“Stranger Things”: the future of Latin American regionalism

Resumen

Latin American attempts at regionalism have been pursued through different waves. The last wave, post-liberal or post-hegemonic regionalism, is fading without having even peaked. Building on contributions from International Political Economy, European Studies and International Relations, the paper aims at answering two main questions: how can we characterize the current paths of regional integration in Latin America considering the trends of the last ten years? What can we expect of Latin American regionalism over the next decade? We address three premises –membership of regional organizations, institutional design and the role of the United States– lying under the large volume of regionalist research in Latin America. We then test them vis-à-vis the latter developments in the aftermath of the collapse of post-liberal regionalism. Also, addressing these three premises we attempt to make some predictions about possible forthcoming regional scenarios. We explore two possible developments –a short-term scenario and a longer-term scenario–, mainly but not exclusively drawn from the three premises studied in the paper. Maybe we are about to witness some “stranger things” in the future of Latin American regionalism, opening up to different realities, different explanations and alternatives.