(Routledge Global Institutions Series) Detlef Nolte, Brigitte Weiffen - Regionalism Under Stress - Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective-Routledge (2020)

Regionalism Under Stress
Regionalism is under stress. The European Union has been challenged by the
Eurozone crisis, refugee flows, terrorist attacks, Euroscepticism, and Brexit. In
Latin America, regional cooperation has been stagnating.
Studying Europe and Latin America within a broader comparative perspec-
tive, this volume provides an analytical framework to assess stress factors
facing regionalism. The contributors explore how economic and financial
crises, security challenges, identity questions raised by immigration and refu-
gee flows, the rise of populism, and shifting regional and global power
dynamics have had an impact on regionalism; whether the EU crisis has had
repercussions for regionalisms in other parts of the world; and to what extent
the impact of stress factors is mediated by characteristics of the region that
may provide elements of resilience.
Written by specialists from Europe and Latin America with a shared inter-
est in the new field of comparative regionalism, this book will be an invalu-
able resource for students, scholars and policy specialists in regional
integration, European politics, EU studies, Latin American studies, and inter-
national relations and international law more generally.
Detlef Nolte is an associate fellow of the German Institute for Global and
Area Studies (GIGA) and former director (2006–2018) of the GIGA Institute
for Latin American Studies.
Brigitte Weiffen holds the Martius Chair for German and European Studies,
a visiting professorship sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service
(DAAD), at the Department of Political Science, University of São Paulo
(USP), Brazil.
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Regionalism Under Stress (2020)
Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective
Edited by Detlef Nolte and Brigitte Weiffen
Regionalism Under Stress
Europe and Latin America in
Comparative Perspective
Edited by Detlef Nolte and

Brigitte Weiffen
First published 2021
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nolte, Detlef, editor. | Weiffen, Brigitte, editor.
Title: Regionalism under stress : Europe and Latin America in comparative
perspective / edited by Detlef Nolte and Brigitte Weiffen.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. |
Series: Global institutions | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020008389 (print) | LCCN 2020008390 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138337633 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138337725 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780429442186 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: European Union. | Unión de Naciones Suramericanas. |
Regionalism–Europe. | Regionalism–Latin America. | Regionalism (International
organization) | European Union countries–Foreign relations–21st century. |
Latin America–Foreign relations–1980- | European Union countries–Politics and
government. | Latin America–Politics and government.
Classification: LCC JZ5332 .R44 2020 (print) | LCC JZ5332 (ebook) |
DDC 341.24–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008389
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008390
ISBN: 978-1-138-33763-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-33772-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44218-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
List of illustrations ix
List of contributors x
Foreword xiv
List of abbreviations xvi
Introduction: regionalism under stress 1

DETLEF NOLTE AND BRIGITTE WEIFFEN
PART I
Theoretical and comparative perspectives 13
1 Stress factors and their impact on regionalism 15

BRIGITTE WEIFFEN
2 Regionalism under stress: a comparative perspective 34

TANJA A. BÖRZEL AND THOMAS RISSE
3 Multipolarity is in, multilateralism out: rising minilateralism and the

downgrading of regionalism 47
ANDRÉS MALAMUD AND EDUARDO VIOLA
PART II
Europe 65
4 Constructing integration: resilience and political innovation in the EU 67

ANA PAULA TOSTES
5 Facing the rule of law crisis within the European Union 81

CARLOS CLOSA MONTERO
viii Contents
6 The mainstreaming of security and defense in the European Union post-
2016: building resilience in challenging times 98
LAURA C. FERREIRA-PEREIRA
PART III
Latin America 117
7 Mercosur between resilience and disintegration 119

ANDREA RIBEIRO HOFFMANN
8 UNASUR on the edge 133

NICOLÁS MATÍAS COMINI AND ALEJANDRO FRENKEL
9 The Pacific Alliance: regionalism without stress? 150

DETLEF NOLTE
PART IV
EU–Latin American Inter-regionalism 169
10 EU–LAC relations after Brexit: regionalism and inter-regionalism

à la carte 171
SUSANNE GRATIUS
11 The EU crisis and the comparative study of Latin American regionalism 187
DETLEF NOLTE
PART V
Africa and Asia 207
12 Regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa: structural constraints and African

agency 209
CHRISTOF HARTMANN
13 Regionalism in distress: is ASEAN coping with global crises and power

shifts? 223
MARIA-GABRIELA MANEA
Index 241
Illustrations
Figures
I.1 Analytical framework 7
1.1 Impact of stress factors on regionalism 28
2.1 Interdependence and regionalism, 2010 36
12.1 Popular support for regionalism in Africa: helpfulness of AU and
regional organizations 210
Tables
5.1 Procedures under Article 7 TEU 83
9.1 Members and observer countries of the Pacific Alliance 151
Contributors
Editors
Detlef Nolte is an associate fellow of the German Institute for Global and
Area Studies (GIGA) and former director (2006–2018) of the GIGA Insti-
tute for Latin American Studies. He is adjunct professor of political science
at the University of Hamburg and associate fellow of the German Council
on Foreign Relations (DGAP). From 2010 to 2016 he served as the Presi-
dent of the German Latin American Studies Association (ADLAF) and
Vice-President of the European Latin American Studies Association
(CEISAL). His research focuses on comparative regionalism, regional
organizations, regional security, regional powers, Latin America in inter-
national politics, and constitutional change in Latin America. He has pub-
lished numerous book chapters and articles in journals such as Review of
International Studies, International Area Studies Review, and Latin American Pol-
itics and Society.
Brigitte Weiffen holds the Martius Chair for German and European Studies,
a visiting professorship sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Ser-
vice (DAAD), at the Department of Political Science, University of São
Paulo (USP), Brazil. Before, she was a Visiting Professor at the Institute of
International Relations at USP and an Assistant Professor at the University
of Konstanz, Germany. Her research focuses on democratization, transi-
tional justice, comparative regionalism, regional organizations, regional
security, and conflict management. Publications include Power Dynamics
and Regional Security in Latin America (co-edited with Marcial A.G. Suarez
and Rafael Duarte Villa, 2017) and 21st Century Democracy Promotion in the
Americas: Standing Up for the Polity (co-authored with Jorge Heine, 2015).
Contributors
Tanja A. Börzel is Professor of Political Science and holds the Chair for
European Integration at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie
Universität Berlin. She is the director of the Cluster of Excellence “Con-
testations of the Liberal Script”, together with Michael Zürn, as well as
Contributors xi
the H2020 Collaborative Projects “EU-STRAT – The EU and Eastern
Partnership Countries: An Inside-Out Analysis and Strategic Assessment”
and “EU-LISTCO – Europe’s External Action and the Dual Challenges of
Limited Statehood and Contested Orders”. Her recent publications include
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism (2016, co-edited with
Thomas Risse), European Integration Theory, 3rd ed. (2019, co-edited with
Antje Wiener and Thomas Risse), and A Theory of Noncompliance. Power,
Capacity, and Politicization (forthcoming).
Carlos Closa Montero is a Professor at the Institute for Public Goods and Pol-
icies of the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid and at the School
of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute (EUI) in
Florence, Italy. He has also worked as a consultant for institutions such as the
European Commission and the Council of Europe. His main research inter-
ests are regional integration in Europe and Latin America with special atten-
tion to constitutional and institutional aspects; and politics of memory and
transitional justice. He has published on EU citizenship, the EU constitutional
structure, Europeanization, and the EU relationship with the member states.
Nicolás Matías Comini is Professor at New York University, Buenos Aires.
He conducts research on regional integration, international security, and
defense cooperation in South America. His recent publications include
suRamericanizados: La Integración Regional desde la Alianza al Kirchnerismo
(2016) and articles in Contexto Internacional, Nueva Sociedad, and Anuario de
la Integración Regional de América Latina y el Caribe.
Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira is Professor of Political Science and International
Relations at the University of Minho and Visiting Professor at the Univer-
sity of São Paulo. She is the author of Portugal in the European Union and
a co-author of The European Union’s Fight Against Terrorism (2014). She has
published extensively on the EU’s foreign policy and Portuguese foreign
and security policy in the journals International Politics, Journal of Common
Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, Cooperation and Conflict, Cam-
bridge Review of International Affairs, Global Society, European Politics and Soci-
ety, and European Security, among others; and in several edited volumes.
Her current research explores the nature and significance of the EU’s stra-
tegic partnership diplomacy, Europeanization within and beyond Europe,
regional integration processes (with an emphasis on security and defense)
in comparative perspective, and Euroscepticism.
Alejandro Frenkel is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the
School of Government and Politics of the National University of San Martín,
Buenos Aires, Argentina, and postdoctoral fellow at the National Scientific
and Technical Research Council (CONICET). His research focuses on Latin
American politics, regionalism, international security, and foreign policy. His
most recent work has been published in journals such as Colombia Internacional,
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, and Relaciones Internacionales (Madrid).
xii Contributors
Susanne Gratius is a Professor of Political Science and International Rela-
tions at the Autonomous University of Madrid and Associate Senior
Researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB).
She has published numerous book chapters, journal articles, and policy
papers on regionalism and inter-regionalism, EU-Latin American relations,
EU/Spain and Latin American foreign policy, Latin American politics
(especially Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil), and emerging powers.
Christof Hartmann is a Professor of Political Science, in particular Inter-
national Relations and African Politics, at the University of Duisburg-
Essen, Germany. His research focuses mainly on processes of institutional
change in African countries, regional cooperation in Africa, with a focus
on West Africa, and on how external actors affect political change on the
African continent. His publications include several monographs and edited
volumes (most recently, China’s New Role in African Politics: From Non-
Interference towards Stabilization?, 2019) as well as articles in journals such as
Ethnopolitics, Democratization, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft,
Civil Wars, and Journal of Contemporary African Studies.
Andrés Malamud is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sci-
ences of the University of Lisbon. He holds a PhD from the European
University Institute (EUI). His research interests include comparative
regional integration, foreign policy, democracy and political institutions,
EU studies, and Latin American politics. His work has been published in
journals such as Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Journal of European
Integration, European Political Science, Latin American Research Review, Latin
American Politics and Society, and Latin American Perspectives. He has served
on the executive board of the Latin American Political Science Association
and is currently the Secretary-General of the Portuguese Political Science
Association.
Maria-Gabriela Manea is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Polit-
ical Science at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Her fields of interest
include human rights in international politics, regionalism and inter-
regionalism (Europe-Asia) as well as regional integration in Southeast Asia
(with a particular focus on human rights, democratization, and security).
She has published book chapters and articles in journals such as Cooperation
and Conflict, ASIEN, and The Pacific Review.
Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann is Professor of International Relations at the
Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC) in Brazil. She has a PhD
from the University of Tübingen and has been a Visiting Scholar at the
London School of Economics, University of Erfurt, and the Free Univer-
sity of Berlin. She has published in the areas of comparative regionalism,
Latin American regionalism, inter-regionalism, legitimacy, and democracy
at the global level. Recent publications include “Democratic Theory
Questions Informal Global Governance” (co-authored with Monica Herz,
Contributors xiii
International Studies Review, 2019); and Regional Organizations and Social
Policy in Europe and Latin America: A Space for Social Citizenship? (co-edited
with Andrea Bianculli, 2016).
Thomas Risse is Professor of International Relations and Director of the
Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at Freie
Universität Berlin, Germany. His research has dealt with foreign and secur-
ity policy, European integration and the European Union, transnational
relations and human rights, and failed states and governance, and has led to
publications in numerous journals, including International Organization, Jour-
nal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, Journal for Euro-
pean Public Policy, West European Politics, and Democratization. Recent books
include European Public Spheres: Politics is Back (2015), The Oxford Handbook
of Comparative Regionalism (co-edited with Tanja A. Börzel, 2016), and The
Oxford Handbook of Governance and Limited Statehood (co-edited with Tanja
A. Börzel and Anke Draude, 2018).
Ana Paula Tostes is a Professor at the Department of International Relations
at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil. She was Visiting
Professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), Visiting Professor and Associ-
ate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Michigan State Univer-
sity (MSU), and Visiting Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin (2016–2017).
Her research focuses on international institutions, European politics, and the
European Union. She has published four books and several articles on Euro-
pean politics and political theory, most recently União Europeia: Resiliência
e inovação política no mundo contemporâneo [European Union: Resilience and
Political Innovation in the Contemporary World] (2017).
Eduardo Viola is a Professor at the International Relations Institute at the
University of Brasilia, Brazil. He was a Visiting Professor at several univer-
sities, including Stanford, Texas, Amsterdam, Colorado, and Notre Dame.
He conducts research on globalization and governance, international cli-
mate change policy, environmental policy, and Brazilian foreign policy.
He is a member of several national and international scientific committees
and the author of numerous books, peer-reviewed articles, and book chap-
ters. His most recent book is Brazil and Climate Change: Beyond the
Amazon (with Matías Franchini, 2017).
Foreword
This book evolved out of the editors’ shared interest in regionalism in Latin
America and beyond. When we started dialoguing and cooperating on issues
such as regional security, regional crisis management, and overlapping region-
alism in Latin America, there was still a lot of optimism regarding the poten-
tial of regionalism. In recent years, however, Latin American regionalism
entered troubled waters and seemingly auspicious regional organizations such
as UNASUR were quickly dismantled. At about the same time, the Euro-
pean Union staggered from crisis to crisis and European integration scholars
suddenly started studying disintegration. Given this scenario, and against the
backdrop of “comparative regionalism” as a burgeoning field, as exemplified
by the publication of the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism in 2016,
we increasingly wondered whether there were commonalities, parallel devel-
opments, or reciprocal influences (including negative diffusion or contagion
effects) among regionalisms in Europe and Latin America, or even beyond
these two regions.
Most of the contributions to this book are based on talks at the inter-
national conference “Regionalism Under Stress – Toward Fragmentation and
Disintegration?” held at the University of São Paulo (USP) from
25–27 September 2017. The conference was organized by Brigitte Weiffen as
current holder of the Martius Chair for German and European Studies at
USP, and Detlef Nolte, then director of the GIGA Institute for Latin Ameri-
can Studies. It was hosted and logistically supported by Alberto do Amaral
Júnior and his colleagues at the Department of International and Comparative
Law of the University of São Paulo. We gratefully acknowledge generous
funding from the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and from the Faculty of Phil-
osophy, Languages, and Human Sciences (FFLCH) of the University of São
Paulo.
The contributors we invited have expertise on different world regions, but
also share an interest in, and have been at the forefront of establishing, the
new field of comparative regionalism. In addition to the pleasant experience
of spending three days together with inspiring debates, networking, and
Foreword xv
exchange during the conference, we are indebted to our authors for their
willingness to participate in the book project, to revise their chapters, and to
(mostly) stick to deadlines and formal guidelines. Chapters went through an
internal peer review process, meaning that authors not only received critical
comments and suggestions from the editors, but also from another author.
The book project was presented during a colloquium at the Institute of
Political Science of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago
(November 2018), and during a roundtable at the Congress of the Latin
American Studies Association in Boston (May 2019), and we thank the parti-
cipants of both events for their insightful questions and comments. Last but
not least, Julia Penachioni provided invaluable research assistance in the prep-
aration of the manuscript, and Antonio Cavalcante kindly allowed us to use
his painting Storm and Lighthouse for the cover.
Detlef Nolte and Brigitte Weiffen
Hamburg, Germany, and São Paulo, Brazil
Abbreviations
AC ASEAN Community
ADMM ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting
AEC ASEAN Economic Community
AICHR ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human
Rights
ALBA Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América)
ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
APSA African Peace and Security Architecture
APSC ASEAN Politico-Security Community
APT ASEAN Plus Three
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASCC ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AU African Union
BASIC Brazil, South Africa, India, China
BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa
CACM Central American Common Market
CAFTA-DR Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free
Trade Agreement
CALC Latin American and Caribbean Summit
CAN Andean Community (Comunidad Andina de Naciones)
CARICOM Caribbean Community
CASA South American Community of Nations (Comunidade
Sul-Americana de Nações)
CBM Confidence-Building Measures
CDS South American Defense Council (Consejo de Defensa
Suramericano)
CEED Center for Strategic Defense Studies (Centro de Estudios
Estratégicos de Defensa)
CELAC Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
(Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños)
Abbreviations xvii
CEMAC Central African Economic and Monetary Community
CEPAL Economic Commission for Latin American and the Carib-
bean (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe)
CFTA Continental Free Trade Area (Africa)
CJEU Court of Justice of the European Union
CLVM Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar (new member states
that joined ASEAN in the 1990s)
CMA Common Monetary Area (Southern Africa)
COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
COREPER Committee of Permanent Representatives (Comité des
Représentants Permanents) (EU)
CPTPP Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific
Partnership
CSBM Confidence- and Security-Building Measures
CSDP Common Security and Defense Policy (EU)
CSN South American Community of Nations (Comunidad
Sudamericana de Naciones)
EAC East African Community
EAS East Asia Summit
EC European Commission
ECB European Central Bank
ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin American and the
Caribbean
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
ECR European Conservatives and Reformists
ECSC European Coal and Steel Community
EEU Eurasian Economic Union
EMU Economic and Monetary Union (EU)
EP European Parliament
EPP European People’s Party
ESDP European Security and Defense Policy
ESDU European Security and Defense Union
EU European Union
EUGS Global Strategy for the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FTA Free Trade Agreement
FTAA Free Trade Area of the Americas
G20 Group of Twenty
IBSA India, Brazil, South Africa
IIRSA Initiative for the Integration of South American
Infrastructure
IMF International Monetary Fund
IO International Organization
IR International Relations
LAC Latin America and the Caribbean
xviii Abbreviations
LAFTA Latin American Free Trade Association
LAS League of Arab States
MEPs Members of the European Parliament
MERCOSUR Southern Cone Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur)
MILA Latin American Integrated Market
MPs Members of Parliament
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
NHRC National Human Rights Commissions (Southeast Asia)
OAS Organization of American States
OAU Organization of African Unity
ODA Official Development Assistance
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
PA Pacific Alliance
PES Party of European Socialists
PiS Law and Justice Party (Poland)
PTA Preferential trade area
RCEP Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (ASEAN)
RECs Regional Economic Communities (Africa)
RO Regional Organization
S&D Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (Europe)
SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
SACU Southern African Customs Union
SADC Southern African Development Community
SADCC Southern African Development Coordination Conference
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SELA Latin American Economic System (Sistema Económico
Latinoamericano y del Caribe)
SEM Single European Market
SG Secretary General
SICA Central American Integration System (Sistema de la Inte-
gración Centroamericana)
TEU Treaty on European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
TIAR Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Tratado
Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca)
TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership
TPP-11 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-
Pacific Partnership
TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
UEMOA West African Economic and Monetary Union (Union
Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine)
Abbreviations xix
UN United Nations
UNASUR Union of South American Nations (Unión de Naciones
Suramericanas)
USMCA United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
WTO World Trade Organization
ZOPACAS South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone
Introduction
Regionalism under stress
Detlef Nolte and Brigitte Weiffen
In Europe and Latin America, regionalism is under stress. While the

European Union (EU) is still coping with the Eurozone crisis and its
aftermath, it has faced multiple challenges, including conflicts in its
neighborhood, a massive influx of refugees, increasingly frequent terrorist
attacks, regionalist and secessionist movements, government participation or
takeover by nationalist-populist forces in several Central and East European
countries, and the electoral success of Eurosceptic and anti-EU parties
throughout the continent. At the time of writing, negotiations over the
British exit from the EU (Brexit) are consuming immense amounts of
political energy, and are intermingled with discussions about the future
structure of the EU. In Latin America, regional cooperation is stagnating, or
even in decline. This is due to several reasons: economic problems in major
countries, a lack of regional leadership, ideological conflicts fueled by the
“pink tide” in the 2000s and the resurgence of the right in recent years, and
regional actors’ limitations in responding to political crises in general and to
the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela in particular. This has led to a standoff
in the main regional organizations, bringing the Union of South American
Nations (UNASUR) close to disappearing.
This volume addresses challenges for regionalism from a comparative
perspective. It looks at the EU within a broader framework and engages with
current diagnoses of the EU crisis, and of a pushback against regional
integration and cooperation processes more generally. We investigate the
extent to which there are commonalities, parallel developments (which may
respond to the same causes), and (negative) diffusion or contagion effects
among regionalisms around the world. The book contributes to comparative
regionalism, a field of research that draws on various disciplines and sub-
fields, including international relations (IR), EU studies, area studies, political
science, comparative politics, international political economy (IPE), and
international law. It picks up current IR debates about the role and
importance of regions in global politics. From an IPE perspective, it discusses
whether regions have become politically more fragmented and economically
less integrated in the current global economic constellation. Covering
different regions as well as inter-regional relations, the intention of this
2 Detlef Nolte and Brigitte Weiffen
volume is to provide a balanced view of the current challenges and
constraints facing regional governance.
Studying regionalism
Regions (understood as entities located in between the national and the
global) and regionalism have become important features of world politics,
specifically in a multipolar international system constituted of several regional
cores or “regional worlds.”1 For the purposes of this volume, it is important
to understand how regions are politically organized and governed, because
the concept of region is closely linked to the institutional architecture of
a given region. As Herz indicated,
the term “region” in fact originates from the idea of rule, as in regere,
command, and we shall be looking into regions as the locus for the pro-
duction of norms, public policy, and dispute mechanisms as a result of
the choices by governing elites in the countries that form the region.2
Regionalism generally refers to “the formation of interstate associations or

groupings on the basis of regions; and in the doctrinal sense, the advocacy of
such formations”3 and to “the policies and practices of state-based permanent
organizations with membership confined to a limited geographical area.”4 In
other words, regionalism is a primarily top-down, state-led process of
building and sustaining formal regional institutions and organizations among
at least three geographically proximate states. Regional organizations delimit
the region as a subsystem within the overarching international one, and serve
to structure the relations between states within the region. In turn,
regionalization denotes processes of increasing economic, political, social, or
cultural interaction among geographically contiguous states and societies.
Thus, the term emphasizes the importance of transnational relations between
non-state actors such as interest groups, non-governmental organizations, and
private companies in the construction of a region.5
While there is a basic consensus on the concept of regionalism, debate
continues regarding how to conceptualize different forms of it.6 For example,
Börzel and Risse distinguished between scope and level of cooperation.
Concerning scope, regional organizations vary on a continuum between task-
specific, focusing on just one policy area, and multi- or general purpose.
Concerning the level of coordination and collaboration, Börzel and Risse
argued for a clear distinction between regional cooperation and regional
integration. Cooperation refers to the joint exercise of state-based political
authority in intergovernmental institutions, whereas integration begins when
states set up supranational institutions on the regional level and transfer at
least some authority and sovereignty rights to them.7 Thus, regional
integration is a narrower sub-category of regionalism that is principally
based on the European post-World War II experience. Regional
Introduction 3
(intergovernmental) cooperation and (supranational) integration can be
understood as two opposite ends of a continuum of regionalism.
One might ask whether research on regionalism has placed too much
emphasis on only one end of the continuum—that is, regional integration—
considering that the EU is the only item in this category. Moreover, the
terrain between cooperation and integration remains largely unexplored, even
though it appears to be more populated than the integration corral.
Additionally, given that the concepts of regional integration and cooperation
refer to the level of coordination within an individual regional organization,
they are difficult to apply to a scenario of multiple overlapping organizations
inhabiting the same regional space.8
In search of alternative concepts that could be used to chart the field of
regionalism and to classify different forms of regional interaction, one option
is “regional architecture,” a term that is often used but rarely defined.
Another concept used to capture the variations of regionalism within
a particular region is regional governance. Regional governance is essentially,
but not exclusively, based on intergovernmental regional organizations. It is
not restricted to a single organization, but rather refers to the entire set of
relevant regional organizations and their patterns of interaction. The concept
is broad and flexible enough to adequately grasp the variable interaction
patterns between regional organizations. Regional governance can be defined
as the overall configuration of the (intergovernmental) regional organizations
that frame the regional discourse of member states and generate the norms
and rules for the region in different policy areas, thereby contributing to the
solution of collective problems and/or to the realization of common
benefits.9
Comparing regionalisms
In what could be called a first wave of comparative regionalism, early neo-
functionalism tried to apply European integration theory to Latin America.10
However, this idea had to be dismissed due to the absence of the benevolent
background conditions fostering regional integration in Europe.11
International relations theories still find it difficult to explain varieties of
regionalism in different world regions, and the academic field continues to be
divided between EU studies and scholars of comparative regionalism.12 As
a result, there is no general theory of regional integration that is applicable to
Europe and other world regions alike, and the theoretical debate remains
very heterogeneous.13
While analyses of Latin American regionalism are becoming plentiful,14
most have looked exclusively at Latin America without comparison to other
regions and, so far, none have addressed the current crisis of regionalism.
While numerous books have studied the crisis of the European Union,15 they
have not offered a comparative perspective either. A number of volumes
published over the past decade have offered cross-regional comparisons of
the emergence and performance of regional organizations in policy fields
such as economic integration,16 security,17 and the protection of human
rights and democracy,18 or with a focus on institutional design19 and
specific aspects of governance such as summitry.20 However, these have
tended to concentrate on what has been achieved and have not dealt with
crisis symptoms. While the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism21 and
Söderbaum’s Rethinking Regionalism,22 both published in 2016, have
delineated the field of comparative regionalism, neither includes crisis of
regionalism as a major topic.
In a certain way, the current crisis may constitute a tailwind for the
comparative analysis of regionalism. The Eurozone crisis and Brexit
broadened European integration studies by adding the study of regional
disintegration to the study of regional integration. Europe is no longer the
uncontested model of regional integration, and regional integration is no
longer perceived to be a linear process: there may be stagnation, the threat
of disintegration, and there may even be exits. The fact that the EU suffers
from similar setbacks as other regional organizations and is no longer
exceptional facilitates a comparison with regional organizations elsewhere
with a much lighter institutional structure (that is, with weak or non-
existing supranational institutions), especially in times of crisis. The crisis of
regional projects in Europe and Latin America also reopens the debate on
the role of regions in the future world order. Are the forces of
globalization and the emergence of multipolarity creating a “world of
regions,”23 or is the centrifugal pull of extra-regional actors leading to
more cross-regional patterns of cooperation?
Our book complements previous comparative studies of regionalism and
regional organizations and ties in with emerging research on the crisis of
regionalism. The books that have explored the impact of crisis on regionalism
in a comparative manner have focused almost exclusively on economic and
financial crises.24 For example, a 2012 volume edited by Fioramonti looked
at the global financial crisis as well as the Arab Spring and painted a mixed
picture regarding their impact on regionalism.25 While some trends identified
in that volume have continued or deepened, others have become irrelevant
or even reversed. For instance, the 2007–2008 financial crisis already
tarnished the image of the United States and the EU as economic
heavyweights. The June 2016 British referendum that resulted in the decision
to withdraw from the EU, as well as the election of Donald Trump as US
president in November 2016, have further challenged the dominance of the
Global North. In light of Brexit, the EU’s singularity as a model for regional
integration processes in other parts of the world is being questioned to an
unprecedented extent. Trump’s decisions to challenge, renegotiate, or pull
out of trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and
NAFTA, as well as military alliances such as NATO, represent an assault on
multilateralism in general.
Introduction 5
With regard to the Arab Spring, its expected positive benefits on
regionalism in the Middle East and Africa have not materialized.26 The ascent
and leadership aspirations of emerging powers such as Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa have mostly petered out, as a consequence of
economic stagnation in most of those countries, domestic crises, involvement
in conflicts, and/or diverging regional policies. On one hand, Brazil and
India were reluctant to become regional leaders and paymasters for regional
projects. The former has lost its protagonist role in the region, and the latter
pursues a kind of “dancing at every wedding” foreign policy strategy and is
now participating in regional organizations in all Asian sub-regions, namely
the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the
Southeast Asian ASEAN Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, and the
Central Asian Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). On the other
hand, Russia has become increasingly assertive and aggressive, with its
annexation of Crimea and meddling in the conflicts in eastern Ukraine and
Syria. China is a potential aggressor in the South China Sea, but has at the
same time proclaimed to be open for cooperation in the economic sphere
and willing to take the United States’ place as a leader in the area of free
trade in the trans-Pacific space.
The volumes edited by Haastrup and Eun, and by Saurugger and Terpan,
focus exclusively on the impact of the economic and financial crisis on
regional institutional change across different regions.27 By combining “new
regionalism” with a “new institutionalism” approach, Saurugger and Terpan
took both exogenous variables (the crisis) and endogenous variables (actors’
response and use of the crisis) into account to explain the transformation of
regional integration schemes in Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia.
Specifically, they addressed institutional change in regional integration, power
relations between member states and the institutions in different policy
domains, and change in individual or collective citizens’ attitudes towards
regional integration. While the impact of economic and financial crisis on
regional institutions varies in the analyzed regions, all three feature a strong
resilience of regional institutions.28 While offering a theoretically sophisticated
and differentiated view on the effects on regionalism, Saurugger and Terpan’s
volume eschews other origins of crisis apart from economic and financial
turbulences.
Our volume engages with those earlier books in several ways. We do not
aim to explain disintegration, but instead consider the resilience of regional
organizations as equally plausible outcome of crises. Yet, in contrast to
Saurugger and Terpan, we concentrate on the fate of regional organizations
as the dependent variable (and less on state actors and public opinion/
support). We update the empirical trends identified by the earlier volumes,
grappling with the fact that the prospects for regionalism have worsened since
the publication of Fioramonti’s volume. Actors and dynamics that, just a few
years ago, seemed to favor regionalism, such as the rise of regional powers,
have become insignificant or even operate in reverse direction. Regarding
the independent variables, our book is not focused on manifest crises (whose
onset and thresholds are difficult to identify), but instead takes a broader look
at stress factors that may (potentially) trigger a crisis. In addition to economic
and financial turbulences, these stress factors include security challenges,
socio-cultural and political issues, as well as regional and global power shifts.
Analytical framework
This book analyzes European and Latin American experiences within
a broader comparative framework. Its individual chapters explore what kind
of stress factors have had an impact on regionalism and the extent to which
the crisis of the EU (and Brexit, in particular) has repercussions for
regionalisms around the world (thus addressing the question of whether the
EU has ceased to be a model). Furthermore, they investigate how regionalism
is affected by those stress factors. In contrast to ongoing attempts in EU
studies to grapple with the crisis, the aim of this book is not to develop
a theory of disintegration, considering that regionalism outside of Europe
usually takes the shape of regional cooperation instead of integration. Rather,
our (more modest) aim is to capture and map stress factors and their potential
impact on regionalism in order to provide an analytical framework that is
applicable to different regions.
The multifaceted nature of the current EU crisis served as the starting
point for developing a taxonomy of stress factors. While the specific
combination of challenges is unique to the European region, several of the
stress factors affecting the EU are relevant for other parts of the world, as
they were caused by events with trans-regional repercussions or represent
global trends. In a condensed fashion, the stress factors identified in this book
include economic and financial crises, security challenges, socio-cultural issues
(such as identity questions, which often come to the fore in the face of
immigration and refugee flows), political transformations (such as the rise of
populism around the world), and shifting power dynamics on the regional
and global level.29 Additionally, due to the long-time status of the EU as
a model, the crisis of the EU could itself be a stress factor that has negative
repercussions on regional cooperation and integration projects in other parts
of the world. Thus, several of the chapters explicitly or implicitly address the
question of whether the crises of regionalism around the world today are
parallel responses to similar conditions, or whether what we can observe is
a diffusion of disintegration from the EU to other regions.
While it is intuitively plausible to assume that stress factors may challenge
regional organizations, cause a crisis, or even lead to processes of
disintegration, the impact of those stressors is mediated by characteristics of
the region that may provide elements of resilience. First, regions differ in
their extent of economic and social interconnectedness (that is,
regionalization) and the depth of regional fault lines due to inter-regional
heterogeneity and unresolved conflicts. A high level of regionalization usually
Introduction 7
DISINTEGRATION
STRESS REGION
FACTORS CHARACTERISTICS
RESILIENCE
Figure I.1 Analytical framework.

Source: Authors’ elaboration.
buttresses regionalism, whereas fault lines tend to be divisive. Second,

resilience might result from the strength and density of pre-existing regional
institutions (that is, regionalism) that are capable of coping with a crisis and
responding to new challenges, and from the political will of regional leaders
to resort to regional institutions as a problem-solving mechanism and to
propel regionalism forward. Third, the strength of regional identities among
elites and citizens matters and can either promote or hinder region-building.
These characteristics of the region act as a filter through which the impact of
stress factors is either attenuated or increased, as depicted in Figure I.1.
A comparison of the EU and the Latin American organizations suggests
that elements of resilience are much stronger in the European case than in
Latin America. Security interdependencies as well as intra-regional trade and
economic cooperation (including internal monetary transfers) are important
elements of resilience of European integration. The same is true for
institutional density and the institutional stakeholders (such as the European
Commission, the European Parliament, or the European Court of Justice),
which give continuity to the integration project in times of discord between
the member states. Furthermore, despite the ascent of nationalism, the pro-
European identity discourse of political elites still resonates with citizens’
identities. The situation in Latin America is different, with fewer elements of
resilience counterbalancing centrifugal tendencies of disintegration.
Outline of the volume

