the elimination of tariff barriers among its members, implementing a Common External Tariff. The full members of Mercosur are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The bloc also has associated members: Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Suriname and observer members, namely Mexico and New Zealand. This work was developed to verify whether Mercosur, with the elimination of tariff barriers between full members and the Common External Tariff, has been able to meet its main objective, which is to expand intraregional trade among its members. Therefore, the main objective was to verify whether there was trade expansion between the bloc's full partners between the years 2016 and 2020. The methodologies used for this purpose were descriptive statistics and literature review. Aiming to evaluate the annualized rate of change of trade in the period covered, it was decided to use the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), which is a differential of this research. The results showed that within the bloc, Brazil had Argentina as its main trading partner. It was observed that there was an expansion of intraregional trade between 2016 and 2018, followed by a considerable reduction of this trade during the period 2019-2020, but that Brazil still continued to be the member that obtained the largest intra-regional trade balances. Paraguay, in turn, did not show the same trend of commercial reduction for all other partners in 2019 and 2020. In addition, in 2020, even with the COVID 19 pandemic, Paraguay managed to increase its exports to Brazil and Argentina, showing a contrary trend only to their exports to Uruguay. Uruguay, in turn, expanded its imports from partners throughout the period, except for Paraguay in 2020, where its exports exceeded imports. With regard to Argentina, its exports to members began to fall in 2019 and increased in 2020, especially in relation to Brazil. The country also drastically reduced its imports from Brazil and Paraguay in 2019 and 2020, although it also considerably expanded imports from Paraguay

Latin American Integration against the Backdrop of a Conservative Wave: Between Irrelevance and the Search for New Meanings

The evolution of regionalism in Latin America has historically been greatly influenced by changes in governments and their ideological programs. In this article, looking at the courses of the administrations of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ivan Duque in Colombia, Sebastian Piñera (second term, 2018-2022) in Chile, Mario Abdo Benítez in Paraguay, it is proposed to examine transformations in integration against the backdrop of increased influence of right-wing forces in regional alignments in the mid-2010s to the early 2020s. Analyzing foreign policy steps, rhetoric, content of conceptual documents, the authors focus on the peculiarities of the national views of various right forces on integration initiatives. The paper concentrates on the decline of Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), creation of Forum for the Progress and Integration of South America (PROSUR) and Lima Group, activities of the Pacific Alliance and Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) in the context of the demand for flexible and pragmatic integration “without politicization.” The authors come to several conclusions which show ambiguity of the right turn impact on the integration landscape in Latin America. First, although the rise of liberal-conservative forces has reformatted philosophy, key ideas of integration, participation in multilateral groups remains important for governments that seek to solve pressing problems and expand their own reputational and political capital with its help. Second, despite the fluidity of electoral dynamics, which may soon put an end to the dominance of the right, they have raised a number of issues of long-term relevance in the context of the future path of integration associations in the region. The contribution of the work is explained by its appeal to the very factor of ideology in the development of Latin American integration, detailed analysis of specific country experiences and new conclusions based on it.

Editorial Dossiê “55 anos de Sgt. Pepper´s Lonely Hearts Club Band”

Editorial for the Dossier “55 years of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, with guest editor Dr. Maria Beatriz Cyrino Moreira, from the Federal University of Latin American Integration - Brazil. [editor's note]

Editor's Note

As of this issue, AUSTRAL presents eight articles, with authors from countries not yet represented: Oman, Jordan, Vietnam and Peru. The first two are general in nature, addressing the Sino-American hegemonic shift through Giovanni Arrighi’s accumulation cycles and the power of American digital technology multinationals. Afterwards, the role of China in the stability of the Taliban’s Afghanistan is analysed and then, in the same region, the role of the Sultanate of Oman in the Yemen Civil War. Next, there is an article on Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific, based on the perception of analysts from the region itself. Another innovative topic, in the context of slow and interminable negotiations between the European Union and Mercosur, is a historical analysis of the contradictions between the European Community and Latin American integration in the late 1980s. Also original is the discussion on the civilizational divide of the far-right from the perspective of German politics. Finally, Mozambique’s foreign policy under the presidencies of Samora Machel and Joaquim Chissano receives an exciting overview.