Following this introduction, the volume consists of a theoretical-comparative
part as well as case studies covering Europe, Latin America, European-Latin
American inter-regionalism, and Africa and Southeast Asia. The theoretical-
comparative part is opened by Brigitte Weiffen’s chapter, which further
develops the analytical framework. It presents a taxonomy of stress factors to
facilitate a comparative analysis across world regions, and explores the
potential impact of those stress factors on regionalism. The subsequent
chapter by Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse, as well as that of Andrés
Malamud and Eduardo Viola, introduce comparative regionalism as an
analytical tool and expose a central controversy by presenting divergent
assessments of the contemporary significance of regionalism around the
world. Börzel and Risse argue that the number of regional organizations and
the number of policy areas subject to regional governance have grown. In
line with constructivism, they focus on the role of identity as main
explanatory factor for regional cohesion. In contrast, Malamud and Viola
argue that regional organizations suffer from a lack of advanced integration
and are (especially in Africa and Latin America) constricted by the
inefficiencies of overlapping memberships and mandates. Instead, states
increasingly put their stakes in so-called “minilateralism”; that is, informal,
trans- and cross-regional forms of governance.
All of the chapters in Parts II and III, on Europe and Latin America,
respectively, examine stress factors for regionalism and the resulting trends of
either disintegration or resilience. Covering different policy fields, the three
chapters on the EU show that the multiple crises have exposed some
weaknesses of the European integration process. Nevertheless, they are quite
optimistic regarding the resilience of the EU in the face of stress. Analyzing
the EU’s responses to the Eurozone crisis, the migratory crisis, and the
disintegrative tendencies culminating in the Brexit referendum, Ana Paula
Tostes finds considerable institutional and social evidence of the EU’s
resilience. Carlos Closa Montero expounds the institutional pathologies
responsible for the limited success of the EU’s mechanisms to protect the rule
of law against populist governments with an agenda of illiberal constitutional
reforms. At the same time, the existence of and actual attempts to apply these
mechanisms are an expression of an advanced level of integration and
a strong commitment to shared values. Focusing on the external dimension,
Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira demonstrates the rising relevance of the Common
Security and Defense Policy as part of a resilience-building strategy to cope
with the new realities such as the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from
the EU and the Trump administration’s erratic foreign policy.
In turn, the three chapters on Latin America analyze the state of various
regional organizations and paint a more dismal picture. As Andrea Ribeiro
Hoffmann shows, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) has largely
failed to reach its original goal of establishing a common market; instead, it
has advanced regional cooperation in other policy areas, such as social
policies, human rights, security, and protection of democracy. UNASUR,
which from the start positioned itself as a new form of regionalism that did
not aim at deeper integration, reflected a moment of convergence in the
region, but is currently suffering severe setbacks. Nicolás Matías Comini and
Alejandro Frenkel analyze the global, regional, and domestic stress factors that
have almost caused UNASUR to disappear, and highlight how different
characteristics of the region have exacerbated the impact of those stress
factors, making UNASUR less resilient to disintegrative tendencies. In
contrast, the Pacific Alliance is one of the few Latin American regional
organizations not currently under stress. Detlef Nolte shows that the Pacific
Alliance, characterized by a restriction of its goals to the expansion of trade
and a lean institutional structure, has learnt from the mistakes of earlier
Introduction 9
regional integration projects. Still, problems might come to cloud the
horizon, due to newly emerging stress factors in combination with the
structural constraints of Latin American regionalism.
Part IV on European-Latin American inter-regionalism studies the
repercussions of Brexit and the EU crisis for Latin American regionalism. As
Susanne Gratius argues in her chapter, in practical terms, following the EU
crisis, Latin America no longer emulates the EU model and traditional
patterns of North-South inter-regionalism have lost their appeal. At the same
time, Brexit and the crisis of European integration have created a new
balance of power between the two regions and opened a window of
opportunity for a more pragmatic and equal dialogue over common
challenges. Regarding theoretical implications, Detlef Nolte argues that the
EU crisis has exposed the limitations and potential of applying European
integration theories to the study of Latin American regionalism. While
a focus on the EU as the gold standard for regional integration has led into
a blind alley, the EU crisis might improve the possibility of comparing
European regionalism (and regional integration) with regionalism in other
regions by adding the study of disintegrative dynamics to the study of
regional integration.
According to Risse and Börzel, regionalism seems to be “alive and
kicking” in other world regions.30 Part V therefore contrasts the European
and Latin American experiences with findings from Africa and Asia to answer
the question of whether regionalism is generally under stress, or whether this
is only a European and Latin American trend. In fact, as the chapters by
Christof Hartmann and Maria-Gabriela Manea suggest, following phases of
stagnation, regionalism has experienced a revitalization in sub-Saharan Africa
since the 1990s, and in Southeast Asia since 2007. Nevertheless, both regions
exhibit a set of structural constraints that might limit the capacity of regional
organizations to cope with newly arising stress factors in their global,
regional, and domestic environments.
This volume’s findings suggest that Latin American, African, and Southeast
Asian regionalism have all been shaped by a set of variables that are quite
different from conditions in Europe. Although the EU has actively promoted
regionalism around the world and the EU’s institutional architecture has
undoubtedly inspired some elements of institutional design elsewhere,
regionalisms outside of Europe have not gone so far as to emulate the EU’s
supranational institutional structure. Accordingly, there does not seem to be
a diffusion of disintegration either: the recent EU crisis has not been
a significant stress factor affecting regionalism in other parts of the world.
However, there still seem to be some similarities between the stress factors
that challenge regionalism around the world. These include global and
regional power contestations, transnational security threats, economic and
political crises, and the ascent of nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism.
Admittedly, most of the chapters in our collection look at individual
regional organizations in the context of their respective region. Truly
comparative regionalism would require a more rigorous comparison between
several organizations within and across regions, and of their similarities and
differences in responding to stress factors. However, by presenting a common
framework for the analysis of stress factors and their impact on regionalism,
and by fostering an intense dialogue between evidence from Europe, Latin
America, Africa, and Asia, our volume represents a first step in this direction.
Notes
1 Amitav Acharya, “Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds:
A New Agenda for International Studies,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 4
(2014): 647–659; and Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Introduction,” in The
Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas
Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 4–15.
2 Monica Herz, “Regional Governance,” in International Organization and Global
Governance, ed. Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson (New York: Routledge,
2014), 236–250 (237).
3 Joseph S. Nye, “Introduction,” in International Regionalism: Readings, ed. Joseph
S. Nye (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1968), v–xvi (vii).
4 Louise Fawcett, The History and Concept of Regionalism, UNU-CRIS Working
Papers W-2013/5 (Bruges, Belgium: United Nations University Institute on
Comparative Regional Integration Studies, 2013), 4.
5 Börzel and Risse, “Introduction,” 7–8.
6 Tanja A. Börzel, “Mind the Gap! European Integration between Level and
Scope,” Journal of European Public Policy 12, no. 2 (2005): 217–236; Börzel and
Risse, “Introduction.”
7 Ibid.; and Tanja A. Börzel, “Comparative Regionalism: European Integration and
Beyond,” in Handbook of International Relations, ed. Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas
Risse, and Beth A. Simmons (Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2013), 503–530.
8 Detlef Nolte, “Regional Governance from a Comparative Perspective,” in Econ-
omy, Politics and Governance: Challenges for the 21st Century, ed. Víctor
M. González-Sánchez (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2016), 1–16.
9 Ibid.
10 Ernst B. Haas and Philippe Schmitter, “Economics and Differential Patterns of
Political Integration: Projections about Unity in Latin America,” International
Organization 18, no. 4 (1964): 705–737.
11 Ernst B. Haas, The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley, CA: Insti-
tute of International Studies, University of California, 1975).
12 Fredrik Söderbaum and Alberta Sbragia, “EU Studies and the ‘New Regionalism’:
What Can Be Gained from Dialogue?” Journal of European Integration 32, no. 6
(2010): 563–582; Philippe De Lombaerde, Fredrik Söderbaum, Luk Van Langen-
hove, and Francis Baert, “The Problem of Comparison in Comparative Regional-
ism,” Review of International Studies 36, no. 3 (2010): 731–753; Alex Warleigh-Lack
and Ben Rosamond, “Across the EU Studies-New Regionalism Frontier: Invita-
tion to a Dialogue,” Journal of Common Market Studies 48, no. 4 (2010): 993–1013.
13 Fredrik Söderbaum, Rethinking Regionalism (London and New York: Palgrave,
2016); Sebastian Krapohl, “Regionalism: In Crisis?” in The Palgrave Handbook of
Contemporary International Political Economy, ed. Timothy M. Shaw, Laura
C. Mahrenbach, Renu Modi, and Xu Yi-chong (London: Palgrave Macmillan,
2019), 89–101.
14 Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, eds., The Rise of Post-hegemonic Regionalism: The
Case of Latin America (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2012); Andrés Rivarola
Introduction 11
Puntigliano and José Briceño Ruiz, eds., Resilience of Regionalism in Latin America
and the Caribbean: Development and Autonomy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013); José Briceño-Ruiz and Isidro Morales, eds., Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in
the Americas: Toward a Pacific–Atlantic Divide? (London and New York: Routledge,
2017); Marcial A.G. Suarez, Rafael A. Duarte Villa, and Brigitte Weiffen, eds.,
Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2017).
15 See, for example, Serge Champeau, Carlos Closa, Daniel Innerarity, and Miguel
Poiares Maduro, eds., The Future of Europe: Democracy, Legitimacy and Justice after
the Euro Crisis (London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015); Kyriakos
N. Demetriou, ed., The European Union in Crisis: Explorations in Representation and
Democratic Legitimacy (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2015); Desmond Dinan,
Neill Nugent, and William E. Paterson, eds., The European Union in Crisis
(London: Palgrave, 2017); Carlos Closa, ed., Secession from a Member State and
Withdrawal from the European Union: Troubled Membership (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2017); Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Euro and Its Threat to the Future of
Europe (London and New York: Penguin Books, 2017); Manuel Castells et al.,
eds., Europe’s Crises (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018); Mai’a K. Davis Cross, The
Politics of Crisis in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Doug-
las Webber, European Disintegration? The Politics of Crisis in the European Union
(London: Palgrave, 2018).
16 Finn Laursen, ed., Comparative Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (London
and New York: Routledge, 2013); Søren Dosenrode, ed., Limits to Regional
Integration (London and New York: Routledge, 2015); Sebastian Krapohl, ed.,
Regional Integration in the Global South: External Influence on Economic Cooperation
in ASEAN, MERCOSUR and SADC (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2017).
17 Rodrigo Tavares, Regional Security. The Capacity of International Organizations
(London and New York: Routledge, 2010); Emil J. Kirchner and Roberto Dom-
ínguez, eds., The Security Governance of Regional Organizations (London and
New York: Routledge, 2011); Shaun Breslin and Stuart Croft, eds., Comparative
Regional Security Governance (London and New York: Routledge, 2012); Stephen
Aris and Andreas Wenger, eds., Regional Organisations and Security: Conceptions and
Practices (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014); Dace Winther, Regional Maintenance of
Peace and Security under International Law: The Distorted Mirrors (London and
New York: Routledge, 2014).
18 Edward R. McMahon and Scott H. Baker, Piecing a Democratic Quilt: Regional
Organizations and Universal Norms (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, 2006); Tanja
A. Börzel and Vera van Hüllen, eds., Governance Transfer by Regional Organizations:
Patching Together a Global Script (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Gaspare
M. Genna and Taeko Hiroi, Regional Integration and Democratic Conditionality: How
Democracy Clauses Help Democratic Consolidation and Deepening (London and
New York: Routledge, 2015).
19 Amitav Acharya and Alastair Iain Johnston, eds., Crafting Cooperation: Regional
International Institutions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2007).
20 Gordon Mace, Jean-Philippe Thérien, Diana Tussie, and Olivier Dabène, eds.,
Summits and Regional Governance: The Americas in Comparative Perspective (London
and New York: Routledge, 2017).
21 Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Comparative
Regionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
22 Fredrik Söderbaum, Rethinking Regionalism (London and New York: Palgrave,
2016).
23 Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).
24 Lorenzo Fioramonti, ed., Regions and Crises: New Challenges for Contemporary
Regionalisms (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Toni Haastrup and Yong-
Soo Eun, eds., Regionalizing Global Crises: The Financial Crisis and New Frontiers in
Regional Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Sabine Saurugger
and Fabien Terpan, eds., Crisis and Institutional Change in Regional Integration
(London and New York: Routledge, 2016).
25 Fioramonti, Regions and Crises.
26 Ibid.
27 Haastrup and Eun, Regionalizing Global Crises; and Saurugger and Terpan, Crisis
and Institutional Change.
28 Saurugger and Terpan, Crisis and Institutional Change.
29 For more details, see Chapter 1 by Weiffen in this volume.
30 See Chapter 2 by Börzel and Risse in this volume.
Part I
Theoretical and
comparative perspectives
1 Stress factors and their impact
on regionalism
Brigitte Weiffen
This chapter sets the stage for a comparative assessment of the stress factors
that have an impact on regionalism in Europe, Latin America, and beyond. It
presents an analytical framework with which to investigate commonalities,
parallel developments, and diffusion effects among regionalisms around the
world. The well-studied multidimensional crisis of the European Union (EU)
serves as a point of departure. The EU has struggled to respond to an
accumulation of challenges, such as the euro crisis and the tense relationship
between Brussels and the countries most affected by it; repeated
confrontations among members about how to handle unprecedented levels of
immigration; growing electoral support for nationalist parties in many
member states; the threat of domestic terrorism; the Russo-Ukraine conflict
in the immediate neighborhood; and the British decision to leave the EU.
The EU’s obvious limitations in coming to grips with recent crises have
damaged its reputation as a role model for regional integration worldwide.
Obviously, the specific challenges and their combination are unique to the
EU. The same applies to challenges facing regional organizations in Latin
America or other regions of the world. Therefore, existing studies of the
crisis of regionalism have usually focused on the fate of individual regions. In
contrast, the aim of this chapter is to go beyond a specific regional context
and come up with an analytical framework that, while inspired by real-world
cases, is sufficiently general to compare the potential impact of stress factors
on regionalism in different world regions.
The first part of the chapter takes stock of the stress factors facing
regionalism. Based on the European experience, it distills factors that also
affect other regions and operate transregionally or globally. These include
economic and financial crises, conflicts and humanitarian crises, security
challenges, domestic political crises, socio-cultural challenges, and regional
and global power shifts. Additionally, due to the long-time status of the EU
as a model, the crisis of the EU could itself be a stress factor and exert
negative repercussions on regional integration and cooperation projects in
other parts of the world.
The second part of this chapter outlines the potential impact of stress
factors on regionalism. It draws on central assumptions and findings from
16 Brigitte Weiffen
integration theories regarding the effects of stress and crisis on regional (dis)
integration. Analogous to the first part, it starts with the European case and
summarizes burgeoning debates about the EU’s potential disintegration, and
then moves on to present generalizable assumptions. I argue that stress factors
do not automatically entail disintegration and fragmentation. Depending on
pre-existing characteristics of the affected region, stress factors might be
mitigated by elements of resilience that ensure the continuity of regionalism
or may even strengthen it.
Stress factors
The EU in crisis: the end of a model?

For more than a decade, the EU has, for a variety of reasons, been trapped in
a state of crisis. The 2008 US mortgage crisis and the ensuing 2008–09 global
financial crisis triggered a sequence of critical developments in the EU. In
late 2009, the newly elected Greek government’s announcement that the
country’s budget deficit was far higher than had previously been revealed
marked the onset of the Eurozone crisis. The nomenclature of the crisis is
contested and has mutated over time.1 While some see this mainly as a crisis
of the Eurozone, exposing the flawed architecture of the monetary union,
some characterize it as sovereign debt crisis and blame the economically
weaker Eurozone members for accumulating excessive deficits in violation of
the Maastricht requirements. Yet others emphasize its nature as a banking
crisis, pointing to a situation of “structural symbiosis”2 between states and
banks, where banks are lenders of last resort for states and, at the same time,
depend on massive taxpayer financed transfers in times of crisis. The tides of
the Eurozone crisis ebbed and flowed over a period of several years,
culminating in 2010, 2012, and 2015, at which points the survival of the
Eurozone seemed questionable.
There has long been a latent discomfort with the “upward shift” of centers
of decision-making in the course of European integration. In the face of the
EU’s bureaucratic shape and its seeming lack of democratic accountability,
individual citizens felt increasingly powerless and unable to influence the
policy agenda. European citizens accepted the delegation of authority to
supranational institutions as long as they trusted in their problem-solving
capacity. However, once the EU failed to deliver, citizens started to question
the delegation of authority to the EU level. In the context of the Eurozone
crisis, the most emblematic example was Greece, which received significant
international media attention for being the first and most acute case in the
sovereign debt crisis. The Greek debt crisis led to repeated confrontations
among domestic protesters, the Greek government, and the “Troika”—the
decision group formed by the European Commission, the European Central
Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in charge of
supervising the implementation of austerity measures. These measures were
Stress factors and their impact on regionalism 17
issued as a prerequisite for financial help in the context of the “bailouts” not
only of Greece, but also of Cyprus, Ireland, and Portugal.
The way the Eurozone crisis was managed intensified the perception of the
EU as undemocratic, elite-driven, and orientated towards the interests of
business and finance.3 Crisis governance brought an increase of informal
trans-governmentalism (including Germany’s informal “EU presidency”),
strengthened the Commission and the ECB at the expense of the European
Parliament, and intensified divisions between member states, pitting the
northern European creditor countries against the southern periphery of
debtor countries. Bailout programs were often implemented by technocratic
caretaker governments (as in Greece or Italy); and the implementation of
those programs continued despite repeated electoral victories of anti-austerity
parties who did not accept the measures’ legitimacy. Thus, the reforms
prescribed by the Troika effectively overrode popular mandates.
The Eurozone crisis had domestic repercussions in many member
countries, not restricted to those directly affected by the crisis. The
cornerstones of European integration were increasingly called into question
by political elites and the wider population. In the course of the Greek crisis,
German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble openly launched the proposal of
a Greek exit from the Eurozone, thus suggesting the taking of a step
backwards in the integration as a last resort. Furthermore, the Eurozone crisis
gave rise to Eurosceptic political parties both on the right (in France, the
Netherlands, and Germany, for example) and on the left (such as in Greece
and Spain), which openly criticized and questioned the euro and the
Europeanization process more generally.
At the same time, the EU was facing severe external and domestic security
challenges. The Ukraine crisis escalated in 2014, when Russia invaded
Crimea and armed conflict broke out between Russian-supported separatists
and the Ukrainian army in the eastern regions of the country. The EU faced
the challenge of finding a common response to a violent conflict in a partner
country and to the aggressive foreign policy of Russia, its largest and most
powerful neighbor state.4 Furthermore, in many countries of North Africa
and the Middle East, the 2011 pro-democratic uprisings of the Arab Spring
led to political instability, insurgencies, and armed conflict. Consequently,
Europe saw unprecedented growth in the number of persons seeking to flee
those conflict zones and take refuge in Europe. According to Europol, there
were over one million irregular border crossings into the EU in 2015, almost
five times more than there were in 2014.5 Most of those migrants,
a significant proportion of them from Syria, were asylum-seekers in search of
international protection. This steep increase in immigration added to the
already high level of refugee flows from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflict
countries, as well as economic migration from Africa due to poverty,
inequality, and corrupt and authoritarian regimes in the countries of origin.6
The refugee and migrant crisis jeopardized the Schengen Area of passport-
free travel, which became highly contested in the face of confirmed suspicions
that Islamist terrorists were taking advantage of unsecured European borders.
In several EU countries, individuals or groups supported or inspired by Al-
Qaeda, the Islamic State, or other militant Islamist groups committed terrorist
attacks. Not only has the frequency of terrorist attacks increased over time, but
the transnational nature of terrorism has become obvious, as terrorists and their
supporters repeatedly crossed borders, hid, and were caught in European
countries other than the scene of the terrorist acts. Thus, the large number of
irregular migrants from Muslim countries arriving in Europe became both
a domestic and a transnational security challenge, and debates on the national
and the European level began to link terrorism to immigration, leading to the
securitization of migration.
Fueled initially by the Eurozone crisis and subsequently by a surge in
nationalist and xenophobic resentment in the face of the “wave of refugees,”
right-wing populist parties scored significant electoral successes, even in
historically pro-European member states.7 Germany saw the emergence of
the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was founded in 2013 as
a Eurosceptic party and increasingly adopted a xenophobic and anti-
immigration discourse following Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s
borders to refugees in 2015. The 2017 general elections resulted in the AfD’s
entry into the federal parliament, with 12.6 percent of the vote—the first
extreme right-wing party to win seats since 1953. In 2016, the Eurosceptic
Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) only narrowly failed to win the country’s
presidential elections and subsequently increased its share in the parliamentary
elections to 26 percent and entered into a coalition government with the
conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). In France, although Marine Le
Pen’s presidential bid failed, support for the Front National in the 2017
presidential and parliamentary elections was higher than ever before.
Parliamentary elections in Italy in the spring of 2018 saw unprecedented
success for Eurosceptic parties: together, the Five Star Movement and the
League won well over 50 percent of the popular vote and formed a coalition
government.
Several Eastern European countries saw the accession of national-
conservative and Eurosceptic parties to power. Reforms adopted by Victor
Orbán’s Fidesz government coalition in Hungary (in office since 2010) and
the Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland (in office since late 2015)
undermined checks and balances by attacking and curbing judicial
independence, and curtailed political rights and civil liberties by imposing
restrictions on the media, non-governmental organizations, and academic
freedom. In this way, they questioned the fundamental norms upon which
the EU is founded: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality,
the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including minority rights.8 The
difficulty of holding those countries accountable for their violations of the
rule of law has itself turned into a challenge that European institutions are
currently struggling with.9 Meanwhile, in what can be called a crisis of
cohesion, separatist and secessionist movements reinforced their claims in
regions of several member states, including Scotland, Catalonia, Flanders and
Wallonia, and some regions of Italy. The rise of (sub-national) regionalism,
separatism, and secessionism can be interpreted as yet another countertrend
against both Europeanization and globalization.
While the EU was busy grappling with those challenges, another
contestation developed over Britain’s EU membership, following Prime
Minister David Cameron’s decision to schedule a referendum over the issue
in June 2016. The Brexit campaign and the result of the referendum tie in
with the broader trend of a fortification of nationalist, isolationist, anti-
immigrant, and populist forces and discourses. The referendum produced
a narrow 52 percent majority in favor of a British withdrawal from the EU,
which was originally scheduled to happen by March 2019. The outcome of
the Brexit referendum was a political earthquake that immensely affected the
self-perception of the EU and called into question the continuation of the
integration process. It was the first time that a country had opted to exit the
EU; hence, it signified an actual regression in the integration process. The
2016 referendum rocked basic assumptions about European integration—
namely, that it is a unidirectional process toward further integration; and that
EU membership is a desirable goal, which would make exits from the EU
unthinkable.
Additionally, Brexit affected the external perception of the EU. For a long
time, the EU was a key point of reference for regional integration initiatives
around the world.10 Due to its historical foundation following the Holocaust
and the destruction of World War II, the European Communities turned out
to be an exemplary project, leading Europe from war and dictatorship to
peace and democracy. European integration buttressed the idea of a mutual
reinforcement between economic integration, democracy, the building of
multilateral institutions, and peace.11 Furthermore, in the course of its
trajectory from the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952, and the
European Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic
Community, both founded in 1958, to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992,
cooperation between European states expanded far beyond the initial
economic mandate. With this stepwise “spillover” of integration to adjacent
policy fields and the construction of supranational institutions, the EU was at
the forefront of expanding the scope and level of integration. Moreover, the
EU actively supported regional organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America and promoted the European version of regionalism in those
regions.12 Brexit has fundamentally shaken the position of the EU as
a model.
The EU has been facing up to these multiple challenges against the
background of an increasingly adverse international environment. Russia,
Turkey, and the United States are three longstanding partners that are now
ruled by leaders who are actively trying to destabilize the EU. In particular,
the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in November 2016
further reinforced the crisis in Europe. Trump questioned basic premises
about Europe’s place in the world and its external relations that had been
taken for granted for decades, such as the transatlantic partnership and the
principled endorsement of European integration by the US administration.
He called transatlantic security cooperation (NATO) “obsolete,” buried the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and undermined
trade relations by imposing retaliatory tariffs on imports from EU countries.
Trump seemingly does not understand the rationale of supranational
integration and has repeatedly endorsed Brexit. He is ideologically close to
the populist, nationalist, and authoritarian discourses that challenge European
values, and is fond of strong leaders such as Putin, Erdogan, and Orbán, all of
whom are antagonists to European integration.
The EU had certainly experienced crises before. Frequently cited cases
include the contestations around the European Defence Community (EDC)
(1950–54), where the French National Assembly’s rejection of the EDC
treaty impeded progress in the direction of Western European defense
integration; and the “empty chair crisis” (1965–66), where French president
Charles de Gaulle refused to attend the European Council’s meetings. More
recent cases include a number of economic and financial crises, as well as
a series of treaty ratification crises, most seriously the national referenda
against the Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands in 2005.13
The contemporary crisis is distinct from those earlier situations in several
respects.14 Its prime characteristic is its multidimensional character: numerous
stress factors have played a role, so the crisis comprises several dimensions.
A second characteristic is the “wicked nature” of those crisis dimensions: the
various issues are connected to each other, and there is frequently “reverse
spillover,” in the sense that an attempt to mitigate a particular dimension of
the crisis either negatively affects the solution of other crisis dimensions or
causes new stress in additional issue areas.15 A third characteristic is its
longevity or duration, given that it is the most protracted crisis that the EU
has ever confronted. This may also make it the most intractable crisis that the
EU has had to manage, with a potentially stronger disintegrative impact than
any previous crises.16
This is connected to a fourth characteristic: the high costs of inaction.
Doing nothing or failing to resolve the crisis further increases the danger of
disintegration. A fifth characteristic is the fact that the crisis and its
management are no longer confined to the level of political elites, but
accompanied by mass politicization that finds its expression in anti-European
political movements, protests, and referenda.17 As a sixth characteristic, one
could highlight that crisis mitigation has become more complicated. The
fundamental structural traits of the EU as a multinational polity have led to
increasing Eurosceptic dissatisfaction. EU enlargements—particularly the post-
communist wave of accession that almost doubled the number of member
states—turned out to be a centrifugal force, as the diversity of national
interests grew with each enlargement. Consequently, the traditional French-
German tandem that was able to shape the agenda for a long time has given
way to an unpredictable “variable leadership geometry,” and the traditional
community method of supranational decision-making has become less
effective, resulting in increasingly suboptimal policy outcomes.18
A taxonomy of stress factors

Crisis is the word we have come to associate with the EU in the past decade,
and it is impossible to escape the use of the omnipresent term. However, the
term is not clearly defined. For example, there is no consensus regarding
whether what is going on is one multidimensional crisis or several crises;
what exactly marked the onset of the crisis; and what would signal its end.
This book does not claim to resolve these contestations, as it does not have
“crisis” as its main focus. Rather, our aim is to identify the origins and causes
of crisis. We introduce the concept of stress factors to denote challenges that,
taken individually, present a policy problem, but do not automatically trigger
a crisis of regionalism. However, when stress factors become more severe,
remain on the political agenda over an extended period of time, or when
several stress factors accumulate and mutually reinforce each other, their
presence increases the vulnerability of regional organizations and can propel
a crisis.
To build our taxonomy of stress factors, we draw on integration theories
that distinguish between exogenous and endogenous origins and causes of
crisis.19 Intergovernmentalism sees crises as a result of factors that are
exogenous to the integration process. Within this paradigm, crises can be
internationally or domestically induced. On one hand, security threats and
economic challenges in the wider international environment of the regional
organization are conducive to crisis. The main dimensions of the EU crisis
(with the exception of Brexit) fit into this category: the financial, migration,
and Ukraine crises originated from outside the EU. On the other hand, crises
may be caused by domestic change in member states, such as elections,
referenda, and economic shifts. The rise of populist-nationalist parties, the
(re-) appearance of secessionist movements, and the Brexit referendum are all
cases in point.20
In contrast to intergovernmentalism, neo-functionalism and post-
functionalism assume that crises are produced by the very functioning of the
integration process. They are endogenous phenomena rooted in EU politics,
policies, and procedures. According to the neo-functional approach, while
spillovers for a long time created a demand for further integration, crises may
be triggered by unintended effects and dysfunctions of integration at the
regional level. The Eurozone crisis serves as an example, as it turned into an
integration crisis only because of the inherent flaws of the Economic and
Monetary Union (EMU); in particular, the existence of a monetary union
without a fiscal union.
Post-functionalism emphasizes the role of politicization and mass politics
on the domestic level. With European integration reaching core areas of state
sovereignty, the integration-friendly “permissive consensus” among citizens
and political parties gave way to concerns about losses of national identity
and social welfare. Consequently, the post-functionalist approach expects the
emergence of a “constraining dissensus”—a mobilization of Eurosceptic
citizens and the empowerment of Eurosceptic parties—that hampers further
steps toward integration.21
In accordance with integration theories, the editors of this volume use the
distinction between exogenous and endogenous factors in an analytical rather
than a geographical sense. Thus, it relates to the question of whether a factor
is exogenous or endogenous to the process of regional integration as such.
Our understanding is that stress factors are those that are exogenous in an
analytical sense—that is, exogenous to the integration process—while their
geographical origin can be global, regional, or domestic. In contrast, the
factors endogenous to the integration process are what we call region
characteristics. While stress factors appear as short-term changes and might
therefore be rather volatile, region characteristics are mostly structural and
institutional constraints; that is, more long-term features of the respective
region. Region characteristics might reinforce stress factors, but also
counterbalance and mitigate them.
The stress factors identified for the case of the EU crisis are placed into
a broader perspective below. The bulk of the stress factors affecting the EU
are also faced by other world regions, either equally or in a similar manner.
Some of them have spread transnationally, and some are part of wider global
phenomena. The remainder of this section condenses the stress factors into
a taxonomy that is applicable to regional organizations in other parts of the
world. It also attempts to locate them with respect to their geographical
origin. In reality it is, admittedly, difficult to strictly separate global, regional,
and domestic stress factors. However, those distinctions still contribute
valuable insights, showing how the different levels are intertwined,
interacting, and reinforcing each other.
Economic challenges: Economic stress factors include macroeconomic crisis
symptoms, such as economic, financial, monetary, debt, and banking crises.
Due to the global interconnectedness of economies and financial markets,
crises often spread transregionally. The 1997 Asian financial crisis not only
affected countries across Southeast and East Asia, but also contributed to the
1998 Russian financial crisis and the crises of Argentina and Brazil in the late
1990s. The 2008 financial crisis originated in the United States, but had
a massive impact in other world regions.
Furthermore, economic crises have had multifaceted social effects within
affected countries, such as (youth) unemployment, economic downturn of
entire regions, and rising levels of poverty and inequality. Thus, economic
crises can worsen the social impact of globalization, which already hits hard
in normal times due to increasing pressures on the welfare state. Economic
crises have also entailed political crises. They have triggered mass protests,
intra-elite conflicts, and the forced resignation of governments. In the face of
the sovereign debt crisis, several governments in heavily affected EU
countries did not serve their regular term. Latin America and other world
regions offer numerous other examples of mass protests and political
instability in the face of economic crisis.
Security challenges: Security challenges include conflict, warfare, and ensuing
humanitarian crises within the region itself or in the neighborhood. In the
case of Europe, the Russian occupation of Crimea and its participation in the
conflict in eastern Ukraine have put the EU’s coordination in foreign and
security policy to the test, along with its resolve in facing a newly assertive
power in the neighborhood. Other regions are similarly affected by conflicts
in their neighborhood, inter-state conflicts and rivalries, intra-state war and,
increasingly, hybrid forms combining features of intra- and inter-state
conflict. These scenarios put the conflict and crisis management capacity of
regional organizations to the test.
Various transnational (also known as non-traditional or intermestic) security
challenges are relevant for practically all world regions. Transnationally
operating terrorist networks threaten Europe and North America, Africa, Asia,
and the Middle East, while the prime challenges facing Latin America are
drug-trafficking and transnational organized crime. Immigration and refugee
flows have long been a challenge in various parts of the world. However,
recent flows of Muslim migrants to Europe, of people fleeing from the
violence of Central American countries to the United States, and from crisis-
ridden Venezuela to its neighboring countries are increasingly framed as
security threats.
Socio-cultural challenges: Besides a security issue, migration can also be
considered as a societal and cultural challenge. The influx of immigrants and
refugees potentially engenders contestations regarding identity: it leads to
attempts to re-affirm national identities, and incites xenophobic reactions and
the articulation of (religious, ethnic, racial, or language-related) stereotypes.
Even in states that have essentially been built as immigrant societies (like the
United States and Brazil) or that already host many long-time foreign and
immigrant residents, identity-related cleavages are becoming relevant again.22
In the wake of the refugee crisis in Europe, Islamophobia is on the rise, even
in societies that are already accustomed to a significant Muslim population.
Another variety of reactivating identity claims in the face of globalization and
transnationalization are separatism and secessionism, well known to Europe as
well as to large parts of Africa, Asia, and the post-Soviet space.
Political challenges: A certain amount of political contestation is a normal
feature in democratic regimes. Even in authoritarian regimes, anti-
government protests emerge and gain traction in the face of economic
stagnation and crisis. However, political contestation turns into political
instability when mass mobilization is used as substitute for constitutional
procedures for dismissing a government; when it is accompanied by rising
levels of polarization that will not easily go away; or when riots, political
violence, or political murder take place. Political challenges might also
originate with elected governments when they are corrupt, abuse their
power, undermine checks and balances, and restrict political and civil rights,
contributing to democratic backsliding or even breakdown. Transcending the
regional level, recent years have seen a rise of populist, nationalist, and
authoritarian leaders who endorse and emulate each other and challenge
liberal democracy, even in countries where it seemed consolidated.23
On the regional level, this finds its expression in the questioning and
failure to comply with regional norms on democracy, human rights, and the
rule of law that exist not only in the EU, but also in regional organizations in
Latin America and Africa. Domestic ideological cleavages and contestations
about the meaning of democracy are reflected in coalitions on the regional
level. In the face of a dwindling democratic consensus among member states,
it is becoming increasingly difficult for regional organizations to take action
against states that violate common norms.
Power shifts: Global and regional power shifts have a strong impact on
regionalism. For example, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of
bipolarity opened the door for the eastern expansion of the EU, but also
affected regional dynamics elsewhere and contributed to the creation or
revitalization of regionalism in different parts of the world. In the past two
decades, the international system has transformed towards multipolarity. In
addition to the economic and political rise of China, a diverse group of
formerly peripheral states such as India and Brazil—but also South Africa,
Indonesia and others that are commonly referred to as “emerging powers”—
have acted with growing assertiveness. Recently, an increasingly proactive
and nationalistic Russia has returned to the world stage. Emerging powers
have become more influential in international affairs, not only individually,
but also as members of multilateral organizations, and as protagonists of
Global South groupings such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South
Africa), IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa), or MIST (Mexico, Indonesia,
South Korea, Turkey).24
The longstanding predominance of Western powers in world affairs is
being challenged not only by a more assertive Global South, but also by
their own weaknesses. The multiple crises of the EU have left ugly
scratches on the previously successful model for regional integration. The
United States is widely perceived to be in decline and has lost the ability
to shape the world order after its own interests and image.25 Recently,
Trump’s withdrawals from multilateral cooperation have become a major
exogenous stress factor.
On the regional level, power shifts have led to struggles for regional
leadership and to contestations on how to best protect against external
interference by global powers such as the United States and China. This
resulted in the reform of old and the foundation of new, often overlapping,
regional organizations.
EU crisis diffusion: Regional integration processes do not happen in isolation
from each other. Considering that the EU has influenced and actively
promoted regionalism around the world, it is plausible to think that there
might be repercussions of the EU crisis on regionalisms elsewhere, in the
shape of a diffusion of disintegrative tendencies, particularly of Brexit, from
the EU to other regions. For example, the EU crisis might provide
arguments to skeptics who aim to restrict and undermine regionalism. If this
was the case, the EU crisis could be considered a stress factor for regionalism
in other world regions.
Impact on regionalism
The EU on a path toward disintegration?

The EU has historically been highly resilient. European integration was a story
of deepening without rollback. EU organs—the European Commission, the
European Parliament, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and the ECB—
expanded with every new European treaty. For more than half a century, the
number of member states grew continually, and no member withdrew.
Furthermore, there have not been any policy areas so far where member states
have taken back decision-making competences previously granted to the EU.26
The assumption that integration is a one-way street was deeply ingrained
in the EU, as was the commonly held view that decisive steps toward more
integration occurred in reaction to crises. Jean Monnet, the intellectual
founder of the European Communities, famously stated that he had “always
believed that Europe would be built through crisis, and that it would be the
sum of their solutions.”27 This found its reflection in the neo-functionalist
assumption that crises are accelerating factors for regional cooperation and
integration. According to neo-functionalists, disruptive crises in regional
integration are rare. Most crises are constructive in nature, in the sense that
they have positive effects on regional integration, and some experts have
even claimed that “regional integration processes tend to lose momentum, if
they are not ignited by a constructive crisis occasionally.”28 A crisis facing
a group of countries may incentivize them to embark on some form of
integration process in the first place; in existing regional organizations,
external shocks or internal problems may result in progress toward a higher
stage of integration.29
Concerns regarding a potential disintegration of the EU started in the course
of the accumulation of multiple stress factors, and have picked up speed since the
June 2016 British vote to leave. The Brexit referendum was a turning point that
jeopardized fundamental notions regarding the European integration process and
made an increasing number of researchers reflect on disintegration. Just like in
earlier contributions on European integration theory, scholars have defined
disintegration as a process comprising several dimensions. The first dimension,
which Börzel called “scope” and Webber called “sectoral integration,” denotes
the number of integrated policy areas.30 Consequently, (dis)integration refers to
the expansion or reduction of the range of issue areas in which the EU exercises
policy competences, and the expansion or reduction of common policies within
specific issue areas. The second dimension—“level” according to Börzel and
“vertical integration” according to Webber—addresses the extent of
commitment to joint decision-making.31 Accordingly, (dis)integration comprises
the expansion or reduction of the formal (that is, treaty-based) competences
and effective authority of the EU’s supranational organs vis-à-vis its
intergovernmental organs and/or those of the member states. The third
dimension, “horizontal integration,” captures the number of members or
coverage of the region. Accordingly, (dis)integration refers to the expansion or
reduction in the number of member states.32
The recent EU crisis sequence has shown that while disintegration is
possible, it is multifaceted and varies across policy areas. For example, the
Ukraine crisis led to the adoption of trade sanctions in line with the existing
treaties and hence left the degree of sectoral integration in foreign and
security policy unchanged. The Eurozone crisis ended in increased sectoral
integration with the creation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM),
the adoption of more constraining rules for member states’ fiscal policies, and
the launching of an (incomplete) banking union.33 On the other hand, the
refugee crisis led to limited sectoral disintegration due to the resurrection of
border controls in the Schengen Area, the fact that several Central and
Eastern European governments defied EU decisions and an ECJ judgment
regarding refugee relocation, and the member states’ pursuit of divergent
policies towards asylum-seekers and other migrants. Moreover, significant
(horizontal) disintegration occurred in the form of the United Kingdom’s
vote for Brexit.
Regarding vertical integration, there has been no uniform trend. The
powers of the ECB were clearly strengthened in the Eurozone crisis. In turn,
the role of the Commission both in managing the Eurozone and the Ukraine
crisis was relatively marginal, and the authority of both the Commission and
the ECJ was weakened in the refugee crisis.34 Overall, at least in some policy
areas, the evidence points to a resurgence of intergovernmentalism in
the EU.
Regional organizations between disintegration and resilience

The categories developed for the study of EU disintegration are a helpful
starting point to analyze the decline of regional blocs in other parts of the
world. The horizontal dimension is especially straightforward: As long as new
member states join an organization, it remains active and dynamic, whereas
the exit of members signals decline. While all regional organizations vary
regarding the scope of regional tasks, most non-European organizations do
not transfer competences and effective authority to a supranational body. To
capture disintegrative trends beyond the EU, the sectoral dimension is thus
more suitable than the vertical dimension. As the example of the EU
suggests, within the same regional organization, the impact of stress factors
can lead to revitalization and institutional innovation in some policy areas and
to stagnation and weakening of cooperation in others.
The analysis is complicated by the fact that the objectives stated in the
founding treaties of non-European regional organizations are often
aspirational and therefore of limited use to assess the scope of integration. For
example, it is quite common for these documents to stipulate “integration” as
a goal, even though there is no actual intention to proceed beyond the level
of intergovernmental cooperation.35 This has led critics to complain that
non-European regional blocs are marred by a lack of focus, excessive rhetoric
with few accomplishments, and the failure of member states to implement
regional agreements.36 Assessing sectoral (dis)integration thus requires to look
not only at the de jure mandate of an organization in a specific policy area,
but also at its de facto activities.
Furthermore, outside the EU, it is not always clear whether diagnoses of
an increase or decline in regionalism refer to one individual organization or
to the regional governance architecture; that is, the entire configuration of
relevant regional organizations. In particular, Latin America and Africa are
characterized by a patchwork of segmented and overlapping regional
organizations. There are divergent views as to whether this proliferation of
regional organizations indicates fragmentation, inefficiency, and regional
disintegration, or rather signals a “variable geometry” of cooperation that
facilitates a dense pattern of regional interactions.37
“Resilience” denotes the counter pole to disintegration. While frequently
used in recent years, the concept lacks clear operationalization.38 Regarding
individual organizations, there is no consensus as to whether resilience means
stability, transformation, or growth. On one hand, if actors turn to regional
blocs in times of crisis and use them as crisis management platforms, they are
clearly more than “empty shells.” From this perspective, the mere persistence,
stability, and activity of regional institutions would be evidence of resilience.
On the other hand, Riggirozzi and Tussie argued that
the idea of resilience stresses resistance to, and/or capacity to recover

from, political, economic and social disturbances and setbacks from
domestic, regional and international crises. A resilient project will resume
functions and growth trajectory after a critical hold-up.39
In their view, resilience is “a bit more than mere survival.” It is a dynamic

attribute associated with a process of continual adjustment of institutionalized
rules and procedures. An organization is considered resilient when it is able
to adapt to changing circumstances and demands across time.40 In that sense,
a given regional bloc is resilient if it is able to reactivate and resume its
functions after a crisis. An even more demanding criterion for resilience
would be the neo-functionalist claim that crises lead to the expansion of
integration.
Likewise, there are different interpretations of the meaning of resilience of
the regional governance architecture. Rivarola and Briceño suggested that the
persistence of the idea of regional integration (despite repeated failed attempts
to build regional institutions) signals resilience.41 In that vein, a fragmentation
and layering of regional organizations could be interpreted as sign of
resilience, rather than of disintegration.
Stress factors have the potential to either boost or undermine regional
cooperation and integration. While it is intuitively plausible to assume that
stress factors challenge specific regional organizations and the regional
governance architecture as a whole, their impact is mediated by characteristics
of the region (see Figure 1.1). By this, I refer to the resources or
impediments that help or undermine the ability of a regional organization to
cope with stress. They act as a filter through which the impact of stress
factors is either attenuated or increased. Stress factors do not have a uniform
impact, because they interact with characteristics of the region. Depending
on the characteristics of a particular region, similar stress factors may have
different effects on regionalism (as illustrated by Figure 1.1).
The characteristics of a region relate to the roles of demand, supply, and
identity-related factors in the process of region-building. Interdependencies create
a demand for regional cooperation and the creation of institutions. Regions differ
in their degree of economic, social, and cultural interconnectedness (that is,
regionalization), and a high level of regionalization usually buttresses regionalism.
In turn, fault lines such as the dissimilarity of political regimes, substantial
STRESS FACTORS REGION IMPACT

CHARACTERISTICS
Demand:
Economic challenges
Interdependencies
Disintegraon
Security challenges Fault lines
Socio-cultural challenges Supply:

Institutions
Political challenges Leadership
Power shis Identy:

Resilience
Elite beliefs
EU crisis diffusion Mass support
Figure 1.1 Impact of stress factors on regionalism.

Source: Author’s elaboration.
economic inequalities, a high number of territorial disputes, and the persistence
of ethnic conflicts within and across states tend to present strong obstacles for
regional cooperation and integration.42 Regionalism is conditioned by actual or
perceived security challenges within or outside the region that require new
forms of governance. While common external threats usually bind a region
together, intra-regional conflicts have more ambiguous consequences. In
principle, territorial disputes and rivalries tend to be divisive. Yet regionalism
has frequently thrived in auspicious contexts such as in the wake of democratic
transitions, since states were eager to take on multilateral security commitments
and overcome divisions.43 Likewise, transnational challenges such as migration
could prompt regional solutions, but have occasionally also led to nationalist
backlash, the closing of borders, and the shut-down of regional cooperation
mechanisms.
While the demand side refers to structural conditions (or constraints), the
supply side addresses the role of institutions and agency; in particular, the
strength and density of pre-existing regional institutions (that is, regionalism)
as well as the commitment of political leaders to regionalism. Regional
institutions differ regarding their level of institutionalization and their
capability to respond to new challenges. Furthermore, much depends on the
political will of regional leaders to keep these institutions alive and expand
them further. The existence of a benevolent regional leader or hegemon
willing to act as paymaster is a crucial supply factor for the foundation and
transformation of regional organizations.44 Regional powers’ sponsorship (or
disinterest) can be a game-changer.
Last but not least, identity plays a role: A sense of community or ideational
affinity among political elites (as manifested in identity discourses and
narratives) may buttress regionalism, even more so if pro-regional discourses
and efforts at region-building resonate with citizens’ identities and beliefs.45
Even in situations of low regionalization and weak regionalism, the belief of
key actors in the potential of regionalism as a problem-solving mechanism
may stabilize or instigate the creation of new regional cooperation
mechanisms in the face of a crisis.
While stress factors are mostly short-term changes, region characteristics are
more long-term structural, institutional, as well as agency-related features
(although factors related to agency are somewhat more likely to be subject to
change). What is clear, however, is that stress factors are closely related to
region characteristics and that both types of factors interact with each other.
For example, in the face of an economic crisis, if regional organizations
dispose of established norms and procedures and if there is regional leadership
and/or a firm belief of both elites and citizens that the problem warrants
a regional response, it might be possible to weather the crisis, and the process
of crisis management might even strengthen regional institutions. In turn, in
the absence of one or more of the favorable region characteristics, a similar
economic crisis might have disintegrative effects on regionalism.
Conclusion
This chapter has introduced an analytical framework for a comparative
assessment of the current fate of regionalism in Europe, Latin America, and
beyond. Taking the multidimensional crisis of the EU as starting point, the
first part of the chapter created an inventory of stress factors that have
affected regional integration and cooperation around the world. Besides
coping with the Eurozone crisis, the EU has faced additional challenges, such
as conflicts in its neighborhood, the massive influx of refugees, increasingly
frequent terrorist attacks, the electoral success of Eurosceptic parties, the
Brexit referendum, and the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency.
Other regions have been affected by the same or comparable adverse trends.
Framed in general terms, stress factors thus encompass economic and financial
crises, security challenges, social and cultural challenges, domestic political
challenges, global and regional power shifts, as well as a potential diffusion
effect of the EU crisis.
The second part of the chapter reviewed the potential impact of stress
factors on regionalism on a continuum between disintegration and resilience.
Stress factors do not necessarily entail disintegration, given that they are
balanced by region characteristics. While the interaction among stress factors
and unfavorable characteristics of the region might generate or reinforce
disintegrative trends, more auspicious region characteristics might also act as
factors of resilience and even bring about a strengthening of regionalism.
As has been demonstrated, there are commonalities and parallel developments
both with respect to the stress factors and with respect to their impact on
regionalism around the world. While the prime aim of this chapter is to
substantiate the theoretical framework for this collection of articles, it is also
meant to incentivize further comparative research on the trajectory of regionalism
around the world.
Notes
1 Kenneth Dyson, “Playing for High Stakes: The Eurozone Crisis,” in The European
Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 54–76; and Mattias Kumm, What Kind of
a Constitutional Crisis is Europe in and What Should Be Done about It? WZB Discus-
sion Paper SP IV 2013–801 (Berlin, Germany: Social Science Research Center
Berlin, 2013).
2 Ibid., 10–12.
3 See Christian Schweiger, “The Legitimacy Challenge,” in The European Union in
Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson (London: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2017), 188–211.
4 Wolfgang Seibel, “The European Union, Ukraine, and the Unstable East,” in
The European Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent, and William
E. Paterson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 269–293.
5 Europol, Migrant Smuggling in the EU, Europol Report (The Hague, Netherlands:
Europol, 2016), www.europol.europa.eu/publications-documents/migrant-smug
gling-in-eu.
6 See Ludger Pries, Refugees, Civil Society and the State: European Experiences and
Global Challenges (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018).
7 See, for example, Douglas Webber, “Can the EU Survive?” in The European
Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent, and William E. Paterson
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 336–359 (347–351); and Philip Manow,
Die Politische Ökonomie des Populismus (Berlin, Germany: Suhrkamp, 2018),
55–69.
8 European Union, Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, 13 Decem-
ber 2007, Article 2.
9 Article 7 of the Treaty of the EU provides for preventive measures and sanction
mechanisms in reaction to risks or actual serious breaches of the values referred to
in Article 2. Ibid. For more details, see Chapter 5 by Carlos Closa Montero in
this volume.
10 See, for example, Ian Manners, “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in
Terms?” Journal of Common Market Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 235–258; Tanja
A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “From Europeanisation to Diffusion: Introduction,”
West European Politics 35, no. 1 (2012): 1–19.
11 Bruce Russett and John R. Oneal, Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence,
and International Organizations (New York: Norton, 2001), Chapter 1.
12 Tobias Lenz, “Spurred Emulation: The EU and Regional Integration in Mercosur
and SADC,” West European Politics 35, no. 1 (2012): 155–173; Thomas Diez and
Nathalie Tocci, eds., The EU, Promoting Regional Integration, and Conflict Resolution
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
13 For more details, see for example Desmond Dinan, “Crises in EU History,” in
The European Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent, and William
E. Paterson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 16–32; Douglas Webber, Euro-
pean Disintegration? The Politics of Crisis in the European Union (London: Macmillan
and Red Globe Press, 2018), Chapter 1.
14 For the following, see Webber, “Can the EU survive?”; and Webber, European
Disintegration? The Politics of Crisis in the European Union; Desmond Dinan, Neill
Nugent, and William E. Paterson, “Conclusions: Crisis without End?” in The
European Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent, and William
E. Paterson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 360–375.
15 Dinan, Nugent and Paterson, “Conclusions: Crisis without End?”
16 Webber, European Disintegration? 11.
17 Webber, “Can the EU Survive?”; and Webber, European Disintegration?
18 See Schweiger, “The Legitimacy Challenge,” 199–201.
19 See Frank Schimmelfennig, “Theorising Crisis in European Integration,” in The
European Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent, and William
E. Paterson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 316–335; Dinan, “Crises in EU
History.”
20 Schimmelfennig, “Theorising Crisis in European Integration,” 319.
21 Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Inte-
gration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus,” British Journal of
Political Science 39, no. 1 (2008): 1–23.
22 See, for example, Francis Fukuyama, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Polit-
ics of Resentment (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018).
23 Yascha Mounk, The People vs. Democracy: Why our Freedom is in Danger and How to
Save It (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2018); Jan-Werner Müller,
What is Populism? (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); Stefan
Rummens, “Populism as a Threat to Liberal Democracy,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Populism, ed. Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo,
and Pierre Ostiguy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 554–570.
24 Oliver Stuenkel, Post-Western World. How Emerging Powers Are Remaking Global
Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016).
25 Amitav Acharya, The End of American World Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014).
26 Frank Schimmelfennig, “Europe,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Region-
alism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016), 178–201 (189).
27 Jean Monnet, Memoirs, first published in 1978 (London: Third Millennium Pub-
lishing, 2015), 417.
28 Søren Dosenrode, “Crisis and Regional Integration: A Federalist and Neo-
Functionalist Perspective,” in Regions and Crises: New Challenges for Contemporary
Regionalisms, ed. Lorenzo Fioramonti (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012),
13–30 (28).
29 Ibid.; and Ernst B. Haas and Philippe Schmitter, “Economics and Differential Pat-
terns of Political Integration: Projections about Unity in Latin America,” Inter-
national Organization 18, no. 4 (1964): 705–737. Other scholars caution that this
narrative is overblown and that crises were not the main cause of the deepening
of integration. However, it is safe to say that the EU has confronted many crises
and thus proved highly resilient. See Dinan, “Crises in EU History”; and
Webber, European Disintegration? 9.
30 See Tanja A. Börzel, “Mind the Gap! European Integration between Level and
Scope,” Journal of European Public Policy 12, no. 2 (2005): 217–236; and Webber,
European Disintegration?
31 Ibid.
32 Dirk Leuffen, Berthold Rittberger, and Frank Schimmelfennig, Differentiated Inte-
gration: Explaining Variation in the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2013); and Webber, European Disintegration?
33 See, for example, Simon Usherwood and John Pinder, The European Union:
A Very Short Introduction, Fourth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018),
Chapter 4; and Webber, European Disintegration?
34 Webber, European Disintegration?
35 This volume adopts the definitions proposed by Börzel and Risse, according to
whom “integration” is the set-up of supranational institutions on the regional
level and the transfer of authority and sovereignty to them, while “cooperation”
refers to the joint exercise of state-based political authority in intergovernmental
institutions. See Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Introduction,” in The
Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 4–15.
36 Christian Arnold, “Empty Promises and Nonincorporation in Mercosur,” Inter-
national Interactions 43, no. 4 (2017): 643–667; also see Chapter 3 by Malamud
and Viola in this book.
37 For the first position, see Andrés Malamud, Overlapping Regionalism, No Integration:
The Latin American Experiences, EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2013/20 (Florence,
Italy: European University Institute, 2013); for the second, see Detlef Nolte, Latin
America’s New Regional Architecture: A Cooperative or Segmented Regional Governance
Complex? EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2014/89 (Florence, Italy: European Uni-
versity Institute, 2014).
38 Mario E. Carranza, “Resilient or Declining? Latin American Regional Economic
Blocs in the Postneoliberal Era,” Latin American Politics and Society 56, no. 3
(2014): 163–172.
39 Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, “Postlude,” in The Rise of Post-hegemonic Region-
alism. The Case of Latin America, ed. Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie (Dordrecht,
Netherlands: Springer, 2012), 183–189 (185).
40 Ibid.
41 Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano and José Briceño Ruiz, eds., Resilience of Regionalism
in Latin America and the Caribbean: Development and Autonomy (Basingstoke: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2013).
42 Thomas J. Volgy, Paul Bezerra, Jacob Cramer and J. Patrick Rhamey, Jr., “The
Case for Comparative Regional Analysis in International Politics,” International
Studies Review 19, no. 3 (2017): 452–480.
43 Brigitte Weiffen, Matthias Dembinski, Andreas Hasenclever, Katja Freistein, and
Makiko Yamauchi, “Democracy, Regional Security Institutions, and Rivalry
Mitigation: Evidence from Europe, South America, and Asia,” Security Studies 20,
no. 3 (2011): 378–415; and Isabella Alcañiz, “Democratization and Multilateral
Security,” World Politics 64, no. 2 (2012): 306–340.
44 See Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
45 See Jeffrey T. Checkel, “Regional Identities and Communities,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 559–578.
2 Regionalism under stress
A comparative perspective
Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse1
Regionalism is under stress in some parts of the world. The European Union
(EU) has tumbled from the euro crisis to the challenges posed by mass
migration and then to “Brexit.” In North America, the Trump
administration has renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), threatening to leave if the United States does not get a better deal.
Finally, half of the members of UNASUR, the Union of South American
Nations, have left the organization, including Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
At the same time, and paraphrasing Mark Twain, reports of the death of
regionalism are greatly exaggerated.2 Regional organizations (ROs) have
shown remarkable resilience around the globe. This chapter uses the toolbox
of theories of regional cooperation and integration to develop a conceptual
framework for the comparative analysis of regionalism under stress. We argue
that functional theories of regional integration fail to account for the varieties
of regionalism around the world. Economic and security interdependence
create a demand for regionalism, but do not explain its supply. The creation
of robust regional institutions requires elites with pro-regional identities to
engage in community-building that resonates with citizens’ identities and
generates mass public support for integration. This has important implications
for regionalism under stress. Contestations of regionalism are not only driven
by identity politics. High levels of interdependence are no guarantee against
elites mobilizing exclusive nationalist identities to dismantle or leave regional
institutions, as “Brexit” has forcefully demonstrated.
Regionalism: alive and kicking

The study of regionalism has a long history.3 With the “comparative turn” in
area studies, research has increasingly engaged in comparisons of cases drawn
from different regions.4 Comparative regionalism has emerged as a research
field that increasingly seizes the middle ground between traditional area
studies, comparative politics, and the field of international relations.5 It
employs comparative methods to arrive at generalizations about the
emergence, institutional design, and effects of regionalism.
Regionalism under stress 35
While some regional organizations might be under stress, regionalism as
such is alive and kicking. The entire globe is covered by ROs; there is no
continent or sub-continent without at least one multi-purpose RO. On
average, states in the contemporary international system are members of at
least four ROs.6 Regionalism is part and parcel of a global system of multi-
level governance. While ROs cover the globe and have become increasingly
important, many prominent ROs, such as the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) (1967) and the Organization of American States (OAS)
(1948), originated well before the end of the Cold War. Others, such as the
South African Development Community (SADC) (1992), the Andean
Community (1996) and the African Union (AU) (2002), were built upon
earlier ROs. Twenty-nine ROs were founded after 1990, with a significant
number of these being located in the post-Soviet region.7 While the
quantitative surge of state-led regionalism appears somewhat less spectacular
than is often assumed, there is a qualitative trend in terms of changes in both
the level and scope of regional cooperation and integration. In particular,
multi-purpose ROs have taken on ever more tasks and expanded the policy
areas of cooperation. This trend started before 1990, but gathered speed after
the end of the Cold War.
We can also observe an increasing move toward regional integration in the
sense of pooling and delegation of authority.8 Of course, the starting points
of the various ROs are rather different, and the EU is still in a league of its
own with regard to degree of supranational delegation and pooling of
authority. Nevertheless, the AU and the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) have authorized military interventions in their
own member states to safeguard democracy and prevent military coups.9 By
contrast, the EU’s own instruments to preserve human rights and democracy
within its own ranks are rather weak.10 Even traditionally intergovernmental
ROs, such as ASEAN or the League of Arab States (LAS), have not resisted
the trend toward more regional integration.11
Hooghe and her coauthors argued that stronger regional integration mainly
concerns the delegation of authority toward supranational bodies, particularly
with regard to judicialized dispute settlement mechanisms. ROs have
increasingly set up regional courts and, in addition, courts also rule on human
rights violations or territorial conflicts, as well as on trade disputes.12 In
contrast, pooling of sovereignty within ROs, in terms of allowing for
majority voting in intergovernmental bodies, is much more limited. While
states remain the masters of rule-setting in delegation, pooling implies that
they can be outvoted. Moreover, pooling appears to follow a logic of scale:
the more members a RO has, the more it moves toward pooling.13
In sum, we observe a bifurcation between (rather classical) regional
cooperation and regional integration. While shallow economic regionalism
based on (mostly bilateral) intergovernmental cooperation seems to
proliferate, existing forms of regionalism (particularly multi-purpose ROs)
have not only moved towards regional integration by deepening and
36 Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse
broadening, but have also developed institutional similarities with regard to
the transfer of new policy competencies as well as the delegation of executive
and adjudicative authority.
This variation in regional institutional design requires explanation.
Mainstream theories of cooperation and integration would expect
interdependence and regionalism to correlate.14 Economic and security
interdependencies are managed through regionalism; they create the demand
for regional institutions to solve likely conflicts, enable economic and other
exchanges, and ensure credible commitments. As the next section will show,
interdependencies do create a strong demand for regional institutions,
particularly if they include security issues and are not confined to the
economic realm. At the same time, however, the supply of regional
institutions does not automatically follow the demand.
Explaining regionalism: between demand and supply15

Standard theories of European integration expect (higher degrees of)
economic interdependence to result in (more) regional integration, since
regional institutions help solve likely conflicts, enable (further) economic
exchanges, and ensure credible commitments.16 The EU fits these
expectations in terms of having extremely high levels of intra-regional trade
and also strong pooling and delegation. At the opposite end of the spectrum
is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which
has the lowest level of both intra-regional trade and pooling and delegation
(see Figure 2.1). ASEAN’s and the Southern Cone Common Market’s
(MERCOSUR) medium levels of intra-regional trade match their medium
levels of pooling and delegation.
NAFTA or the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)
exhibit the second-highest level of economic interdependence, but low levels
of pooling and delegation. SADC, ECOWAS, and LAS show higher levels of
pooling and delegation, even though intra-regional trade in their regions −
Regionalism
High Low
Interdependence
High EU NAFTA East Asia

ASEAN
ECOWAS; SADC
LAS; MERCOSUR
Low
SAARC
Figure 2.1 Interdependence and regionalism, 2010.

Source: Authors’ compilation.23
Southern Africa, West Africa, and the Middle East, respectively − is
comparatively low.
The high density and strength of regional integration in the absence of
high intra-regional trade in Africa can be explained if we relax strong
assumptions about economic interdependence and allow for other (functional)
reasons to engage in regional institution-building. The (re-) establishment of
Sub-Saharan African ROs in the 1990s was at least partially an attempt to
deal with the negative externalities of civil wars in West, Central, and East
Africa.17 African leaders have supported regional integration as a way of
controlling, managing, and preventing regional conflicts and of dealing with
non-traditional security threats.18 In a similar vein, Indonesia, Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines created ASEAN to maintain peace
and stability amidst their disputes over inter-state borders and external
interferences in domestic conflicts.19 In Latin America, ROs have sustained
peace in the region and helped to build and consolidate a pluralistic security
community.20 Even European integration started with security-providing
institutions in the late 1940s (Brussels Pact and NATO) and early 1950s
(European Coal and Steel Community, ECSC).21 Regionalism has served as
a tool for settling conflicts and securing peace among (former) rival nations.
What national governments lose in authority to regional institutions, they
gain in legitimacy and problem-solving capacity, particularly since many
societal problems and non-traditional security threats, such as environmental
pollution, pandemics, drug trafficking or migration, are no longer confined to
the boundaries of the nation-state.22
Economic and security interdependencies together account for the varieties
of regionalism in most parts of the world; the two exceptions are North
America and East Asia (see Figure 2.1). Both regions feature extremely high
levels of intra-regional trade, which East Asia combines with some of the
most troublesome security dilemmas in contemporary international relations
(territorial conflicts in the South China Sea and North Korean nuclear
armament). In the remainder of the chapter, we argue that the lack of
community-building by elites who share some common identity largely
accounts for the absence of serious region-building in East Asia and North
America. Identity politics also help explain why regionalism has come under
stress recently.
Regionalism and identity politics

To explain the mismatch of strong interdependence and weak regionalism,
we build on the post-functionalist approach developed by Hooghe and
Marks, who argued that strong regionalism requires at least some sense of
community among the contracting parties in order to be sustainable.24 Their
claim turns Haas’s neo-functionalism on its head. While Haas defined
regional integration as the transfer of loyalties to the supranational level, he
saw this as the endpoint rather than the start of integration processes.25 At the
same time, transactionalism of the Karl W. Deutsch variety has always argued
that integration required a sense of community to foster the minimum level
of trust necessary to set up common institutions.26 However, the empirical
evidence is still sketchy regarding whether collective identity is a cause, an
indicator, or an effect of regional integration.27
To begin with, efforts at region-building are almost always accompanied
by social constructions of regional identities. Acharya has probably made the
strongest claim with regard to the Southeast Asian experience.28 The “Asian
way” exemplified an elite identity construction that was set up against the
European experience of strongly legalized and supranational regionalism. The
strong emphasis on diversity and informal networking and communication
has been enshrined in the ASEAN institutions. Acharya’s argument is
corroborated by Katzenstein and Hemmer’s account of why there is no
NATO in Southeast Asia.29 Accordingly, the United States preferred
multilateralism in Europe based on a strong sense of community, while it
opted for bilateral security ties with Asian states during the Cold War, in the
absence of collective identities.
A similar identity-related story can be told with regard to Africa. The
Organization of African Unity (OAU) was created on the basis of a strong
post-colonial elite identity emphasizing African independence and a strong
non-intervention norm.30 The preamble of the OAU charter already
contained the catchphrase, “Try Africa First.” After the Somalia disaster of
the early 1990s, Ghanaian economist George Ayittey coined the phrase
“African solutions for African problems,”31 which also became the slogan of
the newly founded AU in 2002. However, the AU interpreted the post-
colonial norm of sovereignty differently. Rather than relying on external
interventions to solve its security problems, the AU embraced the possibility
of military intervention in its member states to deal with war crimes or coup
d’états.32 It is hard to see how the latter norm would have been conceivable
without a sense of common identity among African elites based on post-
colonialism giving content to regionalism. In a similar way, the LAS was
built around a sense of shared Pan-Arabic identity.33
Post-colonial experiences also appear to have shaped the discourse
surrounding the formation of the Andean Community by Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru in 1969. Tussie has argued that the formation
of the MERCOSUR in 1991 was accompanied by a strong sense of
“othering,” against the United States and the neoliberal Washington
Consensus.34 Likewise, leftist elites that came into power in the 2000s
promoted the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA)
and UNASUR as post-neoliberal integration projects.35 Even the Eurasian
Economic Union (EEU) was legitimized in identity terms as a regional
alternative to the EU (notwithstanding its copying of the EU’s institutional
design).36 In contrast, the lack of a collective elite identity might explain the
absence of regionalism in East Asia despite high economic interdependence
and a manifest security dilemma. Unsolved issues of historical justice and
restitution have prevented China, Japan, and South Korea from forming
a regional identity (based, for example, on a shared memory), which could
have provided the necessary trust to build regional institutions.37
In sum, it is remarkable that we can observe identity discourses referring to
particular regional experiences and histories in almost every instance of
regional cooperation and integration. We have to assume that regional elites
and leaders appear to believe that their identity narratives resonate with
citizens and that their identity discourse might sway public opinion.
Otherwise, they could simply justify their decisions on economic or security
grounds. In other words, even if elites are not motivated by identity beliefs,
they still assume that their efforts at community-building generate public
support for regionalism.
Again, it is the European experience that serves as strong evidence that
elite identities matter with regard to regional integration.38 While security
issues were front and center at the beginning of European integration (see
above), elite identities were crucial to overcome the legacies of two world
wars. The history of the ECSC demonstrates that the sharing of a common
history of war and destruction united the founding fathers of the European
integration project. In their pursuit of a united, peaceful, and prosperous
Europe, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, and Robert Schuman drew
on European peace initiatives promoted by the Pan-European and other
movements founded in the 1920s, or the European Union that the French
Foreign Minister Aristide Briand had proposed to the General Assembly of
the League of Nations.39 The ECSC was not only, and not primarily, about
fostering economic integration, but about cementing the reconciliation of
two historic enemies.
Forty years later, the case of the single currency lends additional support to
the relevance of identity and community-building. Supporters of the
currency union shared a common idea of European integration as
a modernization project that would overcome the historical divisions of the
continent. They used the single currency as a means to get closer to this
political vision. The euro symbolized a collective European identity, while
the German mark and the French franc were constructed as symbolic
remnants of a nationalist past.40 From the beginning of the European
integration project, the various elite narratives constructed the EU as
a community of shared values of human rights, democracy, and market
economy—against Europe’s own past of nationalism, militarism and (world)
wars as the temporal “other.”41
The most recent European experience shows that identity politics can
also be an inhibitor of integration. The mobilization of nationalist identity
constructions makes it possible to sway public opinion against the transfer
of national sovereignty to the European level.42 The EU’s multiple crises
also demonstrate that elite efforts at regional community-building resonate
with mass public opinion. For decades, European leaders were able to
relate their community narrative to majorities in public opinion across the
EU with inclusive national identities who added “Europe” as a secondary identity
to their national loyalties.43 This created the “permissive consensus”44 of mass
public support for ever more integration. Recently, (mostly right-wing) populist
and Eurosceptic parties have started mobilizing the considerable minorities across
Europe with more exclusive and nationalist identities, thereby converting
attitudes into political behavior (see below).
Regionalism under stress: it’s identity, stupid!

Regionalism is alive and kicking. Regional institutions have proliferated and
gained in authority. “The urge to merge”45 might have subsided since the
turn of the millennium,46 but there is little evidence for a cutting-back,
dissolution, or breakdown of regional institutions.47 Nevertheless, as this
volume shows, some regional organizations are certainly under stress. The
EU has gone from the euro crisis to the migration crisis and to Brexit. The
Trump administration renegotiated NAFTA and threatened to leave it.
UNASUR is in a deep crisis, since half of its members are leaving or
suspending their membership. How do we explain these challenges to
regionalism and why is it that regional organizations in Eurasia, Africa, and
Asia appear to be untouched by these crises?
As regionalism is not driven only by functional demand, strong economic
and security interdependencies do not make regional institutions necessarily
resilient to attempts at disintegration. Likewise, it is identity politics that puts
regionalism under stress, not a weakening or unbalancing of interdependencies.
The various crises of the EU appear to be related to identity politics.48
Eurosceptic parties, mostly on the right of the political spectrum in Northern
and Eastern Europe, have successfully mobilized exclusive nationalist identities
and anti-immigrant sentiments against a Union in which detached elites made
decisions that defied national sovereignty and democracy. The political
controversy in the euro crisis has been, and remains, predominantly framed in
terms of questions of order; that is, what constitutes Europe as a community
and how much solidarity members of the community owe to each other,
under which conditions. The influx of migrants and refugees has changed
identity politics, since populist forces framed the Schengen crisis in terms of
“us” vs. “them” and propagated an exclusionary “fortress Europe.” The
dominance of exclusionary positions in the politicization of EU affairs has
impaired an upgrading of the common European interest in the Schengen crisis
necessary to tackle the migration and refugee challenges, rather than merely
seeking to externalize them. The consequences of this change in identity
politics not only challenge freedom of movement as one of the core principles
of European integration. Right-wing populism contests the liberal foundations
of the European project as a whole, advocating an illiberal, exclusionary, and
nationalist Europe, which the EU had been considered to have overcome.
Right-wing governments in Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy, and elsewhere are
exploiting these exclusionary nationalist identities for their purposes.
The most dramatic result so far has been Brexit. The campaign by
Brexiteers in the United Kingdom was as much driven by identity politics as
the various crises in continental Europe. The anti-EU campaign mobilized
exclusive nationalist identities, which have always been more widespread in
the UK than on the continent.49 What changed in Britain was not a rise in
nationalist identities, but their political mobilization for the purposes of
Brexit. The internal controversies within the Conservative Party further
testify to the relevance of identity politics with little or no economic
underpinnings. We submit that similar tendencies are visible in the United
States under Trump. The anti-NAFTA arguments of economic nationalists in
the United States make little sense in economic or political terms—they
appear to be driven largely by identity politics.
Thus, if regionalism is under stress in Europe and North America, the
reasons appear to be rather similar. As comparative politics scholars have
pointed out, a new cultural cleavage between “globalization/integration”
supporters, on one hand, and “anti-globalization/anti–integration” adherents,
on the other hand, has emerged in Western democracies.50 It is largely
orthogonal to the traditional socio-economic cleavage (“left vs. right”) and is
mostly driven by people holding different social identities, with exclusive
nationalism and communitarianism on one hand and more cosmopolitan
identities on the other. In the case of the United States, it is interesting to
note that rather similar anti-NAFTA arguments have been made both by
Trump supporters in the Republican party and by left-wing democrats
mobilizing for Bernie Sanders. While the groups that hold these different
identities have not changed much, populist parties and movements—mostly
on the right—have turned these attitudes into political behavior and
mobilized them for their purposes.
At the same time, the European experience shows that pro-regionalism
forces can be mobilized, too. French President Emanuel Macron was elected
on a decidedly pro-EU platform. Despite the rise of a right-wing populist
party in Germany (the Alternative für Deutschland), approximately
80 percent of voters there still supported pro-EU parties in the national
elections in September 2017. Thus, it is not a foregone conclusion that the
politicization of regionalism that is being experienced in Europe, North
America, and also in South America will put regional cooperation and
integration under further stress.
Conclusion
This chapter has developed a conceptual framework for the comparative
analysis of regionalism under stress. Prominent theories of regional cooperation
and integration rely on interdependencies among states as the key driver for
building regional institutions. This has two implications for regionalism under
stress. First, regionalism should lose traction when interdependencies weaken.
Second, at the same time, strong interdependencies should make regional
institutions resilient to protectionists or nationalist demands. We have argued
that economic and security interdependencies do create a demand for
regionalism. However, the mobilization of collective identities is required in
order to translate the demand into supply. For the longest time, efforts of pro-
regional elites at region-building resonated with citizens’ identities and
propelled regionalism forward. Yet identity politics can work both ways,
promoting and hindering regional institution-building. In recent years, right-
wing populist forces in particular have increasingly mobilized exclusive
nationalist identities, turning long-held attitudes into political behavior that
puts regionalism under stress. This mobilization of exclusive national identities
maps into a re-alignment of political forces along a cultural cleavage of
“cosmopolitan” vs. “nationalist” attitudes, which is discernible across Europe.
Similar tendencies can be observed in North America.
The empirical evidence for collective identities being a cause (and
a hindrance) of regional integration is strong for Europe and North America.
We know a lot less about identity politics in Latin America, Africa, and Asia,
and its effects on regional integration. While political and economic elites
almost always socially construct regions with references to collective
identities, the effects of these legitimizing discourses outside Europe are less
clear. If regionalism is indeed under stress, it is worthwhile engaging further
in the comparative study of collective identities that pertain to regional
integration.
Notes
1 We thank the participants of the Conference “Regionalism Under Stress—
Toward Fragmentation and Disintegration,” São Paulo, 25−27 September 2017,
for their comments and insights, particularly Susanne Gratius and the editors of
this volume, Detlef Nolte and Brigitte Weiffen.
2 According to a widely repeated legend about the American novelist Mark Twain,
in 1897 rumors were circulating that he was seriously ill, and a major American
newspaper even printed his obituary. When Twain was told about this by
a reporter, he quipped: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
3 See Shaun Breslin, Richard Higgot and Ben Rosamond, “Regions in Comparative
Perspective,” in New Regionalism in the Global Political Economy: Theories and Cases,
ed. Shaun Breslin, Christopher W. Hughes, Nicola Phillips and Ben Rosamond
(London: Routledge, 2002), 1−19; Louise Fawcett, “Regionalism from an Histor-
ical Perspective,” in Global Politics of Regionalism. Theory and Practice, ed. Mary Far-
rell, Björn Hettne, and Luk Van Langenhove (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 21−38;
Matthias Basedau and Patrick Köllner, “Area Studies, Comparative Area Studies,
and the Study of Politics: Context, Substance, and Methodological Challenges,”
Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 1, no. 1 (2007): 105−124.
4 See Basedau and Köllner, “Area Studies, Comparative Area Studies, and the Study of
Politics”; Philippe De Lombaerde, Fredrik Söderbaum, Luk van Langenhove and
Francis Baert, “The Problem of Comparison in Comparative Regionalism,” Review
of International Studies 36, no. 3 (2010): 731−753; Dirk Berg-Schlosser, “Comparative
Area Studies—goldener Mittelweg zwischen Regionalstudien und universalistischen
Ansätzen,” Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 6, no. 1 (2012): 1−16; Andreas
Mehler and Bert Hoffmann, “Area Studies,” in International Encyclopedia of Political Sci-
ence, ed. Bertrand Badie, Dirk Berg-Schlosser and Leronardo Morlino (Los Angeles,
CA, et al.: Sage, 2011), 86−89; Ariel I. Ahram, “The Theory and Method of Com-
parative Area Studies,” Qualitative Research 11, no. 1 (2011): 69−90.
5 See Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Comparative
Regionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
6 See Diana Panke and Sören Stapel, “Accounting for Variation in Overlapping
Regionalism: Domestic Legitimacy and the Institutional Design of Regional
Organizations,” Paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual
Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 18−22 February 2015.
7 See Kathleen Hancock and Alexander Libman, “Eurasia,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 202−224.
8 Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Introduction: Framework of the Handbook
and Conceptual Clarifications,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regional-
ism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016), 3−15; Tobias Lenz and Gary Marks, “Regional Institutional Design,” in
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas
Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 513−537.
9 Christof Hartmann, “Sub-Saharan Africa,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative
Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2016), 271−294; Christof Hartmann and Kai Striebinger, “Writing the
Script? ECOWAS’s Military Intervention Mechanism,” in Governance Transfer by
Regional Organizations: Patching Together a Global Script, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and
Vera van Hüllen (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 68−83.
10 Vera van Hüllen and Tanja A. Börzel, “Why Being Democratic Is Just Not
Enough: The EU’s Governance Transfer,” in Governance Transfer by Regional
Organizations: Patching Together a Global Script, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Vera van
Hüllen (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 227−244.
11 See Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, Tobias Lenz, Jeanine Bezuijen, Besir Ceka and
Svet Derderyan, Measuring International Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Gov-
ernance, Volume III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); also see Anja Jet-
schke and Saori N. Katada, “Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative
Press, 2016), 225−248; Morten Valbjørn, “North Africa and the Middle East,” in
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas
Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 249−270.
12 Karen J. Alter and Liesbet Hooghe, “Regional Dispute Settlement,” in The
Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 538−558; and Hooghe, Marks,
Lenz, Bezuijen, Ceka and Derderyan, Measuring International Authority:
A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance, Volume III.
13 Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “Delegation and Pooling in International
Organizations,” Review of International Organizations 10, no. 3 (2015): 305−328;
and Hooghe, Marks, Lenz, Bezuijen, Ceka and Derderyan, Measuring International
Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance, Volume III.
14 Tanja A. Börzel, “Theories of Cooperation, Integration, and Governance,” in The
Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Börzel and Risse (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016), 41−63; Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Grand The-
ories of Integration and the Challenges of Comparative Regionalism,” Journal of
European Public Policy 26, no. 8 (2019): 1231–1252.
15 For the following, see Börzel and Risse, “Grand Theories of Integration and the
Challenges of Comparative Regionalism.”
16 Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces
1950−1957 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958); Walter Mattli, The
Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1999); Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State
Power From Rome to Maastricht (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Alec
Stone Sweet and James A. Caporaso, “From Free Trade to Supranational Polity:
The European Court and Integration,” in European Integration and Supranational
Governance, ed. Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1998), 92−133.
17 See Hartmann, “Sub-Saharan Africa,” 271−294.
18 See Jeffrey Herbst, “Crafting Regional Cooperation in Africa,” in Crafting Cooper-
ation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspective, ed. Amitav
Acharya and Alastair. I. Johnston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007),
129−144; Julius Emeka Okolo, “Integrative and Cooperative Regionalism: The
Economic Community of West African States,” International Organization 39, no.
1 (1985): 121−153.
19 Helen E.S. Nesadurai, “The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),”
New Political Economy 13, no. 2 (2008): 225−239; Amitav Acharya, Constructing
a Security Community in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2001); Amitav
Acharya, Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2009).
20 Arie M. Kacowicz, The Impact of Norms in International Society: The Latin American
Experience, 1881−2001 (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2005).
21 Wilfried Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification (Berlin, Germany
and Boston, MA: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2015), 20−36.
22 Tanja A. Börzel and Vera van Hüllen, eds., Governance Transfer by Regional Organ-
izations: Patching Together a Global Script (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
23 The mapping of the ROs matches their level of authority in terms of pooling
and delegation provided by Hooghe et al. with the level of economic and
security interdepedence of their member states according to Börzel and Risse;
see Hooghe, Marks, Lenz, Bezuijen, Ceka and Derderyan, Measuring Inter-
national Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance, Volume III, Chapter
3; Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Three Cheers for Comparative
Regionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja
A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016),
621−647; and Börzel and Risse, “Grand Theories of Integration and the Chal-
lenges of Comparative Regionalism.”
24 See Hooghe, Marks, Lenz, Bezuijen, Ceka and Derderyan, Measuring International
Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance, Volume III.
25 Haas, The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces 1950−1957.
26 Karl Deutsch, Sidney A. Burrell, Robert A. Kann, Maurice Jr. Lee, Martin Lich-
terman, Raymond E. Lindgren, Francis L. Loewenheim and Richard W. Van
Wagenen, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization
in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1957); Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Security Communities (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
27 For an excellent survey of the literature, see Jeffrey T. Checkel, “Regional Iden-
tities and Communities,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed.
Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016),
559−578.
28 Acharya, Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism; Peter
J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions. Asia and Europe in the American Imperium
29 Christopher Hemmer and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Why is There No NATO in
Asia? Collective Identity, Regionalism, and the Origins of Multilateralism,” Inter-
national Organization 56, no. 3 (2003): 575−607.
30 See Paul D. Williams, “From Non-intervention to Non-indifference: The Ori-
gins and Development of the African Union’s Security Culture,” African Affairs
106, no. 423 (2007): 253−279; also see Checkel, “Regional Identities and Com-
munities,” 562−563.
31 See George B. N. Ayittey, “An African Solution: Solving the Crisis of Failed
States,” Harvard International Review 31, no. 3 (2009): 24−27.
32 See Williams, “From Non-intervention to Non-indifference: The Origins and
Development of the African Union’s Security Culture”; Thomas Kwasi
Tieku, “Explaining the Clash and Accommodation of Interests of Major
Actors in the Creation of the African Union,” African Affairs 103, no. 411
(2004): 249−267.
33 See Michael D. Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
34 See Diana Tussie, “Latin America: Contrasting Motivations for Regional Pro-
jects,” Review of International Studies 35, no. S1 (2009): 169−188.
35 See Andrea C. Bianculli, “Latin America,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative
Press, 2016), 154−177.
36 See Hancock and Libman, “Eurasia.”
37 See G. John Ikenberry and Chung-in Moon, The United States and Northeast Asia:
Debates, Issues, and New Order (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Tessa
Morris-Suzuki, Morris Low, Leonid Petrov and Timothy Y. Tsu, East Asia beyond
the History Wars: Confronting the Ghosts of Violence (London: Routledge, 2013).
38 Thomas Risse, A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres
39 Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification, 1−19.
40 Thomas Risse, “The Euro between National and European Identity,” Journal of
European Public Policy 10, no. 4 (2003): 487−503; Thomas Risse, Daniela Engel-
mann-Martin, Hans Joachim Knopf and Klaus Roscher, “To Euro or Not to
Euro. The EMU and Identity Politics in the European Union,” European Journal
of International Relations 5, no. 2 (1999): 147−187.
41 Risse, A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres, Chapter 3.
42 See Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “From the Euro to the Schengen Crises:
European Integration Theories, Politicization, and Identity Politics,” Journal of
European Public Policy 25, no. 1 (2018): 83−108.
43 Risse, A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres, Chapter 2.
44 See Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “A Postfunctionalist Theory of European
Integration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus,” British Journal
of Political Science 39, no. 1 (2009): 1−23.
45 See Michael Schulz, Fredrik Söderbaum and Joakim Öjendal, “Introduction.
A Framework for Understanding Regionalization,” in Regionalization in
a Globalizing World: A Comparative Perspective on Forms, Actors and Processes, ed.
Michael Schulz, Fredrik Söderbaum and Joakim Öjendal (London and
New York: Zed Books, 2001) 1−21 (1).
46 See Christina J. Schneider, “The Political Economy of Regional Integration,”
Annual Review of Political Science 20 (2017): 229−248.
47 See Tanja A. Börzel, “Researching the EU (Studies) Into Demise?” Journal of
European Public Policy 25, no. 3 (2018): 475−485.
48 See Börzel and Risse, “From the Euro to the Schengen Crises: European Integra-
tion Theories, Politicization, and Identity Politics.”
49 For details, see Risse, A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public
Spheres, 81−84, 92.
50 See, for example, Hooghe and Marks, “A Postfunctionalist Theory of European
Integration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus”; Hanspeter
Kriesi, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon Bornschier and
Timotheos Frey, West European Politics in the Age of Globalization (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2008); and Swen Hutter, Edgar Grande and Hanspeter
Kriesi, Politicising Europe: Integration and Mass Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2016).
3 Multipolarity is in,
multilateralism out
Rising minilateralism and the
downgrading of regionalism
Andrés Malamud and Eduardo Viola1
The international order is shifting. Deepening geopolitical rivalries—

compounded by China’s rise, Russia’s revisionism, and the United States’
“America First” policy—alongside the advent of disruptive technologies—the
so-called fourth industrial revolution and artificial intelligence—are shaking both
the structural and conceptual foundations that have hitherto prevailed since the
end of the Cold War. In this article, we challenge two claims that have become
ubiquitous by now: that multipolarity will lead to multilateralism2—just as
unipolarity led to unilateralism—and that the emerging global order will be
based on regional blocs and interregional agreements.3
Some realists claim that regional powers seek hegemony in their home
regions but do not pursue that goal in ones from which they are separated by
bodies of water.4 Hence the emergence of “regional orders,” a concept
shared also by constructivist authors.5 An alternative approach posits that
regional hegemony was neither sought nor achieved by states that eventually
became global powers, such as Great Britain.6 In the last few decades, a new
phase of economic globalization has eroded the relevance of geographical
proximity even further. Its key feature is instead the expansion and
densification of global value chains. Today, more than 60 percent of trade is
conducted between branches of the same corporation, or between
corporations that operate mostly across open economies, irrespective of their
geographic proximity to one another.7
We argue that intraregional asymmetries and the rise of extra-regional
attractors in a multipolar world are impairing further region-building, and
even tearing regional orders apart. In this context, global governance is
sought instead through issue-area negotiations between powers that are not
necessarily contiguous (bilateralism, minilateralism, or plurilateralism) rather
than through multilateralism or interregionalism. This scenario is consistent
both with the “decentered globalism” envisioned by Buzan8 and the
“growing disjuncture” between physical regions and functional regions
diagnosed by Väyrynen.9 The prevailing strategy to deal with rising
international challenges is, then, to bring together a few key states rather than
a few regions or many states.
48 Andrés Malamud and Eduardo Viola
In the first part of this article, we introduce “multipolarity” as the
emerging structure of world politics and explain why it exerts centrifugal
effects on regions. In the second part, we outline the failure of multilateralism
as strategy to deal with multipolarity and the ensuing ascent of new formats
of international cooperation termed “minilateralism.” To illustrate our
argument, we analyze a critical case: global negotiations on climate change.
In the third part, we explain the rollback of regionalism as a strategy for
collective governance and illustrate this point by looking at the simultaneous
proliferation and deterioration of Latin American and African regional
organizations. The final section summarizes our arguments.
The emerging structure of world politics: centrifugal multipolarity

After the unipolar moment10 or uni-multipolar period,11 some predicted the
advent of a nonpolar world.12 Yet, many scholars foresaw an emerging global
order based on tighter interdependence and coordination led by
geographically based political associations—variously called “regional orders,”
“societies,” “complexes,” or “worlds” in the literature.13 Although there was
no agreement as to whether this process would develop bottom-up as driven
by autonomous forces,14 top-down led by the American imperium,15 or
horizontally as inspired or promoted by the European Union,16 most
nevertheless believed that the new world order was to be built of regional
bricks.
We contend that this may no longer be the case, however. Although
regional organizations keep popping up, they are not even close to
establishing themselves as poles. On the contrary, some great powers can
plausibly be said to be exerting a stronger influence on other regions than
they are on their own backyard. This does not mean that, say, China is more
influential in Africa or Latin America than it is in East Asia, but it is certainly
more welcomed—or at least less feared—in those locations. Value chains are
strong in Asia, with hubs in China, Japan, and South Korea, but most Asian
countries support the military presence of the United States in the region to
protect against a potentially hegemonic China. Spheres of influence are being
built afar as much as they are near home, with the United States and China
being leading powers in regions other than their own.
Garzón argues that the conventional view of a multipolar model with
strong regional orders is misleading. Instead, the world seems to be moving
toward what, drawing on Friedberg, he calls “multi-multipolarity.”17 This
means that regions themselves are multipolar, and can therefore not be
considered to be unipolar poles. In a later article he switches to the concept
of “decentered multipolarity,”18 describing a scenario in which security and
economic links do not converge around the same poles. This is the result of
structural dynamics as much as agency choices, as secondary powers adapt
their strategies to a changing international system. As new poles emerge,
smaller states change their cost-benefit calculations.
Multipolarity is in, multilateralism out 49
Since the adjective “decentered” conveys a static image of this dynamic
scenario, we prefer to call it “centrifugal multipolarity”—which better
expresses how the emergence of multiple poles pulls regions apart instead of
cementing them together. Subordinate states are no longer confined to their
regional hegemon.19 Although they might be sucked into a neighboring
power’s sphere of influence by sheer gravitation, most enjoy more freedom
than before to pick alternative “leaders” from a menu of global powers. Thus
multipolarity broadens the autonomy of small states and middle powers, as
has been shown for Brazil.20 However, as that country untied itself from
Washington’s grip, so did other South American states from Brasilia’s.21 In
spite of the region’s structural unipolarity,22 some South American countries
have opted to align with overseas powers rather than the regional hegemon.
Mearsheimer argues that it is very difficult to project power over huge
distances, especially across enormous bodies of water.23 This, he explains, is
why Great Britain did not seek to establish regional hegemony in continental
Europe, and why invasions of the country (in modern times) have been
either unsuccessful or not even attempted. However, there are exceptions to
this rule. Imperial Japan provides an example of offensive projection: large
bodies of water did not prevent it from conquering significant portions of the
Asian mainland and the South Pacific. In turn, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization is an example of defensive projection: what Deutsch and his
coauthors identified as an emblematic and successful security community was
built precisely across the North Atlantic.24 The differing fate of the two
experiments is partly explained by their varying institutional underpinnings:
the short-lived “Japanese Community of Nations” was totalitarian, based on
the exercise of military force, economic conquest, and massive human rights
violations; the enduring North Atlantic community is based contrariwise
mostly on free negotiations, economic cooperation, and the protection of
human rights.
Mearsheimer’s contention thus needs to be qualified, as oceans have been
instrumental in the creation of two types of region rather than one. The
effects of large bodies of water have manifested themselves either by isolating
extensive contiguous landmasses or by bridging two shores into a transoceanic
community. In the former case, oceans have acted as walls; in the latter, as
bridges. Accordingly, a paradigmatic question is whether the South Atlantic
will follow Mearsheimer’s logic and create the incentives for regional powers
to rally their neighbors, or whether it will instead reproduce the North
Atlantic effect by bringing continents together. The available evidence
suggests the latter is highly unlikely, as interdependence among the three
major South Atlantic powers (Brazil, Nigeria, and South Africa) is extremely
low; very few African or South American states face an imminent threat; and
even fewer have the capacity or the intention to build a transoceanic
economic community or military alliance.
True, Brazilian rhetoric sporadically suggests the existence of common
threats and opportunities, and underlines the contrasting dynamics of the
North and South Atlantic.25 Brazil’s diplomacy has successfully promoted the
establishment of the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone
(ZOPACAS). This transregional arrangement was created in 1986 through
a Brazil-initiated United Nations General Assembly resolution and brings
together three Latin American and 21 African states.26 It is not a combination
or accumulation of preexisting regional organizations; in fact, it splits existing
continental organizations, because it defines the sea basin rather than the
landmass as the driver of regional dynamics. Yet Brazil lacks the resources to
instill material substance into this putative South Atlantic community, and the
very concept thereof is contested domestically.27
In light of the above, we postulate a third scenario that does not regard
oceans as either walls or bridges between landmasses. Our contention is that,
by bridging coastal states, oceans pull them away from their land neighbors.
In other words, water brings together not whole continents but coastal states,
and thus tears continental regions apart. This is due, in part, to technological
progress, and the ensuing reduction in the costs of maritime transportation.
The Atlantic Ocean is the meeting point of four continents, but the effect
that it has on each differs. The centrifugal impact of an ocean depends on
two variables: the presence of another ocean on the other side of a continent,
and the political fragmentation of the mainland. Since the postwar period, the
Atlantic has not exerted a centrifugal force over Western European countries:
first, because they were assembled rather than fragmented in the European
Community and, second, because there was no ocean on the other side,
rather an “iron curtain” exerting centripetal effects. By contrast, the three
North American countries border two oceans, but they are unified states that
can overcome the tensions induced by “bi-oceanity.” For instance, California
and Virginia cannot lead rival ocean-based organizations that jeopardize the
unity of the United States. A single ocean (for Europe) and the presence of
unified bicoastal states (in North America) have prevented large bodies of
water from exerting centrifugal effects on these regions.
This is not the case in South America and Africa. Unlike Europe, these
continents border two oceans each; and unlike the three North American
states, each country (except for dual-basin Colombia and South Africa)
adjoins only one ocean. Consequently, South American and African states are
pulled apart by these bodies of water instead of being compressed between
one ocean and a great land power (as in Europe) or tied together by nation-
state centripetal forces (as in North America). Demographic concentration in
the coastal areas both underpins and reinforces territorial fragmentation in
South America and Africa. Huge physical barriers exacerbate the continental
split. In South America, the Andean range and the Amazon rainforest were
extremely hostile to human settlement and to the circulation of people and
goods. The transference of the Brazilian capital from Rio de Janeiro to
Brasilia in 1960 has been a driver of national unity but has fallen short of
connecting the Atlantic coast with the eastern Andean areas of South
America—and even less the western Andean region.
In Africa, three bodies of water pull large segments of the continent in
differing directions. The Mediterranean Sea links Northern Africa to Europe
and the Middle East; the Indian Ocean ties East Africa to Asia—traditionally
India, and more recently China; and, the Atlantic Ocean disperses West
African attention, as its coastal countries lack a dominant association with any
external region. As in South America, physical barriers exacerbate continental
fragmentation. The Sahara and Kalahari deserts and the Great Rift Valley split
the continental population into several clusters, mostly concentrated in the
coastal areas. It is widely agreed that the existence of 16 landlocked countries is
an obstacle to further African development.28 This proves that geographically
central countries may not contribute to amalgamating their surroundings but
may rather be choked or frayed by them.
Hence our claim about the disjoining rather than preventative power of
bodies of water. When a region lacks a center of gravity—a large power that
commands or induces collective order by acting as a hub—extra-regional
attractors acting across competing oceans will be detrimental to regional
interdependence and, ultimately, regional governance. Notably, geo-
economic nodes—meaning geographic cores of economic networks—are less
frequent than is usually claimed.29 There are two reasons for this. The first is
that gravity models of international trade, which predict bilateral trade flows
based on the economic sizes and distance between two units, are prone to
distance mismeasurement.30 The second reason is that distance is not the only
geographically relevant factor for development, as a recent report issued by
the World Bank seems to assume.31
Instead, as the same institution claimed a decade before, density and
division (whether regulatory barriers or rough terrain) are as important as
sheer distance.32 For instance, it makes more economic sense to ship
a container from Rio de Janeiro to Shanghai than transport it overland to
Quito. Hence, regions do not only become porous or open to external
influence, but are sometimes even torn apart. As a consequence, cross-
regional negotiations have mushroomed. Although they are multilateral in
a broad sense, these agreements typically include few members—and
frequently they are just bilateral associations. The simultaneous participation
in various trade agreements irrespective of geographic location has been called
“cross-regionalism.” By engaging in this strategy, states “strive to escape their
uncomfortable status of so-called ‘spoke’ by signing agreements with more
than one ‘hub.’”33 The ascent of cross-regionalism, and the parallel decay of
regionalism, both stem from the emergence of multipolarity in the
international system.
The strategy of larger powers: minilateralism rather than

multilateralism
The UN General Assembly, the World Trade Organization, and the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change are key examples of
worldwide multilateralism, where each country has a vote—and sometimes
a veto. Their exhaustion is visible in their incapacity to act and to reform
themselves. As Narlikar exemplified: “After taking a quick glance at the
World Trade Organization today, one might be excused for believing that
it is a dead man walking.”34 Multilateral institutions will not disappear, but
they are unable to regulate world affairs successfully. While Martin has
already suggested that “groups can overcome the difficulties of multilateral
decision making by delegating urgent issues to a smaller set of actors or by
allowing such a subset to exercise agenda control,”35 she was primarily
thinking of groups within multilateral organizations. Instead, a dynamic of
smaller and variable groupings of states (what can be termed the
“G-world”) has been steadily taking over during the last few decades, most
of which are independent from any encompassing organization. The
pattern here, Naím notes, is clear:
Since the early 1990s, the need for effective multicountry collaboration
has soared, but at the same time multilateral talks have inevitably failed;
deadlines have been missed; financial commitments and promises have
not been honored; execution has stalled; and international collective
action has fallen far short of what was offered and, more importantly,
needed. These failures represent not only the perpetual lack of inter-
national consensus, but also a flawed obsession with multilateralism as the
panacea for all the world’s ills … let’s forget about trying to get the
planet’s nearly 200 countries to agree. We need to abandon that fool’s
errand in favor of a new idea: minilateralism … We should bring to the
table the smallest possible number of countries needed to have the largest
possible impact on solving a particular problem.36
Minilateralism is not new.37 The Concert of Europe, also known as the

“Congress System” after the Congress of Vienna, represented the balance of
power that existed in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the
outbreak of World War I. It was founded by Austria, Prussia, the Russian
Empire, and the United Kingdom, which made up the alliance that defeated
Napoleon and his French empire. With time, France became the fifth
member. Concerts of powers and great power clubs have existed in other
times and places too, including Latin America.
At the present time, minilateralism is economic rather than political in
nature, and its scope is global rather than regional.38 Its origins can be traced
back to 1973, when the embryo of the G7 was first seeded. Russia was part
of the group from 1998 to 2014, which was then known as the G8. In turn,
the G8 was superseded by the G20 (more formally, the Group of Twenty
Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors), a group of 19 of the world’s
largest national economies plus the EU. The G20 was established in 1999,
but started to meet at the heads of government level only in 2008, in the
wake of the global financial crisis.
Recently, a group of international scholars has revived the idea of
a concert as the best way to cope with global challenges.39 Brummer argues
that the management of the global economy has already changed
dramatically. In a post-American world, minilateral strategies (trade alliances,
informal agreements, and financial engineering) continue to be as relevant as
before, but the ways that diplomats design and manage them has been
reshaped by the growing diffusion of economic power.40
Apart from the proliferation of grouped states, minilateralism is frequently
associated with “acronymania.” BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South
Africa), IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa), and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa,
India, China) are just a few examples of clubs that bring together a handful of
(usually developing) countries seeking to improve coordination around a given
policy area. Other phenomena, such as cross-regionalism and “trans-
regionalism,” can be seen as varieties of minilateralism: second-best strategies of
sorts, and ones that ensue from the stagnation of global multilateral
negotiations. Unlike interregionalism, trans-regionalism refers to “interregional
relations where two or more regions are dispersed, [which] have weak
actorship, and where neither region negotiates as a regional organization.”41 It
distinguishes itself from multilateralism by being less encompassing, and from
regionalism because it is only loosely defined by geography.
Minilateralism emerges when there is a perception that multilateralism is
ineffective.42 In multilateral meetings “the smallest possible number of
countries needed to have the largest possible impact”43 is frequently
exceeded. The sacrifice of quality (in policy outcomes) for quantity (in
summitry) has rendered few results and induced “summit fatigue.”44
Overcrowded meetings of heads of state continue to happen, but effective
results are pursued increasingly in smaller gatherings.
In short, multipolarity is not leading to multilateralism. On the contrary, in
fact, the larger the gap between great powers and secondary powers the more
likely it is that the former will try to conduct business among themselves.
International governance increasingly takes the form of the aforementioned
G-world, while international contestation and emerging powers tend to
converge around acronym organizations instead. Remarkably, both the
G-world and the alphabet-soup groups bring together individual big powers
rather than connect regional organizations.
The case of climate change: how the failure of multilateralism opened the way
for minilateralism
“The United Nations climate talks that seemed headed for sure disaster were
saved from utter collapse late Friday night in Copenhagen, after leaders from
the U.S., India, Brazil, South Africa and China came to an agreement to
combat global warming.” So reported Time on 18 December 2009 regarding
the results of the COP15 Copenhagen—the UN Climate Change
Conference.45 Neither multilateral negotiations nor the proposal advanced by
the EU had worked, and only an improvised meeting between Barack
Obama and the leaders of the BASIC countries was able to unlock a deal.
The most global threat that humankind has ever faced was not to be tackled
through a global approach. The minilateral summit, though not as successful
as first reported, hinted at an alternative strategy being viable. Arguably
climate change is a global and transversal policy area, as its consequences are
public bads (due to their indivisible and individually unescapable nature) that
are only manageable in the broadest possible multilateral manner. This makes
it a key case for our argument presented here.
Climate change mitigation requires stabilizing the concentration of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, either by reducing emissions, or by
capturing and storing them. In 1996, the developed countries agreed to set
emission targets and implementation mechanisms. At the Kyoto Conference
in 1997, however, they failed to set compulsory commitments to reduce the
rate of emission of the emerging economies; as a consequence, the United
States then withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. The agreement was
in force from 2005 to 2012. By the end of this period, three developed
countries (Canada, Japan, and Russia) had raised concerns similar to those of
the United States and themselves withdrawn from it.46 By 2013, the Protocol
had become a caricature of the treaty signed in 1997. If in Kyoto the goal
had been to constrain 65 percent of global emissions, in 2013 the
commitment was downgraded to 12 percent—and was almost exclusively
enforced by the EU. During the Protocol’s years of validity, global carbon
emissions increased at a faster pace than they had during the 1990s.47
Two drivers shape global climate governance: “climate power” and
“climate commitment.” Climate power refers to the resources that an agent
has to influence both the climate itself and decisions taken about it. Climate
commitment, meanwhile, refers to the approach taken to address climate
change: while reformists understand the issue as a potentially catastrophic but
ultimately manageable threat, conservatives see it as either less menacing or
inevitable, and thus resist adopting costly measures. Currently, conservatives
are dominant, and they are reluctant to engage in reduction or mitigation
policies to the detriment of economic development. While climate
governance is extremely complex and involves multiple actors (public and
private; local and global; national and transnational), only states are considered
climate powers—as they exert the highest level of influence on both the
global consensus regarding climate and actual climate change itself.
Thirteen economies account for more than 80 percent of global carbon
emissions.48 Ten of them are strong in the human capital and scientific and
technological development that are essential to support the transition to
a low-carbon economy. They mostly coincide with the G20 (of which only
Australia, South Africa, and Argentina do not belong to the list of major
emitters). The 13 economies can be classified into three groups according to
their climate commitments. The reformist group is made up of the EU and
Japan (with consistent reduction in or slow growth of emissions); the
moderate group includes South Korea, China, the United States, Brazil,
Mexico, Indonesia, and Canada (with moderate and inconsistent reductions
in or reversions of emissions); and the conservative group consists of India,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Russia (with huge increases in emissions). The
four de facto veto players, without whom no consequential agreement would
be effective, spread over the three groups: the EU, China, the United States,
and India.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change was signed in December 2015, and
entered into force one week before the 2016 election of Donald Trump—a
remarkable achievement, considering that the Kyoto Protocol had taken seven
years to enter into force. It is necessary to separate two levels of analysis
regarding the Paris Agreement: the dynamics of diplomacy and the substantive
content. At the diplomatic level, the agreement was a success: it built an
extraordinary bridge between different (and often antagonistic) national interests,
led by the competent French and EU diplomacies and with the support of
influential global leaders. Yet there is a profound disjunction between the
ambitious goals of the agreement and the generic paths formulated to achieve
them.49 Three years after the signing of the Paris Agreement, the climate policies
of major powers have not followed up on it. Not even reformist Germany is
progressing according to its promises. Worse, the Trump administration
withdrew from the Paris Agreement in July 2017, setting an example that others
may now follow. In December 2018, widespread resistance crushed Emmanuel
Macron’s attempt at introducing a modest carbon tax in France.
The limitations of the Paris Agreement could only be overcome by
a decarbonization coalition with the United States, China, and the EU at its
core. The current US situation is inauspicious, at least until the 2020
elections. Its energy dynamic is ambivalent: on the one hand, there have
been major advances in renewable energy and smart energy systems; on the
other, the increasing production of shale gas and oil could lock the country
into fossil fuels.
China presents three favorable trends: the rise of grassroots movements
opposing air and water pollution synergic with the reduction of carbon
emissions; the growing strength of the low-carbon energy sector within the
economy (wind, solar, and nuclear, as well as smart grids); and the ongoing
shift from a manufacturing to a service economy. On the negative side are
the assertive military policies in the South China Sea, the North Korean
question, and the threat of the Trump administration to impose higher tariffs
on Chinese goods. In the case of outright geopolitical confrontation,
decarbonization would likely lose relevance on the country’s policy agenda.
The EU is facing the risk of fragmentation due to the euro crisis and the
growing strength of nationalist parties. Its traditional reformist position has
been based on integrative, post-sovereign demands from Northern Europe
that have overcome nationalist demands from Southern and Eastern Europe.
For a global decarbonization coalition to indeed emerge, the continuation of
Northern European leadership is crucial.
Almost three decades of multilateral governance of climate change have
produced limited results, with these shortcomings only becoming aggravated
over the years. Most governments are inclined to inflate the positive
outcomes of the multilateral regime for political reasons, but the related
budget is becoming smaller year after year. The way for minilateralism (as
a decarbonization club of major powers) is open, but it simply will not
advance without a coordinated commitment from the United States, China,
and the EU. The election to office of Trump has frozen this possibility. For
the time being, unilateralism trumps minilateralism as much as it trumps
multilateralism.
The strategy of secondary powers: the downgrading of

regionalism
Regionalism once seemed an effective way to counter and manage
globalization. In Latin America in particular, regionalism has deep historical
roots. Over the years, it has taken a number of forms, from hemispheric
political union to sub-regional trade agreements to physical integration.
However, the only regional organizations that momentarily gained real
traction are the Central American Common Market (established in 1960, and
disrupted by the 1969 Football War), the Andean Community (formed in
1969, and having virtually collapsed in the new century) and the Southern
Cone Common Market (Mercosur, formed in 1991 and stagnating since the
turn of the millennium).50 Today, official rhetoric remains high but
accomplishments fall short of stated goals. Latin American regionalism may
have reached a peak beyond which it will be unable to progress.
Consolidated extra-regional trade patterns, the emergence of international
groupings other than regional ones, the ambiguous role of regional leaders or
absence thereof, the preference for bilateralism of the emerging powers, and
the spaghetti bowl effect may signal that the world is not going the regional
way and that further deepening of regionalism in Latin America is not to be
expected. Yet the exhaustion of comprehensive integration projects does not
mean that regional cooperation will not take place; the difference is that the
pooling or delegation of sovereignty is no longer an option.51
The Latin American states proudly share a neighborhood, not a house.
Genuinely existing regionalism can be grasped by looking at the three largest
Latin American blocs: Mercosur, the Pacific Alliance (PA), and the Union of
South American Nations (UNASUR). Mercosur and the PA are both
economic in nature but take a radically different approach to that. The
former was originally meant to become a common market, but it eventually
adopted a protectionist stance that hinders trade both among its members and
with the wider world—thus distancing its member states from global value
chains. This is not to deny that Mercosur has indeed accomplished parallel (if
relevant) goals such as underpinning the construction of a security
community and deepening sociocultural exchanges; but again, it is a case of
52
mission accomplished. In contrast, the PA does not aim to institutionalize
more than a free trade area, and it has adopted an opening strategy that
fosters trade beyond its boundaries rather than within them.
As for UNASUR, it aims to prevent extra-regional interventions and to
manage intraregional conflicts. Although the word “integration” is sprinkled
throughout its founding charter, another core principle is unrestricted state
sovereignty—the very opposite of integration. This is consistent with the
argument that, outside Europe, regionalism is about boosting rather than
pooling sovereignty.53 Accordingly, the working mechanism of the
organization is concert (i.e. politics) rather than coordination (i.e. policy) or
integration (i.e. polity). The fact that all UNASUR members simultaneously
belong to rival or overlapping associations (such as ALBA, the OAS, or the
PA) further reduces the organization’s capacity to coordinate preferences and
tackle common problems.54 The paralysis of UNASUR in dealing with the
collapse of Venezuela and refugee flows to neighboring countries since 2016
is a prominent example. In April 2018, the six largest members dealt
UNASUR a further blow when announcing that they would suspend their
participation in and payments to the bloc. When, in August of the same year,
Colombia declared it was leaving the organization, it hardly even made the
news.
The stagnation of Latin American regionalism is not due to the waning of
ideological affinities between governments. Rather, those affinities only
masked the structural limitations that had been diagnosed by Haas and
Schmitter for Central America in the early 1960s and by Burges for South
America in the new century.55 Once stagnation settles in, backsliding usually
follows. One explanation for this is the “bicycle theory,” a metaphor
suggesting that integration processes live in an unstable equilibrium so must
move forward in order to avoid backtracking—just like a bicycle has to keep
going to avoid falling over.56 Another explanation points to emulation. Just
like “the diffusion of regionalism, institutional designs, and regional
governance is primarily determined by indirect mechanisms of emulation
rather than by direct—‘sender driven’—influence mechanisms,”57 so is the
diffusion of nationalism and other antiregionalist forces.
The only forum that brings together all countries of the Western
Hemisphere except for the United States and Canada—the Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)—lacks legal status,
organizational structure, and institutional authority. The outcome is
a patchwork of segmented and overlapping regionalisms that lack
concentricity and cumulativeness.58 Some of these blocs are explicitly
outward-oriented, as signaled by the designation as “Pacific Alliance,” for
example.
An overview of Africa shows that the Latin American cases are by no
means exceptional. Notwithstanding high-tone, pan-African rhetoric, and the
formal umbrella of the African Union, the continent is fragmented into four
main subregions. The Arab states located north of the Sahara are linked to
the Middle East, an area that concentrates a particular set of political,
geopolitical, cultural, and religious expectations. In East Africa, and especially
in the Horn of Africa, frequent wars and failed states render integration
unthinkable. In contrast, regional organizations have been established and
endured in West and Southern Africa, although their performance has been
quite irregular to date.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was
founded in 1975, is made up of 15 member states, and mimics the
institutional structure of the EU. However, it is split between anglophone
and francophone countries, with the latter having since established a separate
organization with a common currency guaranteed by the French treasury.
This bloc is as dependent on the former colonial power as it is vulnerable to
internal conflicts and global turbulence. Finally, the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) set out its blueprints in 1980 and
consolidated in 1992 with 15 member states joining. Although South Africa
is the dominant one, effectively it only controls the four neighboring
countries that make up the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). The
outcomes of all this are as patchy as in Latin America.
The dynamics of fragmentation are at work on every continent. Krapohl
argues that “only East Asia was able to resist the trend in declining
regionalism,” since “the rise of regional powers in the Global South did not
lead to a renewed rise of regionalism”—and, today, “regionalism is also
challenged in the Global North.”59 This pushback, which has led to
a proliferation of studies on regional disintegration,60 is the result of
a worldwide process of power shifting from established powers to rising
states, but also to “secondary powers within regions and to actors other than
nation-states.”61 As recent studies on the foreign policy behavior of small
states have shown,62 this process “is providing smaller states with
unprecedented opportunities to ‘exit’ from their own regions by permitting
them to build commercial and political partnerships with a larger and varied
number of extra-regional powers.”63
There are regional powers everywhere; the same cannot be said of regional
leadership. Regional borders no longer restrain secondary powers, who can
drift towards extra-regional powers to escape from or at least alleviate
regional constraints. Transregional agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP), are among the alternative strategies that some states have
begun to explore. Just like the TPP had the United States (now withdrawn)
as pivot, Japan as deputy, and ten other countries as junior partners, the Belt
and Road Initiative is a strategy adopted by the Chinese government to
develop infrastructure and foster investment in countries in Europe, Asia, and
Africa. In both cases, a global power has sought to become the hub of
a network with extra-regional spokes, eventually splitting internally the
regions whose states they linked together.
The above dynamics are ubiquitous, but nevertheless manageable as long as
fragmentation does not lead to polarization. As Aron postulates, the
international system has two dimensions: the configuration of the relations of
forces (polarity) and the degree of homogeneity or heterogeneity.64 If great
powers—whether regional or global—do not upscale their rivalry, the
centrifugation of a region need not stir inner conflicts. Neighbors can live
with their backs to each other rather than at each other’s throat, as Argentina
and Brazil did for decades.
The foundation of regional institutions was considered to be more likely in
the face of high levels of regionalization. A recent report by the McKinsey
Global Institute confirms that regionalization, understood as “[t]he share of
trade in goods that occurred within a given region, rather than between
more far-flung regions,” declined from 51 percent in the year 2000 to
45 percent in 2012.65 While the report suggests that this trend was reversed
in 2013, there is in fact a mixed picture here: out of eight regions, only three
show growing regionalization, while in the others it continues to decrease or
remains stable. Remarkably, one of the three cases of increasing
regionalization is the Asia-Pacific region, which is obviously centered on
China. A second region, the EU-27, will most likely reverse the trend after
Brexit. The third case, the Middle East and North Africa, it is still the least
regionalized area anywhere in the world.66
The centrifugal dynamics we have described above are structural, not agency
driven. It is commonplace, both in Latin America and Africa, to blame a lack
of political will for the meager results of integration. However, we have shown
that national leaders have long rowed against the tide and maintained their
commitment to regionalism before conceding defeat and attempting alternative
strategies. Indeed, their efforts to go the regional way have led regional
organizations to proliferate—thus increasing international regime complexity,
and undermining rather than favoring the effectiveness of cooperation.67
Regionalism has peaked not because, but in spite of, political will.
Conclusion
Multipolarity and multilateralism are not interchangeable terms. The former
refers to structure, the latter to strategy. In this chapter we have argued that
while multipolarity is emerging as the dominant structure in the political,
economic, and climate change arenas, both multilateralism and regionalism are
declining as the preferred strategies of large and secondary powers alike. Even in
the EU, the most successful case of a regionalist approach to problem-solving,
conflicting preferences pulled the United Kingdom away from the organization
while inner tensions arising from a protracted and unresolved euro crisis
simultaneously threaten to break up the very core of the Union.
As multipolarity consolidates and with land contiguity not increasing
current levels of interdependence, demands for effective regional
governance decrease—though lip-service regionalism may still prosper.
Hence, large bodies of water become insufficient to deter overseas powers
from exerting a centrifugal effect on regional subsystems. Just as the moon
is closer to the Earth but the more massive sun exerts stronger gravitational
effects, so will the United States, China, and expectably India continue to
have dissolving effects on distant regional orders. Oceans can stop armies,
but not value chains. Since multilateralism has proven ever-more
ineffective, minilateralism might continue to proliferate as global issues are
dealt with by selected groups of powers irrespective of geography.
Likewise, different blends of coastal or transoceanic regionalism have taken
priority over traditional border-sharing regionalism, as secondary powers
become more inclined to conduct business with faraway partners rather
than with neighboring powers.
Proliferation, though, does not necessarily bring success: As the US
withdrawal from TPP laid bare, trans-regionalism is not inherently
guaranteed to work. Minilateralism has become a ubiquitous but—so far—
scarcely more effective strategy than multilateralism. Its practice nonetheless
continues to be favored because of the intangible benefits of belonging. If
a select club does not bring redistribution, it can at least provide
recognition.68
The times of multilateral and regional governance may not be over, but they
show signs of fatigue as size trumps proximity, maritime links trump landmass
contiguity, disruptive technologies downgrade the comparative advantage of
cheap labor, and smart grid systems bring independence from the localization
of fossil fuels. As multilateralism chokes, regionalism might not only develop
slower than expected but even reverse pace. If this happens, Brexit will be
remembered as a pioneering rather than exceptional case—and the troubled
Latin American experience with integration will become mainstream.
Notes
1 Andrés Malamud acknowledges the Brazilian Association of International Rela-
tions (ABRI), the EU-LAC Foundation, and the Global Governance Programme
of the European University Institute (EUI) for funding his attendance at events
where preliminary versions were presented. Permanent support was provided by
Portugal’s Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Project UID/SOC/50013/
2013) and Spain’s Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Project CSO2016-76130-P).
Eduardo Viola acknowledges the support of the Institute of International Rela-
tions of the University of Brasilia and the funding of the Brazilian Council for
Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) through a productivity fel-
lowship. Both authors thank Octavio Amorim Neto, Alexandra Barahona de
Brito, Thomas Christiansen, Carlos Closa, Jorge Garzón, Detlef Nolte, Stefano
Palestini, Thomas Risse, and Brigitte Weiffen for their insights and comments.
All shortcomings are stubbornly ours.
2 As Celso Amorim, Lula’s foreign minister, put it in 2009, “multilateralism is the
normative expression of multipolarity” (Itamaraty 2009, Aula Inaugural Proferida
pelo Ministro das Relacoes Exteriores Embaixador Celso Amorim, www.itamaraty.gov.
br/pt-BR/discursos-artigos-e-entrevistas/ministro-das-relacoes-exteriores-discur
sos/8041-aula-inaugural-proferida-pelo-ministro-das-relacoes-exteriores-embaixa
dor-celso-amorim-por-ocasiao-da-abertura-do-curso-de-relacoes-internacionais-
da-universidade-federal-do-rio-de-janeiro-rio-de-janeiro-13-04-2009).
3 Mathew Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism: Patterns of Engagement
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).
4 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2001).
5 Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Norms and Regional Orders,” in International Relations
Theory and Regional Transformation, ed. T. V. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2012), 183–209.
6 Andrew Hurrell, On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of Inter-
national Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
7 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Key Statis-
tics and Trends in International Trade (2017).
8 Barry Buzan, “A World Order without Superpowers: Decentred Globalism,”
International Relations 25, no 1 (2011): 3–25.
9 Raimo Väyrynen, “Regionalism: Old and New,” International Studies Review 5,
no. 1 (2003): 25–51 (45).
10 Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs 70, no. 1 (1990/91):
23–33.
11 Samuel Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 2 (1999):
35–49.
12 Richard N. Haass, “The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow U.S. Domin-
ance,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3 (2008): 44–56.
13 Respectively by Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum, “Theorizing the Rise of
‘Regionness’,” New Political Economy 5, no. 3 (2000): 457–473; David A. Lake
and Patrick M. Morgan, Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (Univer-
sity Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Mohammed Ayoob,
“From Regional System to Regional Society: Exploring Key Variables in the
Construction of Regional Order,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 53, no.
3 (1999): 247–260; Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure
of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Amitav
Acharya, “The Emerging Regional Architecture of World Politics,” World Politics
59, no. 4 (2007): 629–652.
14 Acharya, “The Emerging Regional Architecture of World Politics.”
15 Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium
16 Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, Diffusing (Inter-) Regionalism: The EU as
a Model of Regional Integration, KFG Working Paper Series, no. 7 (Berlin, Ger-
many: Free University Berlin, 2009).
17 Jorge F. Garzón Pereira, “Hierarchical Regional Orders: An Analytical Frame-
work,” Journal of Policy Modeling 36, no. 1 (2014): 26–46 (29); Aaron
L. Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar Asia,” Inter-
national Security 18, no. 3 (1993/94): 5–33 (6).
18 Jorge F. Garzón, “Multipolarity and the Future of Economic Regionalism,” Inter-
national Theory 9, no. 1 (2017): 101–135.
19 Hannes Ebert and Daniel Flemes, eds., Regional Powers and Contested Leadership
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
20 Júlio César Cossio Rodriguez, “Chacal ou Cordeiro? O Brasil frente aos desafios
e oportunidades do Sistema Internacional,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional
55, no. 2 (2012): 70–89.
21 Andrés Malamud, “A Leader without Followers? The Growing Divergence
Between the Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign Policy,”
Latin American Politics and Society 53, no. 3 (2011): 1–24.
22 Luis L. Schenoni, “Brasil en América del Sur: la lógica de la unipolaridad
regional,” Nueva Sociedad 250 (2014): 138–149.
23 Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
24 Karl Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1957).
25 Presidência da Republica Federativa do Brasil, Livro Branco de Defesa Nacional
(Brasília: Presidência da Republica Federativa do Brasil, 2012).
26 Adriana Erthal Abdenur, Frank Mattheis and Pedro Seabra, “An Ocean for the
Global South: Brazil and the Zone of Peace and Cooperation in the South Atlan-
tic,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 29, no. 3 (2016): 1112–1131.
27 Paulo Roberto de Almeida, Nunca antes na Diplomacia: A Política Externa Brasileira
em tempos não convencionais (Curitiba, Brazil: Editora Appris, 2014).
28 Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What
Can be Done about It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
29 Peter Draper and Sören Scholvin, “The Gateway to Africa? Geography and
South Africa’s Role as an Economic Hinge Joint between Africa and the World,”
South African Journal of International Affairs 19, no. 3 (2012): 381–400; Sören Schol-
vin and Andrés Malamud, Is There a Geoeconomic Node in South America? Geog-
raphy, Politics and Brazil’s Role in Regional Economic Integration, ICS Working Paper
no. 2 (Lisbon, Portugal: University of Lisbon, 2014), http://www.ics.ul.pt/publi
cacoes/workingpapers/wp2014/wp2014_2.pdf.
30 Keith Head and Thierry Mayer, “Illusory Border Effects: Distance Mismeasure-
ment Inflates Estimates of Home Bias in Trade,” in The Gravity Model in Inter-
national Trade: Advances and Applications, ed. Steven Brakman and Peter van
Bergeijk (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 165–192.
31 Chad P. Brown, Daniel Lederman, Samuel Pienknagura and Raymond Robert-
son, Better Neighbors: Toward a Renewal of Economic Integration in Latin America
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017).
32 World Bank, World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009).
33 Alfred Tovias, The Brave New World of Cross-Regionalism, CEPII Working Paper,
no. 2008–03 (Paris, France: CEPII, 2008), 4.
34 Amrita Narlikar, “A Trade War on the Poor. How a Collapse of the WTO
Would Hurt the Worst Off,” Foreign Affairs, 5 March 2018, https://www.foreign
affairs.com/articles/2018-03-05/trade-war-poor.
35 Lisa Martin, “Interests, Power, and Multilateralism,” International Organization 46,
no. 4 (1992): 765–792 (773).
36 Moisés Naím, “Minilateralism: The Magic Number to Get Real International
Action,” Foreign Policy, 22 June 2009, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/
2009/06/18/minilateralism.
37 Miles Kahler, “Multilateralism with Small and Large Numbers,” International
Organization 46, no. 3 (1992): 681–708.
38 Jorge Garzón and Detlef Nolte, “The New Minilateralism in Regional Economic
Governance: Crossregionalism and the Pacific Alliance,” in Routledge Handbook of
South American Governance, ed. Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde (London
and New York: Routledge, 2018), 173–189.
39 Mélanie Albaret, Bertrand Badie, Kanti Bajpai, Oleg Demidov, Nicola Hors-
burgh, Adam Humphreys, Andrew Hurrell, Konstanze Jüngling, Charles Kup-
chan, Delphine Lagrange, Kyle Lascurettes, Siddharth Mallavarapu, Sara Bjerg
Moller, Daniel Müller, Harald Müller, Alexander Nikitin, Weizhun Mao, Zhon-
gying Pang, Carsten Rauch, Matthias Schulz and Iris Wurm, A Twenty-First Cen-
tury Concert of Powers—Promoting Great Power Multilateralism for the Post-Transatlantic
Era (Frankfurt, Germany: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, 2014).
40 Chris Brummer, Minilateralism: How Trade Alliances, Soft Law and Financial Engineering
are Redefining Economic Statecraft (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
41 Francis Baert, Tiziana Scaramagli and Fredrik Söderbaum, eds., “Introduction:
Intersecting Interregionalism,” in Intersecting Interregionalism. Regions, Global Gov-
ernance and the EU, ed. Francis Baert, Tiziana Scaramagli and Fredrik Söderbaum
(Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2014), 1–12 (5).
42 Christopher Sabatini, “Meaningless Multilateralism. In International Diplomacy,
South America Chooses Quantity over Quality,” Foreign Affairs, 8 August 2014,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141697/christopher-sabatini/meaningless-
multilateralism. See also: Martin, “Interests, Power, and Multilateralism.”
43 Naím, “Minilateralism: The Magic Number to Get Real International Action.”
44 Gian Luca Gardini and Andrés Malamud, “Debunking Interregionalism: Con-
cepts, Types, and Critique—With a Pan-Atlantic Focus,” in Interregionalism across
the Atlantic Space, ed. Frank Mattheis and Andréas Litsegård (Dordrecht, Nether-
lands: Springer, 2018), 15–31.
45 Bryan Walsh, “Capping Carbon: In Copenhagen, a Last-Minute Deal that Satis-
fies Few,” Time, 18 December 2009, http://content.time.com/time/specials/pack
ages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1948974,00.html.
46 Eduardo Viola, Matias Franchini and Thais Lemos Ribeiro, Sistema Internacional de
Hegemonia Conservadora. Governança Global e Democracia na Era da Crise Climática
(São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Annablume, 2013).
47 Eduardo Viola and Matias Franchini, “Brazilian Climate Politics, 2005–2012:
Ambivalence and Paradox,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 5, no. 5
(2014): 677–688.
48 Eduardo Viola and Matias Franchini, Brazil and Climate Change: Beyond the
Amazon (London and New York: Routledge, 2018).
49 Robert Keohane and Michael Oppenheimer, “Paris: Beyond the Climate Dead
End through Pledge and Review?” Politics and Governance 4, no. 3 (2016):
142–151.
50 Andrés Malamud and Philippe C. Schmitter, “The Experience of European Inte-
gration and the Potential for Integration in South America,” in New Regionalism
and the European Union. Dialogues, Comparisons and New Research Directions, ed.
Alex Warleigh-Lack, Nick Robinson, and Ben Rosamond (London and
New York: Routledge, 2011), 135–157.
51 Andrés Malamud and Gian Luca Gardini, “Has Regionalism Peaked? The Latin
American Quagmire and Its Lessons,” The International Spectator 47, no. 1 (2012):
116–133 (125).
52 Nicola Phillips and Germán C. Prieto, “The Demise of New Regionalism.
Reframing the Study of Contemporary Regional Integration in Latin America,”
in New Regionalism and the European Union. Dialogues, Comparisons and New
Research Directions, ed. Alex Warleigh-Lack, Nick Robinson and Ben Rosamond
(London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 116–134; Andrés Malamud, “El
Mercosur: misión cumplida,” Revista SAAP 7, no. 2 (2013): 275–282.
53 Robert E. Kelly, “Security Theory in the ‘New Regionalism’,” International Stud-
ies Review 9, no. 2 (2007): 197–229.
54 Carlos Portales, “Where is Multilateralism Going in the Americas? Overlapping
Organizations in a Period of Global Change,” Lua Nova 90 (2013): 203–241.
55 Ernst B. Haas and Philippe C. Schmitter, “Economics and Differential Patterns of
Organization 18, no. 4 (1964): 705–737; Sean W. Burges, “Without Sticks or
Carrots: Brazilian Leadership in South America during the Cardoso Era,
1992–2003,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 25, no. 1 (2006): 23–42.
56 Bowman H. Miller, “Tomorrow’s Europe: A Never Closer Union,” Journal of
European Integration 39, no. 4 (2017): 421–433.
57 Thomas Risse, “The Diffusion of Regionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Com-
parative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2016), 87–108.
58 Andrés Malamud, Overlapping Regionalism, No Integration: The Latin American
Experiences, EUI Working Paper RSCAS 20 (Florence, Italy: European University
Institute, 2013); and Malamud and Gardini, “Has Regionalism Peaked? The Latin
American Quagmire and Its Lessons.”
59 Sebastian Krapohl, “Regionalism: In Crisis?” in The Palgrave Handbook of Contem-
porary International Political Economy, ed. Timothy M. Shaw, Laura C. Mahrenbach,
Renu Modi and Xu Yi-chong (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 89–101.
60 Carlos Closa, ed., Secession from a Member State and Withdrawal from the European
Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Erik Jones, “Towards
a Theory of Disintegration,” Journal of European Public Policy 25, no. 3 (2018):
440–451; Benjamin Leruth, Stefan Gänzle and Jarle Trondal, Differentiated Integra-
tion and Disintegration in the European Union: State-of-the-art and Ways for Future
Research, ISL Working Paper 2017–1 (Kristiansand, Norway: University of Agder,
2017), http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2445530; Philippe C. Schmitter and Zoe Lef-
kofridi, “Neo-Functionalism as a Theory of Disintegration,” Chinese Political Sci-
ence Review 1 (2016): 1–29; Hans Vollaard, “Explaining European Disintegration,”
Journal of Common Market Studies 52, no. 5 (2014): 1142–1159; Jan Zielonka,
“Disintegration Theory: International Implications of Europe’s Crisis,” Georgetown
Journal of International Affairs 13, no. 1 (2012): 51–59.
61 Haass, “The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow U.S. Dominance.”
62 Evelyn Goh, “Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing
Regional Security Strategies,” International Security 32, no. 3 (2008): 113–157;
Paul Kubicek, “The Commonwealth of Independent States: An Example of
Failed Regionalism?” Review of International Studies 35 (2009): 237–256.
63 Garzón Pereira, “Hierarchical Regional Orders: An Analytical Framework,” 30.
64 Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday & Company, 1966), 147.
65 McKinsey Global Institute, Globalization in Transition: The Future of Trade and
Value Chains (Washington, DC: McKinsey & Company, 2019).
66 Ibid., 39.
67 Laura Gómez-Mera, “International Regime Complexity and Regional Govern-
ance: Evidence from the Americas,” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism
and International Organizations 21, no. 1 (2015), 19–42.
68 Philip Nel, “Redistribution and Recognition: What Emerging Regional Powers
Want,” Review of International Studies 36, no. 4 (2010): 951–974.
Part II
Europe
4 Constructing integration
Resilience and political innovation in
the EU
Ana Paula Tostes
The European Union (EU) has been the model for regional integration in
the post-war period. Progress toward integration, however, has been neither
steady nor easy. The unfinished construction process has been full of
breakdowns, exceptions, and unanticipated events. The global financial crash
originating in the United States generated a series of sovereign debt crises in
southern Europe from 2009 onwards. These events exposed the weaknesses
and limits of the monetary union to all the member states and citizens of the
EU, as they brought the asymmetries between and disagreements among
member states to light. The discrepancies between national banking systems
also proved problematic.1 While still grappling with the economic crisis,
Europe faced the biggest migratory crisis since World War II. This triggered
a race to find common solutions, and disagreements between Eastern and
Western Europe began to surface. We witnessed an increase in intolerance
and the growth of Euroscepticism and extreme right-wing populism in
Europe, which culminated in the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the
EU in 2016. What impact has this series of crises had on the ambitious
European project to be a zone of peace, stability, and democracy? What
diagnosis can we make for the overall health of the EU?
The main argument of this chapter is that constructing the EU has been
a turbulent and complicated process. However, to see the current challenges
and recent crises as an existential threat to the Union’s model of regionalism
is short-sighted. On the contrary, the EU’s innovative institutional
architecture and its ability to adapt through its common policies and political
coordination strongly indicate that the process of regional integration may
have become irreversible. The level of legal integration and the development
of the sense of a common citizenship work as driving forces of a political
union and social amalgamation.
First, I argue that the EU’s institutions have proven capable of surviving
changes in national preferences in member states and resisting external shocks.
The EU has become a reliable instrument with which to tackle the new
national and global challenges faced by the member states. Not only has it
resisted numerous crises for close to 70 years now, but there has been
a continuous process to reform and strengthen the EU’s institutions. These
68 Ana Paula Tostes
institutions have developed new functions and taken on an increasingly
important role in the lives of European citizens and societies.2
Second, European public attitudes confirm that the EU’s policies have
become the preferred response to national political and economic crises.
According to European public opinion surveys, having European citizenship
is perceived as an asset: in all EU member states, more than half of the
population feel that they are citizens of the EU; on average, 70 percent of
respondents in the EU as a whole share this feeling. The EU institutions are
viewed as more important than the national ones, and even more
trustworthy.3 These are examples of perceptions that help us understand
Europeans’ positive view of the EU.
In other words, contrary to the accounts claiming that regionalism is under
stress, this chapter argues that the EU already appears too big to fail, even if
it is facing difficult times and changes in trajectory. Through institutional
innovations, the EU has found regional solutions to global and national
challenges which the Europeans perceive as being better resolved when
addressed via close cooperation.4 Thus, although the EU often undergoes
reform, I see this as adaptability instead of failure, or renovation rather than
rigidity.
Stress factors facing the EU and the resilience of its institutions

For almost a decade now, Europe has faced crises that have called its capacity
to overcome challenges into question, such as economic and cultural
differences among countries in the region, changes in the political spectrum
and leadership in certain countries, and new internal divisions between the
East and the West, among others. When we examine the process undertaken
to build the EU, however, we find an economic and political architecture
constructed in the midst of several types of tensions. The European
integration project emerged in the context of the plans to rebuild Europe in
the middle of the twentieth century. Since then, it has gone through the
Cold War; German reunification; the resurgence of nationalisms with the
reconfiguration of Eastern Europe after the demise of the Soviet Union; and
the economic crises of the 1970s, 1990s, and the first decade of this century.
More recently, it has faced a new migration crisis, the re-emergence of
political extremist groups, terrorism, and even a member state’s decision to
withdraw.
The EU is not just constituted by the institutional and legal structure
agreed upon and established in its founding treaties (the Treaty of Paris and
the Treaty of Rome) in the 1950s. Its institutional and legal structure today is
the result of rules, institutions, competences, and powers that were revised
and consolidated through several reform treaties: the Merger Treaty (1965),
the Single European Act (1986) and the treaties of Maastricht (1992),
Amsterdam (1997), Nice (2001), and Lisbon (2007).5 Other important
defining elements are the rulings of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU),
Constructing integration 69
which have framed the Community’s legal structure, and judicial decisions
that established the founding principles for a new European body of law in
the 1960s. The latter includes the principles of the supremacy of European
community law over national law and the direct effect of community law.6
More recently, the economic crisis resulted in a reform of the EU’s powers
in the area of financial supervision.7
Even though the EU has served as a model of regional integration for
other parts of the world in the post-war period, its own road to integration
has been neither smooth nor easy. In fact, the best way to outline the history
of the EU is through the story of its deadlocks, changes in plan, crises,
adjustments, and adaptations, and not by looking at its unanimous decisions
and continuities. There is a widespread belief that previous crises have helped
to advance European integration.8 A more realistic way of understanding
European integration is thus to consider it a work in progress capable of
guaranteeing its own survival, even if this means altering its course.
Disagreements and hard times have often revealed the weak points in the
EU’s institutional architecture. However, throughout the EU’s history, we have
seen crises culminate in reforms instead of undermining its institutions. Crisis
situations have caused delays in projects or adaptations, but they have not had
the power to stop the implementation of reforms that have empowered the
EU’s institutions. Since the first serious crisis in 1965, known as the “empty
chair crisis,” there have been some setbacks in the development and expansion
of the supranational policies for the formation of a single market, as was the case
with the common agricultural market. Yet, at the time of the first serious crisis,
Charles de Gaulle did not succeed in preventing changes to the Council of
Ministers’ decision-making method. To provide a more recent example, in
2005, French and Dutch voters’ rejection of the treaty establishing
a Constitution for Europe threw the EU into a deep crisis. However, the crisis
did not halt the adoption of the necessary institutional reforms, which were
implemented through the Lisbon Treaty a few years later.9
Nevertheless, the past decade can be seen as a period in which the EU’s
resilience was put to the most complex and concentrated series of tests in its
history. I focus on three key dimensions of crisis to develop this chapter’s
argument. The first is the global economic crisis that hit Europe in 2008,
causing the Eurozone crisis in 2009. The second is the peak of the migratory
crisis in 2015, which generated social and political problems and contributed
to the rise of nationalist parties. The third dimension is the disintegrative
tendencies fueled by the aforementioned crises, which culminated in the
Brexit referendum.
The Eurozone crisis

The international economic crisis hit Europe in 2008, setting off a series of
convulsions, one after the other, in 2009. The EU experienced the worst
economic performance in its history in 2009, with the Eurozone’s GDP
70 Ana Paula Tostes
decreasing by 4.1 percent. This situation affected the stability of national
banks, consumption, and the labor market throughout the region.10
Since the EU has never had supranational authority to make decisions on
a common method for achieving and maintaining economic stability, any
approach has always been assessed and implemented according to the
decisions and needs of each member state. In the area of monetary policy,
the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) obliged member
states to achieve common standards in the areas of national economic policy
and fiscal and budgetary planning. To be admitted to and remain in the
Eurozone, countries must ensure that they have a minimum amount of
institutional and economic resources and complete the stages of adjustment to
fulfil the euro convergence criteria.11 The national strategies they employ to
do so vary according to their national context and characteristics. Hence, the
EMU proposes a model of governance, but with no government instruments
capable of imposing, for example, specific reforms or mechanisms of fiscal
control on national decision makers.
Although supranational jurisdiction over the management of European
monetary policy has been established, fiscal and taxation policy remains under
the sovereign control and the responsibility of the member states. The European
Commission, which is the EU’s executive body with supranational powers,
makes only non-binding recommendations on the measures that member states
should take to adapt to the euro convergence criteria. Economists see this
arrangement as overly risky. However, establishing supranational fiscal policies
would imply turning the EU into a federation, something the member states are
not willing to do. It is worth highlighting, however, that the Eurozone crisis led
European citizens, intellectuals, and political leaders to question why the EU
had so little power to intervene, even on a preventative basis, to make
adjustments in countries that did not meet their stability targets.
In a quick response to the international turbulence following
November 2008, the European Commission proposed an European Economic
Recovery Plan designed to relaunch the European economy. It contained
short-term recommendations and measures to restore investors’ confidence and
support growth.12 In 2010, temporary measures were also taken and it became
clearer that there was a need to go beyond fiscal governance to create
mechanisms of cooperation between national parliaments and the European
Parliament for more coordinated action on the fiscal policies of Eurozone
member states. Negotiations continued until 2012, when a model of
supranational bank supervision—the Single Supervisory Mechanism—was
proposed to avoid collapses in the Eurozone in the future.13 Several phases of
negotiation followed, with the goal of building “a genuine Economic and
Monetary Union” in which the commission played a strong leadership and
coordinating role. In 2014, a new system that expanded the powers of the
European Central Bank was adopted. Thus, while the crisis revealed weaknesses
in the EMU, it resulted in the empowerment of the European Central Bank in
ways that its creators and supporters had not foreseen.
These new measures established, for example, a kind of “golden rule” on
budgetary control: the countries were to commit to adopting the national
laws or even constitutional amendments necessary to fulfil the goals
established in the treaty. The powers of the European Commission and the
Court of Justice of the EU were strengthened by giving them new powers to
control member states. Based on its conclusions from its meeting in the first
half of 2012, the Council of the EU decided that strengthening budgetary
discipline would not be enough and that the expansion of the monetary
union’s “fiscal capacity” should therefore be studied in depth. This would
mean taking a step beyond governance towards the establishment of new
budgetary powers for the EU.
The crisis thus served as a stimulus to deepen integration and strengthen
the EU’s supranational powers. The Eurozone crisis breathed new life into
the hypothesis that crises are instrumental to the trajectory of European
integration, driving the integration process forward. Since 2008, the solutions
agreed upon by Eurozone members have not weakened but rather
strengthened the EU’s powers in the banking and financial sectors. EU
institutions have gained the power to exert financial control over member
states thanks to the adoption of a new mechanism to supervise financial
institutions in the region and to pressure national parliaments to adopt
adjustment measures in preparation for its implementation. The granting of
these new powers to European institutions was undoubtedly an unexpected
consequence of criticism of the limits of the EU in the Eurozone, such as its
lack of effective instruments or the incapacity of European institutions to deal
with asymmetries within the Eurozone and prevent the sovereign debt crises.
The migration crisis and the rise of nationalism

In 2014, just as the most stable economies of the EU started to recover, the
exponential increase in the number of requests for asylum led to greater social
insecurity in Europe. In 2015, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing
conflict, war, religious intolerance, and human rights violations reached the
southern shores of Europe. This situation was evident in the results of public
opinion polls almost immediately: immigration became the third most
important concern of Europeans in 2014, and it was at the top of the list in
2015.14 This shift in concerns in the region helps us understand the
nationalist “setback” and the increase in support for right-wing populist
ideologies that promote intolerance towards immigrants.
The EU integration project was the result of the commitment of pro-
European leaders of the mainstream political parties in the region: the Social
Democrats, Liberals, Christian Democrats, and Conservatives—that is, the
parties that have dominated European politics in the national bodies of Western
Europe and regional EU institutions since the end of World War II.15 In light
of the political innovations introduced by the EU since the 1990s, authors such
as Herbert Kitschelt, Thomas Poguntke, and Susan Scarrow have sought to
72 Ana Paula Tostes
identify the consequences of regional integration for European electoral
behavior and the European political party systems.16 In the midst of the
economic crisis that the EU faced from 2008 onwards, a widespread perception
that the traditional political parties were not managing the EU government in
a satisfactory manner was already undermining European confidence in political
institutions. This created fertile ground for the emergence of party alternatives
and, in particular, growing support for the extremist vote and nationalist
reactions to mainstream political leaders.
This trend was reinforced by the migration crisis. The largest migration
flows in Europe since World War II, coupled with security concerns related
to open borders and recurrent episodes of terrorism, created a strong sense of
insecurity and lack of protection, leading the migration crisis to rapidly
become a crisis of political principles: a crisis of Europe’s own identity.
Divisions and opportunist reactions emerged, and support for Eurosceptic
views increased, while EU institutions began looking for a regional solution
to manage the crisis and support the Mediterranean countries, which could
not master the situation without assistance from the EU.
After a series of meetings and close to ten summits dedicated to the
issue of immigration in 2015 alone, it became clear that the crisis would
not be resolved simply through policies for and consensus within the
European region. The EU needed to turn to partners abroad and engage
in negotiations and efforts to cooperate with African countries and Turkey.
In 2015, the International Organization for Migration estimated that close
to one million immigrants and refugees who had entered the EU had
travelled on clandestine boats from Turkey to Greece.17 An agreement
with Turkey on a joint action plan signed in March 2016 drastically
reduced—at least temporarily—illegal immigration along the Turkey-
Greece route. Despite such initiatives, the immigration issue has not been
entirely resolved and managing migration flows continues to be a major
challenge for the EU.
Another possible assessment of this crisis is that the EU has assumed the
responsibility to address certain problems in the region on behalf of the
member states. There are restricted national possibilities for resolving global
and transnational issues, and the EU has been playing a protagonist role in
that respect. The problem of immigration, for example, has been managed
with new forms of inclusion: EU institutions and policies have been helping
immigrants by offering them social and educational programs, and by
pressuring member states to respect human rights.
Trends toward disintegration

The economic recovery in most of the region from 2014 onwards coincided
with the peak of the migration crisis. After receiving financial assistance from
the European Financial Stability Facility and the International Monetary
Fund, Ireland’s growth resumed, although at a very modest rate, as did
Spain’s, in 2011 (although Spain still had the highest unemployment rate in
the EU, at approximately 27 percent in 2012).18 Countries such as Greece
(whose unemployment rate also reached the 27 percent mark) and Portugal
were negotiating with the heads of the EU while dealing with political
storms at home. The price that Ireland, Portugal, and Spain had to pay for
their economic recovery was the implementation of austerity measures such
as tax increases, cuts in public spending, and the curtailing of social benefits;
but by 2013 they all had resumed growth. Greece undoubtedly stands out as
being the most dependent on financial assistance on the one hand, and the
most resistant to taking unpopular decisions on austerity reforms on the
other. Tensions arose between Greece, Brussels, and Germany, and the
Greeks struggled with a sovereign debt crisis that impacted the general
perception of European governance. This gave rise to reinterpretations of the
limits and excesses of European institutions.
The economic crisis hit Greece in an unpredictable way. As a result of the
sovereign debt crisis shaking the country in the aftermath of the global
financial crisis, Greece needed a financial bailout from the EU. Prominent
politicians such as German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble mooted the
threat of a Greek exit from the Eurozone (“Grexit”), and Greek public
opinion towards the Troika and Germany became increasingly hostile. At the
same time, a majority of the Greek population (69 percent in May 2015) was
in favor of remaining in the economic and monetary union and continuing
to use the euro.19 In 2015, after an arm-wrestling match between the
Troika20 and the Greek government, a referendum was called by Alexis
Tsipras, prime minister and leader of the SYRIZA coalition. It focused
mainly on accepting or rejecting the terms of the financial rescue program
proposed by the Troika and the decision on remaining in the Eurozone.
Even though 61 percent of Greeks voted “no” to the terms of the
agreements, the negotiations on the financial rescue package went ahead and
the austerity reforms were later implemented in order to keep Greece in the
Eurozone. This created a rift in the Tsipras administration and in his party.
He resigned and called for snap elections to regain enough legitimacy to
continue with the negotiations. The economic crisis and the conditions
imposed as part of the various bailout packages arguably contributed to the
rise of Eurosceptical views and the electoral successes of anti-European left-
wing populist parties in Greece.
Contrary to the case in Greece, the economic crisis was not the real
turning point in British Euroscepticism. The decision to hold an “in/out
referendum” on EU membership was made by David Cameron, and
Eurosceptics took it as a golden opportunity. Even though Brexiteers21 based
their arguments on the strategic importance of the United Kingdom’s
withdrawal from the EU for the sake of the country’s economy and taking back
control of its domestic market, the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) classifies the United Kingdom as the country with
the least regulated economy in Europe, and World Bank ratings list it as one of
74 Ana Paula Tostes
the countries with which it is easiest to do business. To better understand British
Euroscepticism, one must take into account the public mood on regional
integration even before the economic crisis erupted.
Long before the struggles related to Brexit, Risse published a relevant
analysis of the different concepts of identity that European countries may
have, which help to better understand a possible sense of belonging to
a community of European citizens. In the British case, in particular, the
author affirmed that British people view Europeans as “the others,” albeit
friendly “others.”22 The UK’s long-standing overseas relationship with its
former colony the United States and its territorial isolation explain, in part,
the British perception of the “otherness” of countries on the European
continent.23 It was for the UK that the EU invented the opt-out clauses—
namely, the exemption from certain integration steps such as participation in
the Schengen area and the adoption of the euro—which other countries have
also taken advantage of. The UK is, after all, the only member that has
decided to withdraw. The difficult negotiations on the terms of Brexit,
however, have shown that the populist promises were completely void of
content and that populists have been unable to keep their word.
The boost in support for populism and nationalism in the EU is, in fact,
related to the rise of Euroscepticism, which is often justified with criticism of
the limitations or excesses of the EU’s policies. There is a correlation
between the decline of confidence in the EU and of its “positive image” and
the growth of left- and right-wing extremism and Euroscepticism during the
periods of crisis. However, it is possible that when European institutions and
rules are trusted and seen as effective, a positive evaluation of EU institutions
as well as a positive evaluation of belonging to Europe are not necessarily
incompatible with nationalism. Moreover, Mudde highlighted that the rise of
political extremism represents a major challenge to liberal democracy in the
twenty-first century, not only in Europe but around the world.24 The
growth of nationalism is not related only to a pushback against regional
integration; it is also due to global and national challenges equally present in
other countries which would certainly affect European countries with or
without membership of the EU.
The EU from the citizens’ perspective

While regional integration in Europe is a construction built by governments,
public attitudes play an important role in measuring the legitimacy of EU
policies.25 By observing citizens’ reactions, it is possible to understand the
sense of attachment to regional institutions, rules, laws, policies, and rights. In
the following, I draw on results from the Eurobarometer surveys to explore
citizen’s assessments of the performance of EU institutions in crisis
management as well as their general attitudes toward the EU.26
As economic development has been a key motivation for European
integration, economic performance impacts political attitudes. The literature
has confirmed that macroeconomic performance influences citizens’ support
for European integration.27 According to Gabel, European citizens evaluate
the EU on the basis of their personal comparative advantages.28 In other
words, Europeans tend to assess the EU based on their ability to take
advantage of the gains offered through the common market. After an initial
increase in resistance to the euro, the rejection of and mistrust towards the
monetary union and the euro have been slowly on the decline since 2013. In
2012, 52 percent of all Europeans were in favor of the EMU and the euro.29
When we disaggregate the data, they reveal that the countries of the
Eurozone have always shown more support for EU institutions: the levels
were already at 63 percent in 2012, and after some fluctuations, they reached
69 percent in 2015.30 To put it differently, while the countries that did not
adopt the euro (such as the UK, Denmark, and Sweden) were becoming
increasingly skeptical and wary, those that are part of the Eurozone did not
lose their confidence in the monetary union and often saw their own
national government as responsible for the economic crisis. More than six out
of ten Europeans favor “a European economic and monetary union with one
single currency, the euro,” and this support reached 74 percent in the euro
area in 2018.31
The Eurozone and sovereign-debt crises thus did not undermine
Europeans’ support for economic and monetary integration. Therefore,
before any hasty conclusion about the possible death of the most ambitious
regional integration project on the planet is made, there are indications that
public opinion has been more concerned with the stress factors facing the
region than with the EU proper. An analysis of public attitudes over time
shows that during the economic crisis period, the issue of unemployment
ranked first on the list of “the most important issues facing the EU,” up until
2014. After 2014, immigration and terrorism appeared as the two top
concerns of European people for a couple of years.32
Yet, if we can identify the centrifugal forces at play during the economic
crisis in Europe (between 2008 and 2014), we can also find centripetal forces.
Citizens were asked questions about the consequences of the crisis and how
they related to the EU. The answers reveal an understanding among
Europeans that the EU has taken steps in the right direction to resolve the
economic crisis. While confidence in national and European political
institutions initially wavered during the crisis, the European public affirmed
that EU institutions were more efficient in dealing with the problems in the
region and thought that they should be given effective tools to handle the
economic crisis.33 At the time of the economic turbulence, Europeans were
asked about “measures to combat the crisis” and a very large majority (more
than 70 percent) were in favor of “a more important role for the EU in
regulating financial services.”34 Also, 85 percent of Europeans answered that
they tended to “totally agree” that “as a consequence of the crisis, EU
countries will have to work more closely together.”35 Since 2013, the level
of confidence in European institutions has risen and the perception that these
76 Ana Paula Tostes
institutions are capable of handling the crisis in the region has increased. Both
perceptions thus appear to be growing and positive trends.36 Not only has
the European public consistently indicated that they place more trust in EU
institutions than in national political institutions (national government and
national parliament), they have also blamed national governments, and not
the EU, for the crisis.37 These are examples of how difficult it is to conclude
that regional solutions were not seen as possible or credible amid the trauma
of the economic crisis in Europe.
Since 2014, the economic situation in Europe has been perceived to be
under control in the majority of the member states, with a few exceptions;
optimism increased from 48 percent in 2011 to 56 percent in 2014.38 This
also led Europeans’ confidence to start increasing once again, from 31 percent
in 2014 to 42 percent in 2017.39 An indication of the positive view of the
EU’s role is the belief that Europeans should be even more united under
crises situations. Close to 42 percent of the European public agreed that “as
a consequence of the crisis, they feel closer to the citizens of other Member
States.”40 In the same study, 63 percent of respondents agreed that the EU
“has sufficient powers and instruments to defend Europe’s economic interests
in the global economy.” And in the long run, 53 percent of the population
believes that “the EU will come out of the crisis even stronger.”
As regards the attitude of European citizens towards the EU in general, in
2018, the Eurobarometer asked people if they had a positive or a negative
view of the EU. In general, 40 percent of the European public answered that
they have a “totally positive image” of the EU, and just over a fifth of
Europeans have a “totally negative image” of the EU (21 percent).41 It is
true, however, that the positive image fared better before the economic crisis,
when about 50 percent of the Europeans had a “totally positive image” of
the EU. Is this difference sufficient to conclude that Europeans would prefer
to live outside the regional integration project, or on the contrary, that they
would like to see an even stronger structure for regional institutions? The
main critique mentioned during the economic crises in the Eurozone was the
lack of tools to avoid the sovereign debt crisis in the region. This suggests
that Europeans would like to see even stronger EU institutions.
Throughout a long period of declining confidence in European institutions
in general,42 a perception also existed among the European public that EU
institutions were more efficient than national ones and that their powers to
deal with the economic crisis should be increased.43 According to a special
survey on Europeans’ views on the future of the EU, the majority said that
they support more European-level decision-making in a range of areas,
particularly in fighting terrorism (82 percent), promoting democracy and
peace (77 percent), protecting the environment (76 percent), dealing with
migration from outside the EU (73 percent), and promoting equal treatment
of men and women (71 percent).44 Other results also indicate Europeans’
satisfaction with the EU. Close to 89 percent of the people surveyed said that
they were happy in their countries, and 78 percent, to be part of the EU. In
regard to support for policies pursued at the community level, 66 percent are
in favor of a common foreign policy, 72 percent favor a common energy
policy, 75 percent favor a common defense and security policy, and
69 percent favor a common European policy on migration.45 All this
indicates that Europeans clearly expect or would support strengthening the
EU and the development of common policies in the mentioned areas.
Although Europeans have answered that they “feel like European citizens”
in the Eurobarometer surveys,46 it is important to continue scrutinizing the
European public’s support for the EU. This is the best way to check whether
the project of social integration can continue, and what the possibilities are
that a collective European identity will emerge.
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that the EU has played a central role among
European political elites in guiding European development since the 1950s.
Public opinion surveys have confirmed the prevalent view in European
societies that during times of crises it is better to be well-accompanied than
to go it alone. The perception that EU institutions are as capable as, and
sometimes even more capable than, national ones “to take effective actions
against the effects of the financial and economic crisis”47 can be interpreted as
a sign that regional solutions to economic, political, and social crises are
welcome even when the EU cannot totally resolve internal asymmetries.
Peace among the member states and the free movement of people, goods,
and services within the EU have often been seen as by far the two most
positive achievements of the EU, according to European public opinion.48
These are two tasks that the states are not able to carry out on their own.
Perhaps due to its innovative format, the European project has often
needed to adjust and change course to survive and resist external shocks and
internal challenges. The EU’s flexibility may be due to the fact that its
survival has never been guaranteed, neither in the past nor in the future. In
the end, all modern states’ institutional, political, and economic development
processes stray from the path at some point; they are never linear. The EU’s
resilience can be attributed precisely to its ability to adapt to new situations:
exceptions, delays, changes of plan, enlargements, skepticism, or even
decisions to withdraw may be part of the course.
Since the time of Jean Monnet and Charles de Gaulle, several European
leaders have envisioned different projects for the EU. New governance issues
and new outcomes on integration emerged after the reforms introduced by
the Maastricht Treaty came into effect. The rejection of the Constitutional
Treaty in 2005 was followed by crucial reforms introduced by the Treaty of
Lisbon and again after the euro crisis. It is still too early to conclude that the
cycle of crisis is over. Yet, for the time being, the epilogue to this story is the
strengthening of European integration despite internal divisions and lack of
consensus. Intergovernmental coordination mechanisms have been reinforced,
78 Ana Paula Tostes
as has the positive view of EU solutions for the region. European integration
has to adapt to critical situations from time to time. Further changes may
come, but there is evidence that the European public generally has a positive
and optimistic outlook and largely supports the European model of
governance. The European popular mood should not be neglected when we
contemplate the EU’s capacity to deal with reforms and to survive.
Notes
1 Dermot Hodson, “The EU Economy: The Euro Area in 2009,” Journal of
Common Market Studies 48, no. S1 (2010): 225–242; Dermot Hodson, “The EU
Economy: The Eurozone in 2010,” Journal of Common Market Studies 49, no. S1
(2011): 231–249; Barry Eichengreen, “European Monetary Integration with
Benefits of Hindsight,” Journal of Common Market Studies 50, no. S1 (2012):
123–136; Louis W. Pauly, “The Old and the New Politics of International Finan-
cial Stability,” Journal of Common Market Studies 47, no. 5 (2009): 955–975; and
Iain Hardie and David Howarth, “Die Krise but Not La Crise? The Financial
Crisis and the Transformation of German and French Banking Systems,” Journal of
Common Market Studies 74, no. 5 (2009): 1017–1039.
2 On the empowerment of the Court of Justice, the European Commission, the
Central Bank, the European Parliament, among other institutions, see Alec Stone
Sweet, The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004);
Simon Hix, The Political System of the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2005); Mark A. Pollack, “Delegation, Agency and Agenda Setting in the
Treaty of Amsterdam,” International Organization 51, no. 1 (1997): 99–134; Alec
Stone Sweet and James A. Caporaso, “From Free Trade to Supranational Polity:
The European Court and Integration,” in European Integration and Supranational
Governance, ed. Wayne Sandholtz and Alec Stone Sweet (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1998), 92–133; Simon Hix and Bjørn Høyland, “Empowerment of the
European Parliament,” Annual Review of Political Science 16 (2013): 171–89; and
Jakub Gren, David Howarth and Lucia Quaglia, “Supranational Supervision in
Europe: The Construction of a Credible Watchdog,” Journal of Common Market
Studies 53, no. S1 (2015): 181–199.
3 European Commission, Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018), questions QD2.1
and QA8a. Eurobarometer surveys are carried out for the European Commission.
Standard Eurobarometer reports are published twice yearly, while Special Euroba-
rometer reports are released more frequently to study specific topics. In the following,
Eurobarometer public opinion surveys will be cited in short form. All reports are
available at: http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm.
4 According to Eurobarometer results, 84 percent of Europeans totally agree that
“as a consequence of the crisis, EU countries will have to work more closely
together.” See Standard Eurobarometer 75 (May 2011), question QC4a.
5 The dates refer to the years the treaties were signed.
6 See the emblematic cases at the CJEU: Court of Justice of the EU, Case no. 26/
1963 Van Gend en Loos, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?
uri=CELEX%3A61962CJ0026; Court of Justice of the EU, Case no. 6/1964
Costa versus E.N.E.L., https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?
qid=1522421879970&uri=CELEX:61964CJ0006.
7 Rachel A. Epstein and Martin Rhodes, International in Life, National in Death? Bank-
ing Nationalism on the Road to Banking Union, KFG The Transformative Power of
Europe, Working Paper no. 61 (Berlin, Germany: Freie Universität, 2014), http://
userpage.fu-berlin.de/kfgeu/kfgwp/wpseries/WorkingPaperKFG_61.pdf.
Organization 18, no. 4 (1964): 705–737.
9 Desmond Dinan, “Crises in EU History,” in The European Union in Crisis, ed.
Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson (London: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2017), 16–32.
10 Dermot Hodson and Lucia Quaglia, “European Perspectives on the Global Finan-
cial Crisis: Introduction,” Journal of Common Market Studies 47, no. 5 (2009):
939–953; and Dermot Hodson, “The EU Economy: The Eurozone in 2011,”
Journal of Common Market Studies 49, no. S1 (2011): 178–194.
11 The convergence criteria stipulated by the Treaty of Maastricht concerned the
inflation rate, public finances, interest rates, and exchange rate stability.
12 European Commission press release, “The Commission Launches a Major Recov-
ery Plan for Growth and Jobs, to Boost Demand and Restore Confidence in the
European Economy,” 26 November 2008, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-relea
se_IP-08-1771_en.htm.
13 Gren, Howarth and Quaglia, “Supranational Banking Supervision in Europe: The
Construction of a Credible Watchdog”; and Herman Van Rompuy, “Toward
a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union: Report by President of the European
Council Herman Van Rompuy,” EUCO 120/12, PRESSE 296, PRPCE 102;
Brussels, 26 June 2012, http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/373846/
towards-a-genuine-economic-and-monetary-union.pdf. This system was created
to supervise financial institutions in the Eurozone and in the EU member states
that adhered to the system. The European Central Bank and national supervisory
authorities are part of the supervisory mechanism.
14 Standard Eurobarometer 83 (May 2015).
15 Gary Marks, Carole Wilson and Leonard Ray, “National Political Parties and
European Integration,” American Journal of Political Science 46, no. 3 (2002):
585–594; and Paul Taggart, “A Touchstone of Dissent: Euroscepticism in Con-
temporary Western European Party Systems,” European Journal of Political Research
33, no. 3, (1998): 363–388.
16 Thomas Poguntke and Susan Scarrow, “The Politics of Anti-Party Sentiment:
Introduction,” European Journal of Political Research 29, no. 3 (1996): 257–262;
Herbert Kitschelt, The Transformation of European Social Democracy (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in West-
ern Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,
1995); and Herbert Kitschelt, “Popular Dissatisfaction with Democracy: Populism
and Party Systems,” in Democracies and the Populist Challenge, ed. Yves Mény and
Yves Surel (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 179–196.
17 International Organization for Migration, https://www.iom.int/.
18 Even though Spain was already on the path to recovery, in 2014 the
unemployment rate rose again to 25.93 percent of the population. Youth
under the age of 25 were the most affected (unemployment rate of 55 percent).
Country Economy, Unemployment Spain, https://countryeconomy.com/
unemployment/spain.
19 Standard Eurobarometer 83 (May 2015), question QA15.1.
20 “Troika” refers to the group responsible for the rescue deal between the Greek
government and the EU.
21 “Brexiteers” is the name given to those who advocate the United Kingdom’s
withdrawal from the EU.
22 Thomas Risse, A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres
80 Ana Paula Tostes
23 Hans Joachim Knopf, Britain and European Integration between 1950 and 1993:
Towards a European Identity? PhD dissertation, Department of Social and Political
Science (Florence, Italy: European University Institute, 2003).
24 Cas Mudde, “Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe Today,” in Transformations
of Populism in Europe and the Americas: History and Recent Tendencies, ed. John
Abromeit, Bridget María Chesterton, Gary Marotta and York Norman
(New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 295–307; and Cas Mudde, On
Extremism and Democracy in Europe (New York: Routledge, 2016).
25 Mathew Gabel and Guy D. Whitten, “Economic Conditions, Economic Percep-
tions, and Public Support for European Integration,” Political Behavior 19 no. 1
(1997): 81–96.
26 All Eurobarometer reports are available at: http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/
publicopinion/index.cfm.
27 See Richard C. Eichenberg and Russell J. Dalton, “Europeans and the European
Union: The Dynamics of Public Support for European Integration,” International
Organization 47, no. 4 (1993): 507–534; and Richard C. Eichenberg and Russell
J. Dalton, “Post-Maastricht Blues: The Transformation of Citizen Support for
European Integration, 1973–2004,” Acta Politica 42, no. 2–3 (2007): 128–152.
28 Mathew Gabel, Interests and Integration: Market Liberalization, Public Opinion, and
European Union (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998).
30 Standard Eurobarometer 83 (May 2015), question QA18.1.
31 Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018), question QA16.1.
32 Standard Eurobarometer 85 (May 2016), question QA5.
33 See questions QC7 in Standard Eurobarometer 74 (November 2010) and Stand-
ard Eurobarometer 75 (May 2011), which were key years in the economic recov-
ery of the majority of the countries of the Eurozone.
35 Standard Eurobarometer 78 (November 2012), question QC4.
36 Standard Eurobarometer 83 (May 2015). We can check historical data showing
answers to the same question: “In general, does the EU conjure up for you
a very positive, fairly positive, neutral, fairly negative or very negative.” See
Standard Eurobarometer 84 (November 2015), question QA9.
37 See data about the tendency to “trust in the EU,” “trust in the national govern-
ment” and “trust in the national parliament” in the Standard Eurobarometer 89
(March 2018), QA8a.
38 Standard Eurobarometer 81 (May 2014), question QA22.
39 Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018), question QA8a.
40 Standard Eurobarometer 77 (May 2012), question QC4a.
41 Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018), question QA9.
42 From 2007, there was a decrease in trust in the EU (from 57 percent in 2007 to
31 percent in 2014), followed by a recuperation between 2014 and 2018 (42 per-
cent); see Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018), question QA8a.
43 See Standard Eurobarometer 74 (November 2010) and Standard Eurobarometer
75 (May 2011).
44 Special Eurobarometer 467 (September 2017).
45 Special Eurobarometer 467 (September 2017).
46 Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018), question QD2.1.
47 Standard Eurobarometer 78 (November 2012), question QC3a.
48 Standard Eurobarometer 89 (March 2018).
5 Facing the rule of law crisis within
the European Union
Carlos Closa Montero
The emergence of populist governments with an agenda of illiberal

constitutional reforms in some European Union (EU) member states
threatens the EU core values referred to in Article 2 of the Treaty on
European Union (TEU) (referring to human rights, democracy, and the rule
of law) and creates a significant level of stress for the Union. While it may be
an exaggeration to argue that the EU is at risk of dilution or disappearance, it
does face an existential dilemma: either it tolerates these regimes, condoning
their violation of basic values, or it reacts and faces a clash of the legitimacy
of domestic (democratic) governments with the stringencies of supranational
guarantees for the rule of law. To some extent, this dilemma explains the
EU’s performance in the rule of law crisis.1
The Hungarian and Polish governments have made a number of decisions
that have provoked institutional capture or backsliding of rule of law standards.
These decisions coincide with the introduction of legislation that undermines
the independence of the judiciary, limits the powers of the Constitutional
Court, and aims to restrict the margin of maneuver of NGOs. The Hungarian
government has gone even further by suppressing the Ombudsman and
harassing the Central European University (CEU), which eventually changed
its location to Vienna. Lately, other governments such as Romania’s have also
raised important concerns regarding judicial independence and widespread
corruption, as well as legislation attacking NGOs.
Responding to ample evidence of extensive breaches to the rule of law by
these governments, the EU has activated the first stage of Article 7 of the
Treaty on European Union (TEU) against both member states. Article 7 is
the most important mechanism at the EU’s disposal for protecting its shared
values against violations by its own member states. The European
Commission took the initiative in the case of Poland, while the European
Parliament did so in the case of Hungary. However, the EU’s performance
has been lackluster, involving a differentiated institutional approach to these
two countries and the lack of a strong enforcement mechanism to revert the
situation. What explains the disappointing performance of the EU? This
chapter argues that the mechanism for reacting against member states’
breaches of EU values enshrined in Article 7 requires the alignment of the
82 Carlos Closa Montero
decision of three EU institutions – the European Parliament (EP), the
European Commission, and the Council of the EU. Since each institution
responds to different political dynamics, this produces an institutional Sudoku
that limits the possibility of effective enforcement of Article 7. Demands for
a coordinated strategy of the three institutions involved seem to run against
the logic of institutional functioning.2
Partisan politics dominate EP actions in relation to the rule of law
mechanisms; for a long time, these politics had the effect of impeding the
activation of Article 7. Empirical evidence shows that, depending on the partisan
constellation, majorities to back EP Resolutions addressed to specific member
states may well exist; however, majorities regarding rule of law issues have mostly
been below the required threshold. Hence, EP partisanship may neutralize EP
right of initiative and transfer it to the other two institutions. In turn, the
Council resists as much as possible any potential encroachment on domestic
democratic politics. Finally, the Commission is limited in its capacity to act, since
it anticipates the consequences of any possible action and calculates the likelihood
of the Council’s support (and the effects of a failure to obtain it). This leads to
a preference for mechanisms that fall short of sanctioning. These different logics
of behavior cancel each other out and explain the reduced EU action to monitor
compliance with rule of law. Before turning to a detailed examination of the
factors that condition each institution’s decisions in relation to the rule of law,
this chapter first presents the decisional rules contained in Article 7.
Decision-making rules in Article 7

Since the reforms of the Nice Treaty in 2000, Article 7 of the TEU has
contained two different procedures3 that lack specific names, but could be
termed the “preventive stage” and the “corrective stage,” using the analogy
of the established terminology for the excessive deficit procedure in the area
of fiscal and macroeconomic governance (see Table 5.1). These stages differ
in the nature of the threat that they identify: the preventive stage concerns
the “clear risk of a serious breach” of values mentioned in Article 2 TEU,
whilst the corrective stage applies to the actual “existence of a serious and
persistent breach” of these same values. What is a “clear risk” and what
differentiates it vis-à-vis a “serious and persistent breach” is not defined
anywhere (with the exception that the second stage adds “persistent”), which
grants a significant margin of discretion for actors to interpret situations.
These two stages are not necessarily successive, even though they appear,
logically, to be so. Whilst an offender may breach the values without any
previous indication, it seems more logical that previous signals indicate
national authorities’ potential to create a serious risk of breaching values. In
fact, the “preventive” stage was created after the 1999 threat to the rule of
law concerning Austria demonstrated the need for some kind of early
warning system.4 In any case, nothing in the treaties requires the activation of
the preventive stage as a prerequisite for the activation of the corrective stage.
Facing the rule of law crisis within the EU 83
Table 5.1 Procedures under Article 7 TEU
Stage Situation Initiative Decision- Effects

making
Preventive Clear risk of 1/3 member states, Council (4/5 (Previous recommendations)
a serious 2/3 EP members majority) + Determination (no sanc-
breach OR Commission EP consent tions, undefined effects)
Corrective Serious and 1/3 member states Council Sanctions (if decided by the
persistent OR Commission (unanimity) Council by qualified
breach majority)
Source: Author’s elaboration.
The right of initiative of the EP is limited to the preventive stage, whilst

the Commission and the member states can trigger both stages. The
requirements for decision-making mark a crucial difference between the two
stages. Whilst the preventive one requires a four-fifths qualified majority of
the Council plus EP consent, the corrective stage requires the European
Council to act by unanimity. The Council may then adopt sanctions by
a qualified majority (although the requirement of four-fifths of the preventive
stage disappears). Some authors explicitly blame the combined supermajority
requirements in Parliament and Council for EU inaction.5
Finally, the two stages produce significantly different effects. In the
preventive stage, the Council approves a “determination.” Nothing defines
what exactly a determination is, although one may safely assume that it merely
amounts to confirming that the “risk of a serious breach” clearly exists.
However, this “determination” does not produce consequences for the
offending state. The base for approving a determination is a lack of respect for
the previous recommendations to correct infractions that the Council may issue.
In the corrective stage, the European Council produces a similar
“determination,” although in this case the Council can follow up on it and
decide the imposition of sanctions in the form of a suspension of the offending
state’s membership rights. This wording bounds sanctions within the scope of
treaty competence and, at the same time, grants the Council a lot of room to
maneuver when deciding on sanctions, with the only limitation being that these
should take into account the possible consequences for natural and legal persons.
The European Parliament

The EP has been the most active institution in terms of engaging with rule of
law breaches in member states since 2012.6 On 12 September 2018, with 448
members (MEPs) out of 693 voting for it, the EP activated the preventive
stage of Article 7 against the Hungarian government.7 Prior to that point,
however, the EP had taken a different path and requested Commission action
instead. In 2015, the EP resolved twice to activate the Commission’s more
lenient “Rule of Law Framework” against Hungary,8 but it fell short of
demanding the activation of any of the two stages of Article 7. Existing
majorities may explain this. Taking as a proxy the resolutions addressing
specific member states’ offenses, none of them passed with a majority similar
to the one required to activate the preventive stage (that is, two-thirds of
component members), with the single exception of the September 2016
Resolution on the recent developments in Poland9 and their impact on
fundamental rights, which 510 out of 699 MEPs voted in favor of.
Prevalent explanations of EP’s actions point towards the effects of
partisanship in the EU.10 In a nutshell, the argument holds that European
party groups protect those governments that belong to their political family,
but are prepared to act against those that belong to different families. Indeed,
evidence shows patterns of behavior of European Parliament party groups in
line with ideological proximity. The Liberals (ALDE) have been particularly
vocal, not only backing all resolutions, but also taking the lead in suggesting
an alternative mechanism to the existing one that practically copies the
economic governance of the EU.11 ALDE’s proposal of a pact for democratic
governance,12 launched in 2015, did not obtain support in the chamber and
the Commission dismissed it with the argument that “we just need to better
use the existing and recently established tools.”13 Liberals do not govern in
any of the offending states, and a liberal (Judith Sargentini) drafted the report
that led to the activation of Article 7 against the Hungarian government. The
Party of European Socialists (PES) was more critical of the attack on
constitutional democracy by one of its affiliates, the Social Democrat Ponta in
Romania,14 than either the European People’s Party (EPP) or European
Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) have been toward the actions of their
affiliates, the Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) in Hungary and Law and
Justice (PiS) in Poland. Nevertheless, even the Romanian case demonstrates
partisan bias at work, as the EPP led efforts to criticize and rein in Ponta
while the PES was much more defensive of him.15
Although neither liberals nor socialists avoid the influence of partisan
behavior, the EPP has attracted the greatest criticism because of its support
and even outright protection of fellow governments accused of rule of law
breaches. Several commentators have blamed the toleration of the Fidesz
government’s violations of the rule of law on EPP party loyalty.16 In 2013,
most EPP MEPs voted against the Tavares Report,17 and EPP Vice-Chair
Manfred Weber dismissed it as a politically motivated attack on the Orbán
government by leftist parties.18
Ideology partly explains this support. Thus, numerous EPP MEPs from the
Visegrad countries and from the German Christian Social Union (CSU)
openly support (or tolerate) Fidesz.19 In 2018, 57 of the EPP MEPs voted
against triggering Article 7, whilst 28 abstained. However, ideological
proximity is not the only explanation; dynamics of patronage in exchange for
support complete the explanation. On one hand, Fidesz’s support has served
to consolidate the EPP’s dominant position in the EP. As of January 2019,
the EPP group had 217 seats (out of which Fidesz holds 12), while its main
contenders for pre-eminence at the EP, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists
and Democrats (S&D) group, had 187 seats.20 Hence, the EPP majority
could be vulnerable if S&D gathered support from other groups. Generally,
the Hungarian party supports mainstream EPP policies. Despite Fidesz’s long
history of political animosity with Jean-Claude Juncker, all Fidesz MEPs
ended up voting in favor of his candidature as commission president. Fidesz
also voted in favor of the last president of the EP, EPP member Antonio
Tajani. In accordance with EPP, Fidesz has also supported the European
Parliament’s call for the worldwide abolition of capital punishment, which
Fidesz endorsed when Orbán considered the reintroduction of the death
penalty in Hungary. In the majority of cases, Fidesz MEPs voted in line with
the European People’s Party.21
On the other hand, the EPP has rewarded Fidesz’s support by placing
Fidesz politicians in key leadership posts in the Parliament, where they can
help deflect criticism of the Orbán regime. Shielding the Fidesz government
against criticism can be seen as part of these rewards. For instance, Tajani
agreed with the other presidential candidates that Poland should be stripped
of its voting rights in the Council if it did not address concerns about judicial
independence and the rule of law. Tajani also agreed with the socialist
candidate Pitella that sanctions should be imposed on the Polish government
if it did not implement the recommendations made by the European
Commission. However, once elected, Tajani declared that “We can have
different ideas about the same values” and that shared values could be
“applied differently in countries that are in different situations.” This
statement applies not only to Poland, but also to Hungary.
The EPP’s position is not monolithic and Fidesz’s membership has created
internal tensions. When it comes to the struggles between the EU and the
member states over the rule of law, Fidesz is at odds with the positions of the
rest of its parliamentary group. Fidesz’s MEPs have not been afraid to go
against their own political group’s position in a number of symbolically
important cases for their national party. Fidesz MEPs also rejected
a resolution calling on the Polish government to respect the rulings of its
constitutional court. Several EPP MEPs supported the Tavares resolution
back in 2013, and tensions reached a peak following Orbán’s legal measures
against the Central European University (CEU). Pressure mounted,
requesting the expulsion of Fidesz from the EPP (with Belgian, Dutch,
Luxembourgish, and Swedish MPs in favor of expulsion). As the 2019
elections approached, internal tension forced EPP leader and Commission
presidential contender Manfred Weber to take a clearer stance. This allowed
the EPP to split on the Resolution condemning the Hungarian government
on 12 September 2018, which led to 118 EPP MEPs voting in favor of the
Resolution.
The EPP faced a choice between supporting tougher measures against Fidesz
or being seen as tolerant with illiberal governments. The decision that was made
(freedom of vote) and the outcome (a split vote) served both goals and did not
create huge costs. Given the relative lack of effects of activating Article 7, “EPP
leaders can appease Orbán’s critics within their ranks without facing the costs of
a radical break with Fidesz, which would seem imminent had the Parliament’s
decision actually resulted in concrete sanctions.”22 In November 2018, the EPP
congress approved an urgent Resolution on “Protecting EU Values and
Safeguarding Democracy”23 that mentioned some of the threats to EU values
posed by Hungary but failed to refer explicitly to that country.
The symbiotic relationship with a prominent EP political group/party does
not exist in the case of PiS and this puts it in a much less comfortable
position. PiS belongs to the ECR, together with the British Conservative
Party or the Alternative for Germany (AfD). It not only lacks the support of
a dominant parliamentary group, but also belongs to one that is systematically
at odds with the dominant mainstream groups. Unsurprisingly, EPP, ALDE
and S&D supported the Resolution against the legal changes implemented by
the Polish government and called for the activation of Article 7.
The Council
The role of governments in relation to the protection of the rule of law goes
well beyond their hypothetical initiator and decision-maker role under
Article 7. In fact, governments can bring a non-compliant member state to
the European Court of Justice for violation of an obligation under the
Treaties (Article 259 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union),
even though Wilms recorded that this option has hardly ever been used (only
six cases until 2015, two of which were withdrawn before a judgment was
rendered).24 Specifically in relation to the crises in Hungary and Poland,
scholars and commentators have blamed the Council for taking no action
whatsoever.25
Since the early skirmishes with the Hungarian government, the Council
remained very cautious in its approach. In 2013, it noted that concerns about
judicial independence have increased in Hungary in 2012 and 2013.
However, the Council merely recommended that Hungary “strengthen
further the judiciary.”26 When the Commission created the new Rule of
Law Framework in 2014, the Legal Service of the Council delivered
a strongly critical opinion27 that probably reflected the views of the more
Eurosceptic governments. Moreover, the Council created its alternative
annual rule of law dialogue that merely articulates “a process of inclusive
dialogue, debate and engagement with all member states, EU institutions as
well as relevant stakeholders.”28 Unsurprisingly, the dialogue has attracted
strong criticism as it is conceived, at best, as a mechanism for promotion
(rather than safeguarding) or, at worst, one in which member states report on
themselves.
Various successive Council presidencies have adopted cautious stances.
For instance, the Latvian Presidency initially declined to attend the EP
hearing on Hungary in 2015 on the grounds that the Council had not
discussed the human rights situation in the country and therefore had no
position on the issue. After EP President Martin Schulz insisted, the
Latvian Presidency did attend, but only to confirm that the Council had
no position on the matter. Likewise, as President of the Council, Donald
Tusk remained silent on Poland and only called for restraint in the eve of
a confrontation between governing party MPs and opposition protestors in
December 2016.
However, positions within the Council are not monolithic. In 2013 the
ministers of foreign affairs from four member states called for the
Commission to propose a stronger mechanism for the protection of the rule
of law. More importantly, the role of the Council has changed following the
Commission’s strategy to force it to debate on the rule of law breaches.
Thus, the Council discussed the situation in Poland twice in 2017 (16 May
and 25 September) and, at the first meeting, a majority of member states
criticized Poland for its behavior and lack of cooperation with the
Commission. Only Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom
directly or indirectly supported Poland’s position.29 However, this was only
rhetorical criticism, not a move toward deadlines, ultimatums, or sanctions.
The Council merely asked the Commission to continue its dialogue with
Poland.
Following the triggering of Article 7, the Council discussed the situation in
Poland on six occasions during 2018. The activation of Article 7 puts
governments’ willingness to act to the test. Voting requirements are stringent
for either stage and demand an equally strong commitment from governments.
Unanimity is required for the reactive stage and commentators have warned
that the presence of more than one infracting government renders the
deployment of the “biting” clause of Article 7 virtually impossible, unless joint
activation of Article 7 against both of them makes it possible to remove the
“fellow-traveler” veto.30 Back in 2016, Hungary anticipated that it would use
its veto to block any sanctions against Poland.31 In a combatant speech in
July 2017, Orbán declared: “We must make it perfectly clear that a campaign
of inquisition against Poland will never succeed, because Hungary will resort to
all the legal mechanisms offered by the European Union in order to show its
solidarity with the Polish people.”32
Even the majority required for the preventive stage (22 states) may be
difficult to obtain; after Hungary, the three Baltic states also expressed their
will to vote against the Commission’s proposal. With the simple addition of
another state to this minority (even a small one such as Croatia, the Czech
Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, or Malta), decisions could also be blocked at
this stage.
How can the absence of action from the side of member states’
governments be explained? The Council faces the classical problem of
collective action in the provision of public goods (non-excludable and non-
divisible): governments do not have incentives to take actions that would
bear political costs for them and would bring, in their own perception, few
benefits. The benefits of preserving the public good (that is, preserving the
rule of law in one of the member states) have been theoretically identified33
and, recently, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the
Irish High Court have, in separate judgments, argued that keeping the rule of
law secures the mutual trust and mutual recognition that is at the basis of EU
law. However, the dilemma emerges because offenders’ infringements do not
immediately affect any other government. Hence, incentives for action seem
to be absent, and the costs of action seem to outweigh the benefits. Three
factors lie behind governments’ reluctance to engage in sanctioning or
punitive measures against rule of law offenders.
The first is a genuine distaste for what they may perceive as an unwanted
expansion of EU powers and, more precisely, EU Commission powers. The
above quoted opinion from the Legal Service of the Council represented this
view when it denied the Commission’s competence on the matter. Several
governments harbor doubts about the extent of the EU’s competence to
adjudicate on domestic constitutional issues and they are also eager to assert
the autonomy of a democratically elected government. Thus, the British
government argued, in relation to the Commission’s Rule of Law
Framework, that this was an unwanted expansion of EU powers, an
argument that the House of Lords also echoed. Other governments, such as
the Bulgarian one, voiced similar concerns.34
Second, ideological sympathy with the substantive political objectives (that
is, the project of institutional capture) of the infringers may also play a role.
Whilst the ideological/partisanship explanations are persuasive in the case of
the EP, they are less so in the case of the Council. The 1999 Austrian case
seemed to support the partisanship hypothesis in the Council. Governments
adopted sanctions against Austria at a time when socialist parties governed 12 of
the then 14 other member states. Wilms recorded that this led to speculations
by some commentators that the Austrian Socialist Party (SPÖ), after having lost
the elections, convinced party friends in other member states to intervene
against Austria.35 However, there does not seem to be any strong evidence to
support these allegations; moreover, the most eager critic of Austria and
proponent of sanctions, Jacques Chirac, did not belong to the socialist party
family. In the current situation, the partisanship hypothesis is more plausible, as
some ideological proximity can be presumed between the positions of several
EU governments. The illiberal programs of the governments in Hungary and
Poland show certain similarities, and other governments in the region have
flirted with the same kind of ideas. These ideas have also spilled over to certain
parties in West European member states.
The third factor is that governments are afraid of becoming targets
themselves. Governments’ reluctance to embrace assertive enforcement
strategies has been likened to asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving.36 Why
would governments feel this way? Simply, they may fear that, under a stricter
monitoring of the respect for the values in Article 2 and a more stringent
application of enforcement mechanisms in Article 7, their domestic issues will
be equally scrutinized, and some policies might be considered to be offenses
against the values in Article 2. Hence, other potential troublemakers do not
want to set a precedent that might be used against them. For instance, the
Lithuanian permanent representative expressed concern that the Resolutions
approved by the EP on Hungary could lead to a similar scrutiny of other
values in Article 2 (and the Charter of Fundamental Rights). Considering
that Lithuanian policy aiming to close down schools teaching in Polish might
be questionable from the point of view of EU law/values, the permanent
representative feared that if the scrutiny of values expanded to other issues,
Lithuania might be in trouble.37
The Commission
The Commission has undoubtedly been the most engaged actor in relation to
rule of law breaches. It has launched a significant number of infringement
procedures, it has created and activated the Framework to strengthen the rule
of law38 and, in 2017, it finally activated the initial stage of Article 7 against
Poland. However, scholarship unanimously coincides in its criticism of the
Commission’s lack of assertive action.
What explains the Commission’s actions (and inactions)?39 In contrast to
what happens in the case of the EP, the partisanship hypothesis is weak,
although Kelemen claimed that the Juncker Commission ultimately refused to
launch the procedure against the Orbán government because of partisan
considerations (“Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and the majority
of commissioners were EPP members who owed their dominance of the
EU’s executive to the support they enjoyed from the EPP group in the
European Parliament”40). However, the arguments laid out below provide
more compelling explanations.
Preference for infringement procedures

In the eyes of the Commission, infringement procedures provide a clear legal
basis that firmly establishes the Commission’s legitimacy to act. Certainly, the
Commission noticed in its 2003 communication on the rule of law that
The scope of Article 7 is not confined to areas covered by Union law.

This means that the Union could act not only in the event of a breach
of common values in this limited field but also in the event of a breach
in an area where the member states act autonomously.41
In short, the Commission’s understanding of Article 7 TEU is that it is not

limited to the boundaries of the acquis. However, its approach has consciously
pivoted on the existence of a specific legal basis that permits the use of
infringement procedures. Thus, in relation to Hungary, the Commission
identified a large number of violations of EU law, but concluded that
“concerns about the situation in Hungary are being addressed by a range of
infringement procedures and pre-infringement procedures, and that also the
Hungarian justice system has a role to play.”42 The Commission concluded
that there were no “grounds at this stage to trigger Article 7 or the Rule of
Law Framework.”43
The Commission’s caution is justified: when it activated the Rule of Law
Framework, Polish authorities reacted challenging its competence. Polish
President Andrzej Duda and Foreign Affairs Minister Witold Waszczykowski
claimed that the European Commission had “overstepped its bounds.” PiS
leader Jarosław Kaczyński even threatened to bring the Commission before
the CJEU. In fact, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that Poland
was “ready to defend its claims at the Court of Justice” and argued that it is
“for the Court of Justice to decide whether a member state has failed to
fulfill an obligation imposed on it by the Treaties.”44 The Commission had
boldly argued that its intervention was strictly limited to specific violations of
EU values and declared that
the only ones who could determine the fate of the Polish nation are the
Polish people. We cannot do that, none of us. But what we can do and
what we must do, what we are obliged to do, is to say, when we are of
the opinion that Treaties signed and ratified by member states are being
violated, we need to step in and say that this is the case.45
Commission anticipation of the effects of its actions

A second explanation argues that institutions analyze the practical
consequences of their actions (or inaction). The anticipation of possible effects
conditions Commission decisions. The factors that affect the Commission’s
calculations are outlined below.
Anticipation of support in the Council

The Commission may restrain itself from certain actions (such as activating
Article 7), fearing a lack of support from the Council for its proposals.
Kochenov and Pech have explained the Commission’s proposal of its new
Framework rather than resorting to Article 7 by the lack of Council
support.46 My own research confirms that Commission decisions on whether
or not to trigger Article 7 are conditioned by the expectation of obtaining
support from the Council.47 Juncker bitterly denounced the fact that a priori
refusal to support the Commission de facto cancels Article 7.48 In fact, the
lack of support from the Council could provoke undesired negative effects,
both for EU rule of law protection and for the Commission itself. On the
one hand, the offender government could present the Council’s refusal to
back the Commission as an implicit endorsement of its constitutional and
policy reforms. On the other hand, it could be perceived as de-authorizing
the Commission, with the effect of undermining its authority in this and any
other enforcement mechanism in general. Unsurprisingly, the Commission
prioritizes preserving the tool kit for enforcing EU law rather than exhausting
it without minimum guarantees of success. Some have criticized this political
calculus as problematic for an “institution which is supposed to act
independently and whose insulation from politics was institutionally
organized to enable it to take ‘difficult’ decisions when it comes to ensuring
the application of Union law.”49
Against this background, a key element in the Commission’s strategy to
tackle breaches of the rule of law has been to prepare a sufficient supporting
majority in the Council. For this, the Commission has recurrently put the
issue on the agenda of the Council to force it to debate and, after each of
these debates, the Commission recorded support of its actions in the Council.
Thus, Timmermans noted that, after the May 2017 Council discussions
a very broad majority of Member States supported the Commission’s role

and efforts to address this issue. Member States called upon the Polish
government to resume the dialogue with the Commission with a view to
resolving the pending issues and looked forward to being updated as
appropriate in the General Affairs Council.50
Undesired domestic effects of sanctioning strategies

Although only the second step of the corrective stage of procedure of Article
7 could lead to the activation of sanctions, theoretical lessons extracted from
the literature enlighten the thinking of the Commission. This literature has
identified the so-called “rally-round-the-flag” effect that occurs whenever
a threat of sanctions arouses a nationalist response within the target
government or population, undermining the effectiveness of the threat.51
Pervasive nationalism can further exacerbate the rally-round-the-flag effect,
causing states and societies to endure considerable punishment instead of
abandoning what they view as national interests. Observers have warned that
rally-round-the-flag effects could emerge if the EU activates Article 7,
leading to increased support for those domestic actors that EU intervention is
supposed to weaken.52 Commission-led decisions can have a galvanizing
effect within the “indicted” state and, as a corollary, further alienate that
member state’s government and population from the European Union and its
institutions.53
Domestic reaction to illiberal policies has certainly diverged between
Hungary and Poland. In the Hungarian case, large demonstrations backed
the domestic stance vis-à-vis the EU (and other international organizations
such as the IMF) in 2012.54 The apparent popularity of some
governmental rhetoric (for example, against migrants) has prevented
a decrease in popular support. Meanwhile, the Hungarian government has
skillfully exploited Commission actions, criticizing them as a form of
imperialist bullying similar to what Hungary endured from the Soviet
Union in Communist times.55 Hungarian civil society initially reacted with
some protests, but their lack of success put civil resistance on hold.
Apparently, in the absence of effective opposition parties, Hungarians were
not sufficiently attached to institutions like free media and an independent
judiciary to fight hard for them.56
In Poland, by contrast, a large number of demonstrations have punctuated
PiS legislative initiatives, showing a continuous challenge from Polish civil
society to the governmental program. In May and June 2016, thousands of
people took to the streets in Poland. In October 2016, the “Black Protest”
(Czamy Protest) brought thousands of women marching against new PiS laws
restricting abortion. The sheer mobilization of Poles against the proposed law
resulted in the Polish government abandoning the proposal shortly after the
protests. In December 2016, PiS regulation of media access to the Parliament
prompted demonstrations by thousands of people, which developed into
a broader protest against the government. However, the crisis does not seem
to have affected patterns of support among Poland’s main parties. Apparently,
the opposition simply mobilized people who opposed the government
anyway, and around questions that are too abstract for ordinary Poles who
are concerned primarily with socio-economic issues – where PiS is more in
tune with public opinion. The Committee for the Defence of Democracy
(KOD) has played a key role in mobilizations, not only because of its ability
to attract large citizen support, but also because of its strategy of connecting
Europeanization and internationalization to the European identity and
Poland’s integration with the EU, and depicting the PiS government as anti-
European and Eurosceptic.57 By appealing to pro-European sentiments, this
strategy diminished the potential for the government to activate the rally-
round-the-flag option and, at the same time, increased the legitimacy of EU
actions.
However, empirical evidence does not indicate that the patterns of
domestic public opposition/support to offending governments influenced the
Commission’s actions.58 Nevertheless, these patterns could be seen as an
indicator of states’ long-term engagement with the broader European project.
The next section discusses precisely this issue, which seems to contribute
more to explaining the Commission’s behavior.
The compliance dilemma

Since the EU is a community of law that lacks real coercion power and relies
on voluntary compliance, enforcement and sanctions do not guarantee
acquiescence of national authorities that must secure compliance. The
Commission seems to be aware of this dilemma and believes that compliance
depends on obtaining effective cooperation of national authorities. Therefore,
the Commission seeks an amicable solution of potential rule of law conflicts
before a formal procedure will have created “trenches” between the
institutions of the European Union and the respective member states.59
Hence, in the eyes of the Commission, dialogue is the best way to address
breaches of EU law, including conformity with Article 2 values.
The risk of long-term disengagement of a member state plays a very
important role in the Commission’s calculation on whether or not to activate
Article 7. On this, the Commission drew lessons from the precedent of
applying sanctions (by EU member states, not the EU) against Austria in
1999, which included the importance of listening to and dialoging with the
offending government. In the Commission’s view, Austria turned into
a slightly less integrationist member state after that episode. In fact,
Commissioner Timmermans opined that the Austrian precedent weakened
the EU’s capacity to act because it was a political response that ended up
being totally counterproductive.60
Scholars have vigorously criticized this approach, which they see as being
based on the questionable presumption that a discursive approach could
produce positive results. This presumption reflected the Commission’s
failure to learn the right lessons from the Hungarian case, which strongly
suggests that a discursive approach is ineffective in a situation where the
rulers follow a concerted plan to evade Article 2 values. According to this
view, dialogue simply creates delays in the necessary invocation of
Article 7.61
Conclusion
The institutional design of Article 7 constructs a mechanism for protection
that is not jurisdictional (that is, courts do not play a role) and depends
totally on national governments’ willingness to enforce them, assuming the
costs of this act. Whilst some scholars have proposed a stronger role for the
CJEU, this path presents some risks: namely, the CJEU would act as a sort
of metaconstitutional court for EU member states. Whilst this may not
necessarily be a negative development in the long run, there currently does
not seem to exist legitimacy for such a path. Therefore, an alternative
solution for improving the sanctioning mechanism could be to adopt the
reverse majority that currently applies in the corrective stage of the Stability
and Growth Pact. A Commission proposal would be considered approved
by the Council unless a qualified majority of member states explicitly rejects
it. This, in addition to emphasizing the obligation of member states to
support Commission recommendations (as happens within the Stability Pact
via the Fiscal Compact), would add more teeth to the mechanisms and
might ease the problems of interinstitutional coordination regarding
Article 7.
Notes
1 I thank the two editors and Ana Tostes for their suggestions on an earlier draft of
this chapter. As usual, responsibility for the views expressed remains mine alone.
2 Peter Oliver and Justine Stefanelli, “Strengthening the Rule of Law in the EU:
The Council’s Inaction,” Journal of Common Market Studies 54, no. 5 (2016):
1075–1084.
3 Wojciech Sadurski, “Adding a Bite to a Bark? A Story of Article 7, the EU
Enlargement, and Jörg Haider,” Columbia Journal of European Law 16, no. 3
(2010): 385–426; and Leonard Besselink, “The Bite, the Bark and the Howl: Art-
icle 7 and the Rule of Law Initiatives,” in The Enforcement of EU Law and Values,
ed. András Jakab and Dimitry Kochenov (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2017), 128−144.
4 In 1999, the arrival to the Austrian government coalition of the extremist right-wing
party led by Jörg Haider triggered a strong reaction among European governments
that led to a number of them applying low-key sanctions (such as recalling ambassa-
dors). See Sadurski, “Adding a Bite to a Bark? A Story of Article 7, the EU Enlarge-
ment, and Jörg Haider.”
5 Laurent Pech and Kim Lane Scheppele, “Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Back-
sliding in the EU,” Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 19 (2017): 3−47.
6 For instance, the EP debated the situation in Poland on four occasions and
approved two resolutions in 2016: “Situation in Poland,” European Parliament
Resolution P8_TA(2016)0123, 13 April 2016; “Recent developments in Poland
and their impact on fundamental rights as laid down in the Charter of Fundamen-
tal Rights of the European Union,” European Parliament Resolution P8_TA
(2016)0344, 14 September 2016. In November 2018, it enlarged its concerns to
include Romania in the scrutiny of the compliance with the rule of law: “The
rule of law in Romania,” European Parliament Resolution P8_TA(2018)0446,
13 November 2018.
7 “The situation in Hungary,” European Parliament Resolution P8_TA(2018)0340,
12 September 2018.
8 “Situation in Hungary: Follow-up to the European Parliament Resolution of
10 June 2015,” European Parliament Resolution P8_TA(2015)0461, 16 December
2015.
9 “Recent developments in Poland and their impact on fundamental rights as laid
down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,” European
Parliament Resolution P8_TA(2016)0344, 14 September 2016.
10 Ulrich Sedelmeier, “Anchoring Democracy from Above? The European Union
and Democratic Backsliding in Hungary and Romania after Accession,” Journal of
Common Market Studies 52, no. 1 (2014): 105−121; Ulrich Sedelmeier, “Party-
politics as Usual? Positions of the European Parliament’s Political Groups towards
Sanctions against Democratic Backsliding,” Paper presented at the Fifteenth Bien-
nial Conference of the European Union Studies Association, 4−6 May 2017,
Miami, FL; R. Daniel Kelemen, “Europe’s Other Democratic Deficit: National
Authoritarianism in Europe’s Democratic Union,” Government and Opposition 52,
no. 2 (2017): 211−238; and Judith Sargentini and Aleksejs Dimitrovs, “The Euro-
pean Parliament’s Role: Towards New Copenhagen Criteria for Existing
Member States?” Journal of Common Market Studies 54, no. 5 (2016): 1085−1092.
11 Adelina Marini, “EP Pushes for Strong Rule of Law Mechanism, Council and
Commission Are Against,” Euinside, 2 March 2015, www.euinside.eu/en/news/
alde-want-a-democratic-governance-pact-but-no-will-for-that.
12 The EU Democratic Governance Pact: Upholding the Rule of Law and Fundamental
Rights, ALDE initiative outline, 13 January 2015, https://europa.d66.nl/content/
uploads/sites/240/2015/01/The-EU-Democratic-Governance-Pact-Upholding-
the-Rule-of-law.pdf.
13 Marini, “EP Pushes for Strong Rule of Law Mechanism, Council and Commis-
sion Are Against.”
14 Vlad Perju, “The Romanian Double Executive and the 2012 Constitutional Crisis,”
International Journal of Constitutional Law 13, no. 1 (2015): 246–278 (246–7).
15 Bernd Riegert, “In EU, Party Politics Unite and Divide,” Deutsche Welle,
19 July 2012, www.dw.com/en/in-eu-party-politics-unite-and-divide/a-16108944.
16 Maïa De la Baume, “EU Launches ‘Rule of Law’ Probe of Poland,” Politico
Europe, 13 January 2016, www.politico.eu/article/poland-probe-rule-of-law-eu-
commission-timmermans/; James Kirchick, “EU Conservatives Have a Hungary
Problem,” Spiegel Online, 29 May 2013, www.spiegel.de/international/europe/
hungarian-government-puts-european-conservatives-in-tough-spot-a-902620.
html; Laurence Peter, “Hungary Row: EU Party Allies ‘Back Orban’,” BBC
News, 17 April 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22183871.
17 Pech and Scheppele, “Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the EU.”
18 European People’s Party Group, EP Report on Hungary: EPP Group Rejects the Use
of Double Standards, 3 July 2013, www.eppgroup.eu/newsroom/news/epp-group-
rejects-the-use-of-double-standards.
19 Fabio Wolkenstein, “Why Did the EPP Vote against Orbán?” LSE EUIblog,
18 September 2018, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/09/18/why-did-the-
epp-vote-against-orban/.
20 Figures retrieved from: www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search/advanced. Fol-
lowing the European Parliament elections of May 2019, the EPP group has 181
seats (of which Fidesz continues to hold 12), while the S&D group has 154 seats.
21 Fidesz voted 98 percent with mainstream EPP, as reported by Maïa de la Baume
and Ryan Heath, “Center-right’s Angry at Orbán, but Won’t Kick Him Out,”
Politico, 4 June 2017, www.politico.eu/article/center-rights-angry-at-orban-but-
wont-kick-him-out/.
22 Wolkenstein, “Why did the EPP vote against Orbán?”
23 “Protecting EU Values and Safeguarding Democracy,” Emergency Resolution
adopted at the EPP Congress, Helsinki (Finland), 7–8 November 2018, https://
helsinki2018.epp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/1-Emergency-Resolution_Pro
tecting-EU-Values-and-Safeguarding-Democracy.pdf.
24 Günter Wilms, Protecting Fundamental Values in the European Union through the Rule
of Law: Articles 2 and 7 TEU from a Legal, Historical and Comparative Angle (Flor-
ence, Italy: European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced
Studies, 2017), http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/44987, 65−66.
25 Peter Oliver and Justine Stefanelli, “Strengthening the Rule of Law in the EU:
The Council’s Inaction,” Journal of Common Market Studies 54, no. 5 (2016):
1075–1084; and Pech and Scheppele, “Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backslid-
ing in the EU.”
26 Council Recommendation of 9 July 2013 on the National reform program 2013 of Hun-
gary and delivering a Council opinion on the Convergence Program of Hungary,
2012–2016 (Council of the European Union 2013/C 217/10), recital (15) and
recommendation 5.
27 Commission’s Communication on a New EU Framework to Strengthen the Rule of Law:
Compatibility with the Treaties, Opinion of the Legal Service (Council of the Euro-
pean Union Doc. 10296/14), 27 May 2014; as discussed in Ensuring respect for the
rule of law in the European Union, Note from the Presidency to the Council
(Council of the European Union Doc. 15206/14), 14 November 2014.
28 Council Conclusions on Fundamental Rights and Rule of Law and on the Commission
2012 Report on the Application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union, Council of the European Union, 6−7 June 2013, www.consilium.europa.
eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/jha/137404.pdf.
29 Duncan Robinson, “EU Ministers Hit Out at Poland over Judicial Reforms,”
Financial Times, 16 May 2017.
30 Kim Lane Scheppele, “EU Can Still Block Hungary’s Veto on Polish Sanctions,”
Politico, 11 January 2016, www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-hungarys-
orban-veto-on-polish-pis-sanctions/; Pech and Scheppele, “Illiberalism Within:
Rule of Law Backsliding in the EU.”
31 Jan Cienski and Maïa De la Baume, “Poland Strikes Back at EU on Media Law,”
Politico Europe, 8 January 2016, www.politico.eu/article/poland-strikes-back-at-
eu-on-media-law-frans-timmermans-stepkowski-andrzej-duda/.
32 Viktor Orbán’s Speech at the 28th Bálványos Summer Open University and Student
Camp, 22 July 2017, www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minis
ter-s-speeches/viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-28th-balvanyos-summer-open-univer
sity-and-student-camp.
33 Carlos Closa, “Reinforcing EU Monitoring of the Rule of Law: Normative
Arguments, Institutional Proposals and the Procedural Limitations,” in Reinforcing
Rule of Law Oversight in the European Union, ed. Carlos Closa and Dimitry Koche-
nov (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 15−35.
34 Marini, “EP Pushes for Strong Rule of Law Mechanism, Council and Commis-
sion Are Against.”
35 Wilms, Protecting Fundamental Values in the European Union through the Rule of
Law, 70.
36 Heather Grabbe, “Six Lessons of Enlargement Ten Years On: The EU’s Trans-
formative Power in Retrospect and Prospect,” Journal of Common Market Studies
52, no. S1 (2014): 40−56.
37 Author’s interview with Rui Tavares, Florence, Italy, February 2018.
38 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council a New
EU Framework to Strengthen the Rule of Law (European Commission COM/2014/
158 final), 11 March 2014.
39 Carlos Closa, “The Politics of Guarding the Treaties: Commission Scrutiny of
Rule of Law Compliance,” Journal of European Public Policy 26, no. 5 (2019),
696–716.
40 Kelemen, “Europe’s Other Democratic Deficit: National Authoritarianism in Eur-
ope’s Democratic Union,” 226.
41 Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on
Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union—Respect for and Promotion of the Values on
Which the Union is Based (European Commission COM/2003/0606 final),
15 October 2003.
42 Response by Member of the Commission Věra Jourová to the European Parliamant,
European Parliament Debate, “Situation in Hungary: Follow-up to the European
Parliament Resolution of 10 June 2015,” Brussels, 2 December 2015, www.euro
parl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20151202&secondRef=I
TEM-017&language=EN.
43 Ibid.
44 MFA Statement on the Polish Government’s Response to Commission Recommendation
of 27.07.2016, MFA Press Office, www.msz.gov.pl/en/news/mfa_statement_on_
the_polish_government_s_response_to_commission_recommendation_of_
27_07_2016.
45 Opening and Closing Remarks of First Vice-President Frans Timmermans on the Rule of
Law in Poland, European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and
Home Affairs (European Commission Speech/17/3042), 31 August 2017, http://
europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-17-3042_en.htm.
46 Dimitry Kochenov and Laurent Pech, “Better Late than Never? On the European
Commission’s Rule of Law Framework and its First Activation,” Journal of
Common Market Studies 54, no. 5 (2016): 1062–1074 (1066).
47 Closa, “The Politics of Guarding the Treaties: Commission Scrutiny of Rule of
Law Compliance.”
48 Jurek Kuczkiewicz, “Juncker au Soir: ‘Il y a un sérieux problème de gouvernance
en Europe’,” Le Soir, 5 November 2016, www.lesoir.be/1360084/article/actua
lite/union-europeenne/2016-11-04/juncker-au-soir-il-y-un-serieux-probleme-
gouvernance-en-europe.
49 Laurent Pech and Kim Lane Scheppele, “Poland and the European Commission,
Part I: Dialogue of the Deaf,” Verfassungsblog, 3 January 2017, http://verfassungs
blog.de/poland-and-the-european-commission-part-i-a-dialogue-of-the-deaf/.
50 Opening and Closing Remarks of First Vice-President Frans Timmermans on the Rule of
Law in Poland.
51 Johan Galtung, “On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions: With
Examples from the Case of Rhodesia,” World Politics 19, no. 3 (1967): 378−416.
52 Bernd Schlipphak and Oliver Treib, “Playing the Blame Game on Brussels: The
Domestic Political Effects of EU Interventions against Democratic Backsliding,”
Journal of European Public Policy, 24, no. 3 (2016): 352−365; Stefaan Van den
Bogaert, “Editorial Comments, The Rule of Law in the Union, the Rule of
Union Law and the Rule of Law by the Union: Three Interrelated Problems,”
Common Market Law Review 53, no. 3 (2016): 597–605 (602).
53 Roland Bieber and Francesco Maiani, “Enhancing Centralized Enforcement of
EU Law: Pandora’s Toolbox?” Common Market Law Review 51, no. 4 (2014):
1057−1092; and Wilms, Protecting Fundamental Values in the European Union through
the Rule of Law, 68.
54 Réka Várnagy, “Hungary,” European Journal of Political Research Political Data Year-
book 52, no. 1 (2013): 96−100.
55 Andrzej Sadecki, In a State of Necessity: How Has Orban Changed Hungary? Point
of View, no. 41 (Warsaw, Poland: Centre for Eastern Studies, 2014), www.osw.
waw.pl/sites/default/files/pw_41_in-a-state-of-necessity_net.pdf.
56 Grabbe, “Six Lessons of Enlargement Ten Years On: The EU’s Transformative
Power in Retrospect and Prospect,” 47.
57 Ireneusz P. Karolewski, “Protest and Participation in Post-Transformation Poland:
The Case of the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD),” Communist
and Post-Communist Studies 49 no. 3 (2016): 255–267.
58 Closa, “The Politics of Guarding the Treaties: Commission Scrutiny of Rule of
Law Compliance.”
59 Wilms, Protecting Fundamental Values in the European Union through the Rule of
Law, 76.
60 The European Union and the Rule of Law, Keynote speech by Frans Timmermans,
Conference on the Rule of Law, Tilburg University, 31 August 2015, https://ec.
europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/timmermans/announcements/
european-union-and-rule-law-keynote-speech-conference-rule-law-tilburg-univer
sity-31-august-2015_en.
61 Pech and Scheppele, “Poland and the European Commission, Part I: Dialogue of
the Deaf.”
6 The mainstreaming of security
and defense in the European Union
post-2016
Building resilience in challenging times
Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira
By the time British people voted in favor of Brexit in a historic referendum

on 23 June 2016, the European Union (EU) had been facing the greatest
succession of crises since its inception.1 The fact that 51.9 percent of British
citizens voted in favor of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU
further crystallized the organization’s crisis of identity, which had gained new
contours in the face of mass migration, growing populism and the decline of
democracy in some of its member states, and the successive terrorist attacks
across Europe. The outcome of the Brexit referendum has surely caused the
EU’s deepest existential crisis in bringing the end of a kind of historical
taboo, based on the assumption that no state leaves the EU. Thus, the Brexit
process has stirred a widespread political and institutional debate on the future
of the European integration process. At the same time, in view of the
departure of such a key military power as the United Kingdom, it has also
prompted a discussion about the need to deepen the Common Security and
Defense Policy (CSDP) via a more effective implementation of the legal
provisions stipulated by the Lisbon Treaty.
On the external front, Russia’s aggressive assertiveness, as exhibited in the
annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and its increasing presence in the
Middle East, has led to a growing perception of this country—once
considered a strategic partner to the EU—as a potential threat. Furthermore,
the general deterioration of transatlantic relations caused by Donald Trump’s
“America First” doctrine, which has been redefining friends and foes in
Europe and the world, as reflected in the US National Security Strategy
issued in December 2017, has perplexed EU member states regarding the
United States’ degree of commitment to its strategic presence and security in
Europe. Trump’s indifference regarding the vitality of the EU, or even its
continuity, mirrored in his support of the United Kingdom’s departure from
the EU and a “hard Brexit,” has only intensified European uncertainty and
the need to close ranks within the CSDP purview.
The Brexit referendum and Trump’s erratic foreign policy have emerged as
new realities that have further altered the security environment in Europe. As
a result of these two stress factors, there has been a security and defense turn,
The mainstreaming of security in the EU 99
in the sense that security and defense matters came to feature at the top of
the EU’s agenda. Symptomatic of this has been a series of attempts since
2016 to deepen cooperation in the security and defense domain. These
include the launching of the “Global Strategy for the EU’s Foreign and
Security Policy” (EUGS) and, especially, the revival of the idea of
a European Security and Defense Union (ESDU) that had originally
flourished, albeit in a much less consensual mode, at another critical juncture:
the Tervuren Summit in April 2003. On that occasion, against the backdrop
of the Anglo-American military intervention in Iraq, European leaders had
pushed for politico-military integration to enable the creation of a defense
community that would supplement and eventually supersede the Atlantic
Alliance.2
Taking the period between 2009 and 2018 as the time frame for both
contextualization and analysis, this chapter provides a detailed process tracing
of the major steps undertaken in the realm of the CSDP since the entry in
force of the Lisbon Treaty, with special emphasis on the post-2016 initiatives
to develop the ESDU. Although those undertakings are still unfolding, they
have already shown that significant changes in EU−UK and EU−US
relations propel a deepening of CSDP as a political response to challenging
times, marked by enormous uncertainty in both European politics and
transatlantic relations. Linked to this, I argue that the Brexit process and the
foreign policy orientation of Trump’s administration have produced
ambivalent effects in the remits of CSDP. On one hand, these factors
represented major drawbacks to the EUGS; on the other hand, they have
galvanized a flurry of activity at the level of the politico-military integration.
Consequently, the European integration process has entered a new phase that
is characterized by the mainstreaming of security and defense, to the extent
that this policy area came to be viewed as central for the EU to bolster its
resilience in the face of Brexit. I conclude that despite the various challenges
posed to the reinforcement of the CSDP, the volatile European and
transatlantic junctures, in combination with multiple risks of gradual
disintegration, have left the EU with no alternative but to develop its
politico-military integrative core. This was crucial for the EU to rise to the
occasion and continue to assert itself as a respected foreign and security policy
actor on the international scene.
The Common Security and Defense Policy: the provisions of

the Treaty of Lisbon
The Treaty of Lisbon inaugurated a new legal framework in the area of
foreign, security and defense policy that was mainly designed to back up the
EU’s endeavors to build its influence on the international stage as an
increasingly autonomous political and security actor.
On the foreign policy front, the new treaty introduced four
modifications of the institutional setting to improve the EU’s aptitude for
100 Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira
and coherence in external action: the recognition of a single international
legal personality for the EU (Article 47); the creation of the posts of
President of the European Council (Article 15.5 and 16) and of High
Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
combined with that of Vice-President of the Commission (Articles 17.4,
18, and 27); and the establishment of the European External Action
Service (EEAS) (Article 27.3).3
Regarding security and defense, the European Security and Defense Policy
(ESDP), originally created in 1999, was formally codified as CSDP in the
Treaty of Lisbon. In Title V of the Treaty on European Union (TEU),
“General provisions on the Union’s external action and specific provisions on
the common foreign and security policy” (CFSP), Section 2, which is
dedicated to the provisions on the CSDP (Articles 42−46), points to the
reinforcement of the EU’s role as a provider of security and peace, not only
in its immediate strategic neighborhood, but also in the world. This is the
case largely because the EU has expanded its former Petersberg missions,4 in
which it may employ both civilian and military assets. In Article 43.1 of the
TEU, these missions are identified as “joint disarmament operations,
humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks, conflict
prevention and peace-keeping tasks, tasks of combat forces in crisis
management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilization.”
Stipulating that “All these tasks may contribute to the fight against terrorism,
including by supporting third countries in combating terrorism in their
territories,” the new treaty clearly suggests that all European missions have
acquired an added relevance as concrete tools of the EU’s external counter-
terrorism-related activities.5
In addition to the expansion of crisis management tasks, the Lisbon Treaty
introduced two solidarity-orientated dispositions; namely, a mutual assistance
clause in case of a military aggression (Article 42. 7 TEU) and a solidarity
clause (Article 222 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union—
TFEU). Article 42.7 states that:
If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the

other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assist-
ance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of
the United Nations Charter.
This article has taken up the idea of a voluntary military solidarity, meaning
that there is no automatic security guarantee entailing a display of military
force in case of a military aggression against a member state.6 In any case, an
eventual display of military solidarity is not embraced unreservedly by all
member states. On one hand, the obligation to provide “aid and assistance” is
consistent with the sensitivity of the militarily non-allied states (Austria,
Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden); on the other hand, it does not
encroach on “commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of
their collective defense and the forum for its implementation” (Article 42.7).
Although not part of the provisions on the Common Security and Defense
Policy, reference should be also made to the “Solidarity Clause” in Article
222 TFEU.7 This clause foresees a mutual help mechanism in case of non-
state driven calamities (such as terrorist attacks and natural or man-made
disasters), to be activated on explicit request from the national authorities of
the affected country. The fact that the solidarity clause received a title of its
own within the legal architecture of the amended treaty shows that the
principle of solidarity associated with the EU’s coherence in external action—
which includes both the CFSP and CSDP—has gained increased acceptance
on the part of member states. Its adoption has strengthened the perception of
EU membership as a security bonus.8
That said, the Treaty of Lisbon was a missed opportunity to unequivocally
define the meaning, breadth, and scope of the conception of “mutual political
solidarity” in the CFSP/CSDP’s purview.9 Despite this, the new legal
provisions have paved the way to eventually strengthen the European solidarity
ethos. The first activation of Article 42.7, in the aftermath of the terrorist
attacks in Paris in November 2015, stands out as illustrative of such a potential.
Equally important, the Lisbon Treaty has introduced two cooperative
mechanisms within the CSDP’s realm, the so-called “enhanced cooperation”
(Article 329.2 and 331.2, TFEU) and the “permanent structured cooperation”
(PESCO) (Article 42.6 and 46, TEU). Informed by the principle of flexibility,
these legal arrangements allow willing and capable EU members to work more
closely together in the security and defense spheres. They were designed to
speed up the development of the Union’s military capabilities, in support of its
evolving role as international crisis manager, as well as its ambition to amplify
its influence on the global stage. The Lisbon Treaty also formally acknowledges
the existence of the European Defense Agency (Article 42.3) that had been
established in 2004 in support of the CSDP goals.
Along these lines, it can be said that the Lisbon Treaty brought a de jure
expansion of security and defense objectives. However, this legal
reinforcement did not immediately translate into a de facto deepening of the
common security and defense dimension, nor into a substantial enhancement
of the EU’s external role and influence. The entry into force of the new
treaty in 2009 and its first years of implementation were overshadowed by
the economic and debt crisis that fiercely hit the Eurozone countries,
especially those situated at the northern and southern fringes (Ireland,
Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Cyprus).
Consequently, political energies in Brussels and the European capitals had
to be channeled to cope with the adverse effects of the crisis, which have
created favorable conditions for the electoral success of old and new populist
protest parties with anti-EU agendas at the extreme left and right of the party
spectrum. These parties, like Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, the
National Front in France, and the People’s Party in Denmark, have sought to
draw benefits not only from the economic and social hardship, but also from
the inability of the EU to deal with its various internal and external crises.
Incidentally, the refugee crisis of summer 2015 galvanized this populist trend,
which had already become evident in the European Parliament elections of
June 2014, when Eurosceptic parties came to occupy 25 percent of the seats.
This is not to say that no new CSDP actions have sprung from the Lisbon
Treaty provisions since 2009. The most paradigmatic example is the above-
mentioned activation of Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty at the request of
French President François Hollande in response to the Paris terrorist attacks
of November 2015.10 In addition, 13 new CSDP missions have been
conducted, with Africa remaining the geographical focus.11 Furthermore, the
post-Lisbon Treaty period has witnessed the evolution of the naval
component of the CSDP, inaugurated in 2008 with EUNAVFOR Somalia
(known as Operation Atalanta) and consolidated with the launching of
EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia in 2015. This has led to a more
tangible European role in the provision of maritime security in both the
Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.12
From the fringes to the mainstream: the prominence of security

and defense in the post-2016 EU
The British referendum caused a politico-diplomatic turmoil within the EU
and turbulence across Europe, given the uncertainty of the outcome of the
Brexit negotiation process and unpredictability of the medium- and long-
term consequences.13 It also raised serious doubts, both inside and outside
Europe, about the continuation of the European integration process. There
were fears that the EU might become more vulnerable to divisions within
and between member states and might split apart; or that the EU may have
eventually reached its limits and may crumble. Several major partners outside
Europe, such as the United States, China, Canada, Australia, and India,
expressed political disappointment and geopolitical concerns over the
concrete implications of the Brexit vote.14 Brazil, whose authorities have
conveyed their trust that the decision of the British people would “not detain
the process of European integration,”15 is another case in point.
The perspective of the United Kingdom leaving the EU constituted a threat
to the organization’s aspiration to become a more influential player in
international security, since the EU could no longer count on the foreign,
security and military leverage, and assets of such a key power as the United
Kingdom. Besides being a permanent member of the UN Security Council
and a nuclear power, the United Kingdom was the principal military spender
among EU members and, as elaborated later in this chapter, has been leading
the CSDP alongside France since its inception in 1999. Hence, the British
referendum outcome represented a major drawback to the Global Strategy, the
design and level of ambition of which had been considerably conditioned not
only by fears regarding the upcoming referendum, but also by the hope that
the United Kingdom would retain its key military role in CFSP and CSDP.16
A similar reasoning can be applied to Trump’s election and ensuing “America
First”- orientated diplomacy, since the new strategic document builds on the
assumption that the US would remain the EU’s strongest strategic partner.
On 28 June 2016, five days after British voters opted for the country to
leave the EU, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,
Federica Mogherini, presented the Global Strategy to the European Council.
This strategic framework document urged for a revamp of the European
security and defense dimension. While depicting the EU as being “under
threat,” it stated that “[I]nvestment in security and defence is a matter of
urgency” and “defence cooperation must become the norm.” Furthermore,
the document underlined that the “Common Security and Defence Policy
must become more responsive” while “making full use of the Lisbon Treaty’s
potential.” The document recognized the need for the EU to “step up its
contribution to Europe’s security and defence” and enhance its “credibility in
security and defence” given the realization that “soft power is not enough” and
that its “partners expect the European Union to play a major role, including as
a global security provider.” To this end, it is important that “soft and hard
power go hand in hand.” The Global Strategy further stated that the “EU
needs to be strengthened as a security community: European security and
defence efforts should enable the EU to act autonomously while also
contributing to and undertaking actions in cooperation with NATO.” Finally,
it underlined that: “A more credible European defence is essential also for the
sake of a healthy transatlantic partnership with the United States.”17 Along
these lines, the new document has acknowledged the need to enhance
cooperation with NATO.
Against the backdrop of the EUGS, the Brexit process has stirred a debate
not only about the future of European integration process, but also about the
eventual framing of CSDP. A few months after Theresa May invoked Article
50 of the Treaty of Lisbon (in March 2017), thereby opening formally the
Brexit negotiation process, both the President of the European Commission,
Jean-Claude Juncker, and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed
commitment to the deepening of the EU’s security and defense spheres. In
his speech on the State of the Union of 13 September 2017, Juncker
emphasized that, “By 2025 we need a fully-fledged European Defense
Union. We need it. And NATO wants it.” He also proposed the creation of
a European Cybersecurity Agency to protect the democracies and economies
against cyber-attacks.18 Macron, in his symbolic speech given at the Sorbonne
University a few days later, pointed out the need for the EU “to establish
a common intervention force, a common defense budget and a common
doctrine for action.” He also urged for the creation of a “European
Intelligence Academy” to strengthen the ties between European countries
“through training and exchanges.”19
A noteworthy breakthrough in the CFSP realm took place on
11 December 2017, with the adoption of the “Council Decision establishing
Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and Determining the list of
Participating Member States.”20 This decision created a formal security
cooperation between 25 of the 28 member states (the exceptions were the
United Kingdom, Denmark, and Malta).21 Rather than launching a process
conducive to the creation of a European army, PESCO created binding
commitments encompassing defense capability development, with the
intention of reinforcing the means and capabilities of CSDP operations and
missions. In June 2018, in the context of the EU budget for the period 2021
−2027, the Commission further substantiated its commitment to reinforce the
EU’s strategic autonomy and its global security role. To this end, it has
announced a €13 billion European Defense Fund to finance projects within
the framework of CFSP and supported the High Representative’s proposal of
a €10.5 billion European Peace Facility, an instrument that would “help
improve the EU’s ability to prevent conflicts, build peace and guarantee
international security.”22 In his fourth and final State of the Union Address at
the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Juncker affirmed that: “I will
continue to work day and night over the next months to see the European
Defence Fund and Permanent Structured Cooperation in Defence become
fully operational.”23
Unlike at the beginning of the 2010s, the security and defense component
of EU foreign policy has ceased to be a fringe issue in the European
integration process. It has moved closer to the heart of the general EU
agenda and become increasingly mainstreamed in both political rhetoric of
key European leaders and CFSP actions, as denoted by the succession of
proposals, projects, and initiatives put forward after 2016 in addition to and
building upon the Lisbon Treaty. As High Representative Mogherini
acknowledged when presenting the first annual report on the EU Global
Strategy at the Foreign Affairs Council, “In the area of security and defence,
more has been achieved in the last ten months than in the last decade.”24
Old and new challenges to the Common Security and Defense

Policy after Brexit
In a speech made in 1988 at the College of Europe, then-British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher brought up the issue of European defense in the
following terms:
We must strive to maintain the United States’ commitment to Europe’s

defence … Increasingly, they will look to Europe to play a part in out-of
-area defence. And the time has come when we must give substance to
our declarations about a strong defence effort with better value for
money. It is not an institutional problem. It is not a problem of drafting.
It is something at once simpler and more profound: it is a question of
political will and political courage, of convincing people in all our coun-
tries that we cannot rely forever on others for our defence …25
Thirty years have passed since then and it is remarkable to realize how these
words remain pertinent after watershed events like the end of the Cold War,
9/11, the 2008 economic and financial crisis, the Russian annexation of
Crimea, the Brexit process, and the election of Donald Trump. Particularly
the post-2016 developments, taken together in their intersections and
interactions, should be considered as a backdrop against which the current
challenges to the CSDP—as it thrusts to increase the global impact of the
European foreign policy—should be understood. Four challenges deserve
particular attention: (1) public opinion and expectations regarding EU
security and defense policy, (2) the heterogeneity based on diverging national
perspectives on the future development of the CSDP, (3) the British legacy
anchored on the “Saint Malo” formula, and (4) the perspective of a shift in
the internal balance of power, carrying with it diplomatic competition and
geopolitical tensions.
The first challenge links to public support to the reinforcement of political
integration. According to Eurobarometer data from 2017, three-quarters of
EU citizens are in favor of a common defense and security policy. Moreover,
in 23 member states a majority of respondents are in favor of creating an EU
army26 (the exceptions are the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Finland,
and Sweden27). This proportion has increased slightly since 2015, while the
proportion of respondents who oppose a common European army has
remained stable. Thus, the Eurobarometer data shows a putative public
support of CSDP, which means that leaders of EU’s member states cannot
blame their citizens for their eventual lack of “political courage,” to use
Margaret Thatcher’s expression. This is a formidable challenge facing the
European leaders who, besides the foreign partners’ expectations of seeing
“the European Union to play a major role, including as a global security
provider,”28 also face their citizens’ expectations of living in a more secure
region. Incidentally, the feeling that the EU is a secure place to live has been
continually decreasing since 2011, with European citizens identifying
“terrorism” and “immigration” as the two most important issues threatening
the EU.29 This cannot be disconnected from both the wave of illegal
migrants and refugees arriving in Europe and the terrorist attacks that took
place between 2015 and 2017.
Citizens’ eroding perceptions of the EU as a secure place and
disappointment with its efforts to promote security may engender ambivalent
effects. European leaders may view this ambivalence as a window of
opportunity to promote deepened security and defense integration. It may
also present a political opportunity for populist parties to reinforce negative
attitudes towards the EU and postulate European disintegration or the demise
of the EU. The increasing popularity of these parties, as evidenced by the
2017 and 2018 national election results in the Netherlands, France, Germany,
Austria, and Italy, may create further obstacles to the deepening of political
integration.
This leads us to the second challenge posed by the heterogeneity resulting
from prevailing cleavages among member states’ foreign and security
identities. These were molded by national interests and historical experiences
which gave rise to different national approaches toward the eventual framing
of CSDP. To be sure, there are diverging views about what is envisaged as
being the corollary of the CSDP or, in other words, of the so-called finalité
politique of the European integration process. Particularly skeptical views have
been endorsed not only by the four non-NATO EU members (Austria,
Ireland, Finland, and Sweden), but also by Denmark.
The militarily non-allied states show a relatively high reluctance vis-à-vis
the emergence of a “military power Europe” with the potential to
undermine the role of NATO, upon which they have indirectly relied their
post-Cold War security policy strategies as participants in the Partnership for
Peace (PfP). These countries have been participating “inside the fence” of the
Atlantic Alliance built largely around PfP, whilst remaining “outside the
walls” of NATO represented by its collective defense arrangements under
Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. In light of this “inside the fence but
outside the walls” approach, these states have been weighing the
professionalism and efficiency of their national military assets and capabilities
by NATO standards.30 It is noteworthy that while the idea of participation in
EU-led crisis management operations has hitherto drawn high levels of
support in these countries, the percentage of support drops when respondents
are asked to consider the creation of a European army.31
This suggests that the opposition to the deepening of CSDP in the
direction of a genuine ESDU encompassing common defense will tend to
persist in a post-Brexit landscape, largely due to those states reluctant to
endorse a future collective defense scheme in view of their longstanding
foreign and security traditions of military neutrality and international pacifism.
Thus, those who have seen the United Kingdom’s departure as a promise,
removing an obstacle to progress in CSDP, must be reminded that any
decision related to the establishment of a common defense has to be adopted
unanimously and in accordance with all member states’ constitutional
requirements.
Interestingly, the Council Decision establishing PESCO essentially
incorporated the Irish clause, which was originally introduced in the
Maastricht Treaty and systematically replicated in all revised Treaties,
including the Lisbon Treaty (Article 42.7). Point 4 of the Council Decision
stipulates that:
The decision of Member states to participate in PESCO is voluntary and

does not in itself affect national sovereignty or the specific character of the
security and defense policy of certain Member States. Contributions by the par-
ticipating Member States to fulfill the more binding commitments under
PESCO will be made in accordance with their applicable constitutional
provisions.32
This disposition has accommodated the sensitivity of Sweden, Finland,
Ireland, and Austria that eventually signed up to participate in PESCO.
Reluctance regarding the deepening of CSDP has also characterized the
posture of Denmark, which, since the Edinburgh Agreement of 1992, “does
not participate in the elaboration and implementation of decisions and actions
with implications in the domain of defence.”33 This opt-out, which was the
political solution found to overcome the initial Danish rejection of the
Maastricht Treaty, in a referendum held in 1992, has never been lifted.34 As
such, Denmark is “unable to participate in military operation or in the
cooperation on developments and acquisition of military capabilities within
the EU framework, nor will Denmark participate in any decisions or
planning in this regard.”35 Again, PESCO is a case in point. By choosing not
to participate, Denmark upheld its self-exclusion option from defense
cooperation outside NATO. The Danish opt-out from the CSDP boils down
to a paradoxical situation in which Denmark remains the least formally
engaged in the CSDP of all the Nordic countries, despite being the only
Nordic full-fledged member of both the EU and NATO, and, as a member
of the Atlantic Alliance, adopting a defense doctrine and practice closer to
the so-called European “mainstream.”36
The third challenge is linked to what can be depicted as the British legacy,
which rests on two interrelated aspects. On one hand, there is the seminal
leadership undertaken by the United Kingdom in the EU’s security and
defense dimension since the Joint Declaration on European Defense issued at
the British-French Summit of 4 December 1998 in Saint Malo, which paved
the way to the foundation of the ESDP in the Cologne European Council of
June 1999. On the other hand, as a by-product of that leading role, there is
the division of labor between the EU and NATO, which has conditioned
the development of the ESDP and, since 2009, the CSDP. Such division is
based on the Saint Malo Declaration, according to which the EU “should
only take decisions and approve military action where the Alliance as a whole
is not engaged.”37 This formula ascribes NATO (read also the United States)
the right of first refusal, thereby safeguarding the primacy of the Alliance in
the European security architecture. In so doing, it gives the upper hand to
NATO and the strategic interests of the United States, to the detriment of
the EU’s priorities. The United Kingdom has consistently advocated this
seminal agreement since 1998, which is symptomatic of the role it has played
as the primary interlocutor of Washington’s concerns regarding the
advancement of the CSDP.
Among the concerns that stood out were those voiced by former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in response to the Saint Malo
Declaration, which became known as the three Ds (that is, no
decoupling, no duplication, and no discrimination).38 Although successive
administrations in Washington since the end of the Cold War have
gradually come to acknowledge the need for the EU to develop some
sort of military capability to be able to participate in the international
security burden-sharing, it is plausible to assume that US concerns about
the compatibility of security and defense integration with its geopolitical
objectives and strategic interests remain valid.
Therefore, the Saint Malo principle will continue to represent a challenge
for both the future development of the CSDP and the institutionalization of
the EU−NATO cooperation. After its departure from the EU, the United
Kingdom will lose its ability to shape CSDP from within and to promote
complementarity and synergies between CSDP and NATO in the domain of
crisis management in the spirit of the Saint Malo formula. Not surprisingly,
considering the United Kingdom’s traditional role as the key US partner in
NATO, this may fuel anxiety inside and outside the US administration about
CSDP going off in an incompatible direction vis-à-vis NATO.
Another implication of the absence of the United Kingdom from CSDP is
that it will curtail the EU’s military capacity to operate in more demanding
theaters far from Europe. This will impinge on the capacity of the EU to
contribute in a more substantial way to the international security burden-
sharing in support of and in cooperation with NATO. After Brexit
materializes, France will be the “EU’s only full-spectrum player on the global
scene”39 with all the credentials to take the leadership in the advancement of
CSDP as well as the improvement of EU−NATO relationship. It remains to
be seen if, when, and to what extent France, now as a full-fledged NATO
member,40 will take the place of the United Kingdom in assuring the
primacy of NATO in the European security architecture and leveraging EU
−NATO mutually reinforcing relations.
The perspective of a reconfiguration of leadership in the realm of CSDP is
inextricably connected to the fourth challenge arising from a shift in the
internal balance of power. As alluded to earlier, the evolution of the CSDP
has been historically conditioned by the politico-diplomatic commitment and
operational engagement of the United Kingdom and France, with Germany
also playing the role of a facilitator, albeit a less structural one, given the
differences of military leverage among the “Big Three.”41 The fact that the
United Kingdom, the principal military spender and the longstanding major
ally of the United States among the EU member states, will cease to
participate in and lead the CSDP post-Brexit will engender a power vacuum.
This is likely to unleash geopolitical tensions and competition between the
“Big Two”—France and Germany—particularly concerning the leadership of
the politico-military integration process.
As a principal military player within the EU, France will endeavor to
secure a leading role within CFSP and CSDP. To this end, the country may
engage more fully with the post-Brexit United Kingdom on the political,
diplomatic, and military fronts by capitalizing on their commonalities, namely
their condition as nuclear powers, permanent membership in the UN
Security Council, and their willingness to project diplomatic influence and
military force at a global level. Considering the existing conditions for the
participation of non-EU NATO members in CSDP missions and operations,
and the establishment of a future customized partnership between the EU and
the United Kingdom in the security domain, France may become the greatest
promotor of the United Kingdom’s engagement in the post-Brexit CSDP,
particularly in its more robust military operations. Following some years of
reticent influence in the European affairs under François Hollande, France
now has more auspicious conditions to reinforce its influence on the post-
Brexit EU’s regional and global role following Emmanuel Macron’s victory
in 2017. The new structure of Macron’s government, particularly the re-
designation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of Europe and
Foreign Affairs and the creation of an exclusive ministerial portfolio to
address European matters, has pointed in this direction. Another indicative
sign of France’s proclivity to take the leadership in the realm of European
security and defense was the launching of the (French-led) European
Intervention Initiative (EI2), in June 2018, as proposed by President Macron
in his Sorbonne speech.42
Germany, in turn, has played a prominent role in sustaining the European
integration process, especially through taking the lead in the management of
the multiple crises that have struck the EU since 2008. At the same time, it
has been searching for an international status in line with its economic weight
and has already signaled its aspiration to extend its influence in continental
Europe by contributing to the progress of CSDP. The “White Paper on the
German Security Policy and Future of the Bundeswehr,” published in
July 2016, stressed that “Germany is striving to achieve the long-term goal of
a common European Security and Defence Union.” It also outlined that
“Germany has continually taken initiatives, particularly in the Weimar
Triangle consultation forum established together with France and Poland, to
further develop and intensify CSDP.”43 In September of the same year,
during a visit to Lithuania, Germany’s Minister of Defense Ursula von der
Leyen stated that “The decision of the United Kingdom, a staunch opponent
of any EU ‘army’, to quit the EU has also removed an obstacle to the closer
European defense cooperation favored by Germany, France and many Eastern
European countries” and called for a European “defense union” in the form
of a “Schengen of defense.”44 In the aftermath of President Trump’s first visit
to Europe in May 2017 to participate in a NATO Summit in Brussels and
a G7 meeting in Taormina (Italy), Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced her
discontent with his ambiguous positions regarding the United States’ role in
the management of security in Europe and relations with Russia. She urged
the Europeans to focus on their own interests and take their fate into their
own hands, adding that “The times in which we could rely fully on others—
they are somewhat over.”45
Nevertheless, Germany continues to exhibit an entrenched reluctance to
play a more assertive and ambitious defense role and is not in the position,
and will not be in the near future at least, to fill the void that the United
Kingdom’s exit will engender in the domain of the CSDP. This may result in
a “back to the future scenario” characterized by a common Franco-German
leadership in promoting CSDP, notably in the implementation of PESCO.46
The joint Franco-German declaration of 11 September 2016, signed by
Ursula von der Leyen and Jean-Yves Le Drian, which endorsed a leap
forward regarding common defense, is one paradigmatic example of that.
This document corresponded to a six-page plan of action conveying that “in
the context of a deteriorating security environment … it is high time to
reinforce our solidarity and European defence capabilities in order to more
effectively protect the citizens and borders of Europe” and “taking into
account the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU, we have to
henceforth act as 27 [member states]” in order to move towards “a
comprehensive, realistic and credible defence in the European Union.”47
More recently, the Treaty of Franco-German Cooperation and Integration,
signed by Merkel and Macron on 22 January 2019 in Aachen, intended to
reinvigorate the centrality of the Franco-German leadership in the
construction of the post-Brexit EU. However, the damage that the protests
of the “Yellow Vest” movement that broke out at the end of
November 2018 across France has caused to Macron’s reputation and
leadership capacity, as well as Angela Merkel’s announced withdrawal from
German politics in 2021,48 may bring about unexpected twists and turns in
the dynamic of the Franco-German axis and also in regard to the place of
both countries within the EU.
Conclusion
The result of the British referendum of June 2016, and the associated need to
forge a new customized relationship with the United Kingdom as a potential
special partner, has taken the EU into uncharted territory. Furthermore, the
Trump administration’s erratic foreign policy has raised serious doubts about
the credibility of the United States’ continued leadership of and commitment
to the security and defense of Europe. These historically exceptional
circumstances, together with the aggressive assertiveness of Russia since the
annexation of Crimea, have contributed to bolster the salience of security and
defense matters in the EU’s agenda.
Indeed, this complex and challenging picture has prompted the
mainstreaming of the CSDP within the post-2016 European integration
process. This found tangible expression in the identification of security and
defense as an integrative core policy area as part of a resilience-building
strategy in response to stressful times engendered by both the Brexit
imbroglio and the hectic Trump administration. Evidence of this security and
defense mainstreaming trend can be found in multiple and separate initiatives
and projects that were inaugurated with the presentation of the EUGS to the
European Council only a few days after the British referendum, whose
negative outcome carried with it the potential to hinder the achievement of
the major goals set forth by the new strategic document. Also illustrative of
this was the European Council’s decision to establish PESCO, designed to
boost convergence of participating states’ security and defense actions, which
represented a milestone in the post-2016 development of the CSDP.
Moreover, the French and German leaders, on one hand, and the Juncker
Commission, on the other, have been revitalizing the idea of an ESDU in
the spirit of Tervuren. At the same time, the existence of serious public
concerns with security and stability in Europe in the face of mounting
migration pressure and terrorist threats has encouraged further improvement
of security and defense cooperation. Equally important, the prospective exit
of an EU member state known for its unwavering disinclination to establish
a European common defense has generated high hopes in some circles about
the possibility of unparalleled progress of the CSDP as part of the
implementation of the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions.
However, as this chapter has outlined, the departure of the United
Kingdom from the remits of the CSDP will not immediately dilute internal
impediments to the advancement of the politico-military integration towards
its final objective: a common defense. Old challenges arising from divergent
national foreign and security policy identities and defense thinking do persist
in the particular cases of the militarily non-allied states and Denmark.
Furthermore, the military power vacuum and ensuing changes in the
leadership dynamics of the CSDP provoked by the withdrawal of the United
Kingdom pose new challenges. Although the history of the European
integration process has witnessed Franco-German leadership in various
domains, this leadership has never been truly tested in a post-Cold War
security and defense setting. In this regard, the Tervuren Summit stands out
as the exception to the rule. Finally, the future political settlement resulting
from the materialization of the intricate Brexit process—with the withdrawal
of the UK from the EU on 31 January 2020—will inevitably impact on the
post-Brexit EU−NATO relations that may cause troubling disagreements, not
only between United States and the European countries, but also among
member and non-member states of the two organizations. Hence,
multifaceted complications and discord triggered by the departure of the
country traditionally perceived as the “nuisance power” or “awkward
partner” may well frustrate those that optimistically expect such a departure
to open an easy and short road to a genuine European common defense.
Notes
1 This study was conducted at the Research Center in Political Science (UID/
CPO/0758/2019), University of Minho/University of Évora, and was supported
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese
Ministry of Education and Science through national funds.
2 At the summit that took place on 29 April 2003, French President Jacques
Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and the leaders of Belgium and
Luxembourg advocated an EU military planning and command structure that was
separate and independent from NATO. For details, see “European Defence
Meeting—Tervuren,” in From Copenhagen to Brussels. European Defence: Core
Documents, Chaillot Papers no. 67, ed. Antonio Missiroli (Paris, France: Institute
for Security Studies, 2003), 76−80, www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EUISS
Files/cp067e.pdf.
3 For this and subsequent quotes from the Treaty of Lisbon, see: Treaty on the
European Union (Treaty of Lisbon), Official Journal of the European Union 51
(2008/C 115/01), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ%
3AC%3A2008%3A115%3ATOC.
4 These missions initially incorporated in Article J.7.2 Treaty of Amsterdam were
the following: “humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks and tasks of
combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking.” Treaty of Amster-
dam, 1997, www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/treaty/pdf/amst-en.pdf.
5 Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira and Bruno Martins, “The External Dimension of Euro-
pean Union’s Fight against Terrorism: Introduction to Empirical and Theoretical
Developments,” in The European Union’s Fight against Terrorism: The CFSP and
Beyond, ed. Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira and Bruno Martins (London and
New York: Routledge, 2012), 1−15.
6 Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira and A. J. Groom, “‘Mutual Solidarity’ within the Euro-
pean Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy: What is the Name of the
Game?” International Politics 47, no. 6 (2010): 596−616 (612).
7 Title VII, Part Five devoted to the “External Action of the Union.” See: Consolidated
Version of the TFEU, 2012, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2012/oj.
8 Ferreira-Pereira and Groom, “‘Mutual Solidarity’ within the European Union’s
Common Foreign and Security Policy: What is the Name of the Game?” 612.
9 Ibid.
10 Hartwig Hummel, “The Meaning of Solidarity in Europe’s Common Security
and Defence Policy,” in Solidarity in the European Union: Challenges and Perspectives.
Research Paper No. 9, ed. Angelos Giannakopoulos (Tel Aviv, Israel: Tel Aviv
University, S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies,
2017), 78−94.
11 Eleven of the 13 CSDP missions launched since the entry into force of the
Lisbon Treaty were conducted in Africa: EUTM Somalia (2010), EUAVSEC
South Sudan (2012), EUCAP Somalia (previously EUCAP Nestor) EUCAP
Sahel Niger (2012), EUBAM Libya (2013), EUTM Mali (2013), EUFOR RCA
(2014), EUCAP Sahel Mali (2015), and EUMAM RCA (2015), EUNAVFOR
MED Operation Sophia (2015), and EUTM RCA (2016). The two operations
launched outside the African continent were EUAM Ukraine (2014) and EUAM
Iraq (2017). See https://eeas.europa.eu/topics/military-and-civilian-missions-and-
perations/430/military-and-civilian-missions-and-operations_en.
12 Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira and Alena Vieira, “Developments in European Union-
Africa Relations and their Implications for Asia,” in Routledge Handbook of Africa-
Asia Relations, ed. Pedro Amakasu Raposo, David Arase, and Scarlett Cornelissen
(London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 404−419.
13 By the time this chapter was written (early 2019), the EU−UK Withdrawal
Agreement negotiated under the leadership of Theresa May had been rejected by
the British Parliament in a historic and resounding defeat for a prime minister.
This brought about a deadlock to the Brexit process that was only overcome in
December of 2019 after the (re-)election of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister who
set 31 January 2020 as the (new) Brexit date.
14 Tim Oliver, “European and International Views of Brexit,” Journal of European
Public Policy 23, no. 9 (2016): 1321−1328 (1325−1326).
15 Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations, Referendo sobre a permanência do Reino
Unido na União Europeia, 2016, www.itamaraty.gov.br/pt-BR/notas-a-imprensa/
14259-referendo-sobre-a-permanencia-do-reino-unido-na-uniao-europeia.
16 Nathalie Tocci, “The Making of the EU Global Strategy,” Contemporary Security
Policy 37, no. 3 (2017): 461−472.
17 High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Vice-
President of the European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger
Europe. A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, 2016,
https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/sites/globalstrategy/files/eugs_review_web.pdf.
18 President Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union Address 2017 (European Commis-
sion Speech/17/3165), 13 September 2017, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_
SPEECH-17-3165_en.htm.
19 Initiative for Europe, Sorbonne Speech of Emmanuel Macron, 26 September 2017,
http://international.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2017/09/29/macron-sorbonne-
verbatim-europe-18583.html.
20 “Council Decision (CFSP) 2017/2315 of 11 December 2017 Establishing Per-
manent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and Determining the List of Participat-
ing Member States,” Council of the European Union 2017/2315, Brussels,
11 December 2017, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CE
LEX%3A32017D2315.
21 On 13 November 2017, ministers from 23 member states (Austria, Belgium, Bul-
garia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland,
Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden) signed a joint notification on
PESCO and submitted it to the High Representative and the Council. On
7 December 2017, Ireland and Portugal also notified their decision to join
PESCO. See www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/12/11/
defence-cooperation-pesco-25-member-states-participating/.
22 European Commission—Press release, EU Budget: Stepping Up the EU’s Role as
a Security and Defence Provider, Strasbourg, 13 June 2018, http://europa.eu/rapid/
press-release_IP-18-4121_en.htm.
23 State of the Union 2018, The Hour of European Sovereignty, 12 September 2018,
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/state-union-speeches/state-union-
2018_en.
24 European Union, From Shared Vision to Common Action: Implementing the EU
Global Strategy—Year 1, 2019, https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/en/implementing-
eu-global-strategy-year-1.
25 Speech by Margaret Thatcher to the College of Europe (“The Bruges Speech”), College
of Europe, 20 September 1988.
26 European Commission, Designing Europe’s Future—Report, Special Eurobarometer
461, http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/
download/DocumentKy/78720.
27 Ibid.
President of the European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action.
29 European Commission, Public Opinion in the European Union—Report, Standard
Eurobarometer 88, http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/
index.cfm.
30 Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira, “The Militarily Non-Allied States in the Foreign and
Security Policy of the European Union: Solidarity ‘Ma Non Troppo’,” Journal of
Contemporary European Studies 13, no. 1 (2005): 21−37; Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira,
“Inside the Fence but Outside the Walls: Austria, Finland and Sweden in the
Post-Cold War Security Architecture,” Cooperation and Conflict 41, no. 1
(March 2006): 99−122; Laura C. Ferreira-Pereira, ed., Inside the Fence but Outside
the Walls: The Militarily Non-Allied States in the Security Architecture of Post-Cold
War Europe (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007); and Ferreira-Pereira and Groom,
“‘Mutual Solidarity’ within the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security
Policy: What is the Name of the Game?”
31 European Commission, Designing Europe’s Future—Report, Special Eurobarometer
461, http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/
download/DocumentKy/78720.
32 “Council Decision (CFSP) 2017/2315 of 11 December 2017 Establishing Per-
manent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and Determining the List of Participat-
ing Member States,” Council of the European Union 2017/2315, Brussels,
1 December 2017, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CE
LEX%3A32017D2315 (author’s emphasis).
33 This opt-out was outlined in Part B of the Conclusions of the Presidency entitled,
“Denmark and the Treaty of the European Union” in the Edinburgh Agreement of
12 December 1992. By then, besides opting out from the future defense dimension of
the emerging CFSP that would eventually incorporate the ESDP as of 1999, Denmark
declined to become a full member of the WEU as it could have done (as a member of
both the EU and NATO) and opted for an observer status later also adopted by Aus-
tria, Finland, and Sweden. See European Council in Edinburgh, Conclusions of the Presi-
dency, 11 and 12 December 1992, http://ec.europa.eu/dorie/fileDownload.do;
jsessionid=x0v2VpKXnWgYSv5fJ1pk25c9GXhhRq1hv13xkTXG5fWDnvlW1Zmt!-
849272214?docId=387&cardId=387.
34 The Danish defense opt-out is stipulated in Protocol no. 22 annexed to the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Lisbon Treaty).
35 Danish Ministry of Defense, EU—The Danish Defence Opt-Out, 8 March 2018,
www.fmn.dk/eng/allabout/pages/thedanishdefenceopt-out.aspx.
36 Alyson J. K. Bailes, “Introduction: The European Defence Challenge for the
Nordic Region,” in The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence
Policy, ed. Alyson Bailes, Gunilla Herolf and Bengt Sundelius (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006): 1−26 (11).
37 Point 3 of the Joint Declaration on European Defence, issued at the British
−French Summit of 4 December 1998, Saint Malo, www.cvce.eu/en/obj/franco_
british_st_malo_declaration_4_december_1998-en-f3cd16fb-fc37-4d52-936f-
c8e9bc80f24f.html.
38 The three Ds were originally laid down in: Madeleine Albright, “The Right
Balance Will Secure NATO’s Future,” Financial Times, 7 December 1998;
and repeated in remarks to the North Atlantic Council ministerial meeting
held in Brussels the day after: “The key to a successful initiative is to focus
on practical military capabilities. Any initiative must avoid preempting Alli-
ance decision-making by de-linking ESDI from NATO, avoid duplicating
existing efforts, and avoid discriminating against non-EU members.” See Sec-
retary Albright’s Remarks to the North Atlantic Council Ministerial Meeting, Brus-
sels, 8 December 1998, https://1997-2001.state.gov/statements/1998/981208.
html.
39 François Heisbourg, “Brexit and European Security,” Survival 58, no. 3 (2016):
13−22 (17).
40 After being among the founding countries, France ceased to be a member of
NATO in 1966. In 1995, France resumed its seat in NATO’s political institutions
and in 2009 it became a full-fledged member. See www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/
french-foreign-policy/security-disarmament-and-non-proliferation/the-institu
tional-framework-of-france-s-action/france-and-nato/.
41 Klaus Brummer, ed., The Big 3 and ESDP: France, Germany and the United King-
dom, European Foreign and Security Policy no. 5 (Gütersloh, Germany: Bertels-
mann Stiftung, 2006), www.ies.be/files/private/8)%20Brummer%20-%20Big%
203%20and%20ESDP.pdf.
42 The initial participating states were Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ger-
many, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. As stated in
the Letter of Intent signed by the Ministers of Defense of those nine countries,
the ultimate goal of this “flexible, non-binding forum” of like-minded states was
“to develop a shared strategic culture” and “to contribute to reinforce bilateral
defence relationships as well as joint efforts carried out within the framework of
key multilateral organizations such as the EU, NATO and the UN or ad hoc ini-
tiative…and ongoing efforts within the European Union to deepen defence
cooperation, notably PESCO”; see www.bmvg.de/resource/blob/25706/
099f1956962441156817d7f35d08bc50/20180625-letter-of-intent-zu-der-euro
paeischen-interventionsinitiative-data.pdf. Meanwhile, Finland, Sweden, Norway,
and Italy have also joined the EI2; www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-secur
ity/news/macrons-coalition-of-european-militaries-grows-in-force/.
43 White Paper on the German Security Policy and Future of the Bundeswehr,
19 July 2016, www.gmfus.org/publications/white-paper-german-security-policy-
and-future-bundeswehr.
44 Andrius Sytas, “German Minister, in Lithuania, Backs European ‘Defense
Union’,” Reuters, 8 September 2016, https://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/
idCAKCN11E1FL.
45 Alison Smale and Steven Erlanger, “Merkel, after Discordant G-7 Meeting, Is
Looking Past Trump,” The New York Times, 28 May 2017, www.nytimes.com/
2017/05/28/world/europe/angela-merkel-trump-alliances-g7-leaders.html?_r=0.
46 Ulrich Krotz and Joachim Schild, “Back to the Future? Franco-German Bilateral-
ism in Europe’s Post-Brexit Union,” Journal of European Public Policy 25, no. 8
(2017): 1174−1193.
47 Andrew Rettman, “France and Germany Propose EU ‘Defence Union’,” Euobser-
ver, 12 September 2016, https://euobserver.com/foreign/135022.
48 This was announced in the last days of October 2018. See Josie Le Bon,
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel Will Not Seek Re-election in 2021,” The
Guardian, 29 October 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/29/angela-
merkel-wont-seek-re-election-as-cdu-party-leader.
Part III
Latin America
7 Mercosur between resilience and
disintegration
Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann
The Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) was created in 1991, in

a context of neoliberal hegemony in South America, by enthusiasts of free
trade—such as President Fernando Collor in Brazil and President Carlos
Menem in Argentina—as the main mechanism by which to promote
development. The shifting ideological spectrum of member states’
governments, and the alignment of central-left leaders in the middle of the
first decade of the new century, known as the “left turn” or “pink tide,”
changed this underlying consensus, however. This led to the consolidation of
a “postliberal” agenda within Mercosur, including therein aims of fostering
social policies and more inclusive processes of decision-making.1
Despite these changes, the idea of regional integration in the Southern
Cone and the benefits of Mercosur remained a shared consensus. The reasons
for that were the overall favorable position of political and economic elites,
who saw the organization as a good platform for engagement with the global
economy, a lock-in for democracy, the stabilization of regional security
relations, and/or, paradoxically, for strengthening sovereignty in the context
of globalization.2 Populations as a whole do not traditionally care about the
external relations of their country, but in particular periods transnational civil
society and social movements have been mobilized at the regional level
against the liberalization of trade—such as in the early 1990s and early
twenty-first century.3 In both instances Mercosur was strengthened, as it
reacted to demands to include common social and labor regulations (as will
be discussed below).
Mercosur’s tacit acceptance—if not outright legitimacy—remained at
a minimal level during these years, but not constantly so. Rather, it went
through cyclical ups and downs with challenges posed by: the Brazilian
currency devaluation in 1999; the pulp mills dispute between Uruguay and
Argentina in the early years of the new century; the suspension of Paraguay
and accession of Venezuela in 2012; and the suspension of Venezuela in
2017.4 These moments can be labeled as “crises” to the extent that member
states and civil societies criticized Mercosur’s weaknesses in addressing or
solving particular problems. But, as this chapter argues, the challenges
Mercosur now faces have no precedent; the current crisis is not about
120 Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann
Mercosur’s lack of achievements in specific policy areas, its agenda, or
institutional design, but, rather, about the very idea of multilateral
cooperation in the region and the place of neighbors in its member states’
relations with the wider world.
The chapter proceeds by analyzing, in the following four sections,
Mercosur’s achievements in different key policy areas: namely mobility of
goods, services, capital, and people; social policies and human rights; security;
and the protection of democracy. The subsequent fifth section explores the
main drivers of the current crisis, which include global, regional, and
domestic level stress factors, as advanced in the analytical framework
presented in the Introduction as well as Chapter 1 of this book. The chapter
concludes with an overall assessment of Mercosur’s capacity to resist the
current trend of fragmentation.
The common market: mobility of goods, services, capital,

and people?
Despite its name “Southern Cone Common Market,” Mercosur has never
actually achieved such a level of economic integration—which, according to
Bela Balassa, would be the next stage following the establishment of a free
trade area and a customs union.5 Mercosur’s customs union was consolidated
with the establishment of a common external tariff in 1995. This common
tariff was key for Mercosur member states to achieve a core objective at the
time: namely, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) with
the United States as a group (“4+1”).
Since then, however, there has not been enough pressure exerted by
economic elites, governments, or societal actors for Mercosur to become
a common market. It remains an “imperfect” customs union, with a number
of exceptions to the free movement of goods and services. On the contrary,
in fact, at times there has been pressure to roll back Mercosur to a free trade
area, allowing member states to engage in bilateral free trade negotiations.
This was the case at the beginning of the new century, for instance, when
Paraguay and Uruguay voiced concerns about increasing “internal
asymmetries.” At that time, Brazil and Argentina responded with the creation
of a regional structural fund (Fundo para a Convergência Estrutural do
Mercosul, FOCEM), and a regional parliament with a proportional
representation bias in favor of the smaller member states (Parlamento do
Mercosul, Parlasul).6
The maintenance of the common tariff has faced new challenges of late,
and this time around not only by the smaller member states. Zelicovich7
argues that Mercosur has not found a role for itself in the context of the
“regionalism of the twenty-first century” and the development of
megaregions, as defined by Baldwin8—that is, the attempt of regional blocs
to fill the empty space left by the global norms from the twentieth century
and the trade necessities of the twenty-first century. According to Zelicovich,
Mercosur between resilience and disintegration 121
Mercosur offers more debilities than strengths in that regard given the low
participation in global value chains of its member states:
The division [is increasing] between traditional trade, ever less relevant,
oriented by twentieth century policies, where Mercosur will retain
a role, and a dynamic trade connected to global value chains, oriented by
twenty-first century policies, in which Mercosur will be not very
relevant.9
Viola and Lima also posit that Mercosur does not favor the participation of its
member states in global and regional value chains given its “introspective
model of integration.”10 According to them, this model relies on Brazil’s
capacity to export to the region. The country acts as a “local supplier”
instead of an “export hub”—undermining the potential for “regional
multiplier effects” as seen, for instance, in Southeast Asia. Chinese demands
for commodities have reinforced the trend of deindustrialization in Brazil,
and the decrease of intra-Mercosur trade.
The discussion about convergence between Mercosur and the Pacific
Alliance (PA), a free trade area created in 2012 by Chile, Colombia, Mexico,
and Peru, has been framed as a chance for Mercosur to engage with global
value chains and the process of megaregion formation by some scholars as
well as by several studies published by CEPAL.11 This is, however, not
a consensus, and some authors such as Bernal Meza argue that the Pacific
Alliance still “faces the challenge to occupy a space in the region, and not be
seen as an instrument of fragmentation.”12 An extended area between the PA
and Mercosur would face the same problems as Mercosur’s, as discussed
above. Moreover, the foreign policy approach of recently elected President
Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil does not seem to favor South-South relations and
Mercosur—rather bilateralization and cooperation with partners from the
North, mainly the United States and the European Union (EU). Paulo
Guedes, Brazilian minister of economics, stated before his inauguration that
Mercosur will not be a priority for Bolsonaro’s government as it is “too
restrictive; Brazil has become a prisoner of ideological alliances and this is bad
for the economy.”13 Yet, at the time of writing, the actual policies of the
Bolsonaro government toward South America remain to be seen.
In addition to the mobility of goods and services,14 Mercosur has also
aimed at promoting that of capital and people too. While not much has been
done in the area of capital to date,15 Mercosur has actually made significant
achievements in the area of free movement of people. In the first decades of
Mercosur’s existence, mobility was framed as an economic issue, and
discussions within the Commission on Migratory Affairs were dominated by
ideologies of control and national security. It was only at the beginning of
the new millennium that this changed, with the conclusion of the Residence
Agreement in 2002 (in force since 2009). Since then, the mobility of people
has been framed from a human rights perspective. This was pushed by
Argentina, a country with one of the most progressive national laws on
migration; Argentinian Law 25.871 from 2003 recognizes migration as an
inalienable human right.16
Mercosur’s Residence Agreement is itself quite progressive, providing “the
right to work and equal treatment in working conditions, family reunion, or
access to education for children,” stating that “sufficient resources do not
represent a condition sine qua non” and that “[a] permit may then be
transformed into a permanent one after two years” if applicants can prove
they have sufficient resources to sustain themselves in the territory of the host
state.17 This surpasses the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of
All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families in many respects.18 The
implementation of the free movement of people principle was further
reinforced by the conclusion of Mercosur’s Citizenship Statute in 2010.
In addition to the free movement of people, the Statute aims at providing
equal civil, social, cultural, and economic rights and freedoms for citizens of
member states (comparable to nondiscrimination on the basis of nationality),
and equal conditions of access to work, health, and education. These
achievements do not mean the effective implementation of policies at the
domestic level, however; national migration law is actually far from
harmonized and vulnerable to changes of government.19 The full
implementation of common citizenship by 2021, foreseen by the Statute,
seems to be too optimistic in the current context furthermore.
To sum up, it is extremely unlikely that Mercosur will achieve its original
objective of becoming a common market in the near future; it seems, on the
contrary, to be heading toward being a free trade area, should it even survive
as an organization that is. Domestic elites’ interest in using Mercosur as
a platform for international negotiations or expansion of domestic markets is
conditioned by the structural constraints derived from traditional North-
South patterns of trade. The rise of China and demands for commodities has
not changed this. On the contrary, it has only increased the “primarization”
of economies and dependence on external investment.20 Despite these trends,
overall Mercosur has still promoted and indeed contributed to the
achievement of increasing levels of mobility of goods, services, and people
among its member states.
Regional harmonization in social policies and human rights

During its postliberal phase, Mercosur advanced significantly in terms of the
promotion and approval of common norms, regulations, and policies in
a number of issue areas such as education, health, social protection, gender,
and human rights. Most of these areas had already been dealt with in
working groups or special meetings since the 1990s, but they were placed
higher up on the agenda in the 2000s. Despite the limitations resulting from
the lack of financial resources, and the difficulties in implementing these
mechanisms, the specialized literature shows how social transformations still
took place in a number of cases.
Martinez and Machado, for instance, show how fundamental courses of
action were implemented in order to consolidate a new vision of
development in Mercosur’s postliberal phase,21 such as the program “We Are
Mercosur” (Programa Somos Mercosul) in 2005; the Social Summits
(Cúpulas Sociais) in 2006; the Social Institute (Instituto Social do Mercosul)
in 2007; and the Social and Participative Program (Programa Mercosul Social
e Participativo) in 2008. Pereira and his coauthors argue that Mercosur’s
institutions became public policymaking forums acting as policy transfer
facilitators in the areas of education, health, and migration.22 Scholars such as
Santos and Diniz Júnior, Botto, Perrotta, and Bianculli reached similar
findings, meanwhile, in their research on the areas of basic and higher
education.23
Cooperation in the area of education was already included in Mercosur in
1991, with the creation of the Ministerial Meeting on Education, but gained
pace particularly in 2001 with the creation of the Organizational Structure of
Mercosur’s Educational Sector. This included: the Regional Coordination
Committee; the Regional Coordination Commissions in different areas of
education (basic, technological, and higher education); and the Information
and Communication System Management Committee. These institutions had
a central role in negotiations and policy diffusion in cases such as policies on
the quality assurance of university degree programs. Perrotta shows how the
processes of policy diffusion in this area followed a pattern in which
Argentina was a leader, uploading its preferences to Mercosur, which were
then adopted by other member states, such as Paraguay.24
The area of health advanced significantly as well. This field was introduced
in Mercosur in 1991 at a very technical level; that is, within the Commission
on Health Products in the Working Group on Technical Norms, with the
objective of discussing the harmonization of sanitary norms so as to abolish
technical obstacles and allow the free movement of food and health products.
In 1995, a Meeting of Health Ministers of Mercosur was established, in
which the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) participates as
a technical advisory body. Most of the regulations issued by the Meeting so
far have dealt with public health surveillance, control, and the standardization
of sanitary products.
In 1996, a Working Group on Health was created, covering three main
areas: health products, health surveillance, and healthcare services.
Resolutions coming from the Working Group must be transposed at the
national level, and, given the difference in national legislation and health
systems, levels of harmonization and implementation are very low.25
Additionally, Mercosur’s agenda on health has been deeply affected by the
creation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), with this
organization having had a strong focus on health ever since its creation.26
A division of labor has evolved between the two organizations: while
UNASUR has addressed health mostly from a social rights-based approach
linked to social citizenship, Mercosur has kept to a more policy-oriented
one—not only due to its narrower mandate, but also because, unlike
UNASUR, it can adopt binding decisions.
A third example of institutional development in Mercosur having a societal
impact has been in the area of human rights. Until the middle of the first
decade of the new century, Mercosur had no agenda for human rights; since
then, however, a number of initiatives have been launched, leading to the
creation of the Meeting of High-Level Authorities on Human Rights of
Mercosur (2004), the signature of the Protocol of Human Rights (2005), the
Mercosur Human Rights Public Policy Institute (2009), and the Mercosur
Human Rights Museum in Porto Alegre (2014).27 The Protocol has been in
force since 2010, and is a binding legal instrument.28 It states that democracy
and the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are essential
conditions of the process of integration (Article 1). In case of ineffective
consultations to deal with serious and systematic violations of human rights
and fundamental freedoms during an institutional crisis or a state of
emergency, the Protocol foresees sanctions—including the suspension of the
affected party (Arts. 3 and 4).
It has not been invoked so far, but since 2015 member states have
repeatedly considered its application in response to the ongoing crisis in
Venezuela. The first executive secretary of the Human Rights Public Policy
Institute, Victor Abramovich, was key to the inclusion of the topics of
memory and transitional justice in the Institute’s agenda. He called attention
to the cooperation among dictatorships and Operation Condor, while
attributing to Mercosur the role of helping avoid the repetition of this
common past.29 Among the Institute’s activities are research, the publication
of reports, and the realization of capacitation courses.30 As discussed above,
Mercosur’s agenda on human rights has led to a change in perspective also in
other issue areas—such as the mobility of people.31
Regional security and defense

Mercosur has never had an ambitious agenda vis-à-vis security and defense,
unlike the Organization of American States (OAS) or UNASUR.32 That said,
one of the underlying drivers of its creation in the first place was political
stabilization after the end of military rule. This had two key components: the
democratic transition and making relations between Brazil and Argentina less
hostile. Oelsner synthetizes this argument when stating that:
Mercosur originated as a political strategy by Argentina and Brazil to

stabilize their own transitions towards democracy after 7 and 21 years
of military rule, respectively. It was thought that reducing the long-
standing security dilemma between the two states would be crucial for
a successful democratic consolidation. Thus, while it is commonly
understood that Europe integrated in order to “stop fighting”—i.e.
that European integration was the means to avoid another war
between France and Germany—the Southern Cone stopped (planning
on) fighting in order to integrate and ultimately to consolidate their
constitutional regimes. Bilateral desecuritization and rapprochement
between Argentina and Brazil were the means to achieve economic
integration in the Southern Cone of Latin America.33
In terms of regional institutional framework, the main organ dealing with

security in Mercosur is the Conference of the Home Secretaries, created in
1996. According to Flemes and Radseck,34 the conference gave particular
impetus to the common fight against the organized drug trade and
transnational terrorism by establishing the Special Board on Organized Drug
Crime (RED) in 1998, and the Working Group on Terrorism (GTE) in
1999. Initial achievements at the operative level include the coordinated
action of the federal police forces of Mercosur member states, and a Security
Data Network (SISME).
Most importantly, in 1999, Mercosur members as well as associated
member states Bolivia and Chile signed a Political Declaration: establishing
the area as a zone of peace, free of weapons of mass destruction (Art. 1);
committing themselves, among other topics, to making progress over
cooperation in the sphere of confidence- and security-building measures
(Art. 3); agreeing to cooperate at the international level in the improvement
of instruments and mechanisms for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons
and other ones of mass destruction (Art. 4); and, determining to establish
a uniform methodology for reporting military expenditure with a view to
increasing transparency and developing confidence in this area (Art. 7).35 The
Declaration must be understood in the context of the legalist framework of
conflict resolution and mediation initiatives in South America, but its
existence does not imply a reduction of violence in the region. As
highlighted by Herz and her coauthors:
The image of a separation between domestic violence and international

peace in South America institutes a reality which is informed by his-
torical experiences of social interaction in the region. Historically there
is a low level of external rivalry and violence among South American
countries. The end of colonialism and of imperial rule in the region
has been supported by a collective understanding and a normative
framework in which practices of intervention are regarded as excep-
tional. Nevertheless, violence is pervasive in social interaction in the
region.36
Any assessment of the role of Mercosur for peace in the region must be,
therefore, qualified.
Protection of democracy
Mercosur has developed a robust institutional framework to protect
democracy, which includes the Declaration of the Democratic Agreement
(1996) and the Protocol of Ushuaia (1998). The Protocol foresees diplomatic
sanctions in case of democratic rupture, such as the suspension of member
states from participating in Mercosur decision-making organs (Arts. 4 and 5).
A stronger document was signed in 2011—the Protocol of Montevideo
(often referred as Ushuaia II)—that allows for the application of the
democratic clause not only in cases of rupture but also in the event of the
risk thereof, as well as of the violation of the constitutional order—or,
indeed, any other situation that would put in danger the legitimate exercising
of power and democratic values and principles (Art. 1). However, Ushuaia II
has not entered into force yet, due to a lack of ratifications of it.37
Mercosur’s democratic clause was considered a powerful instrument given
the organization’s success in the containment of democratic crises in Paraguay
in 1996 and 1999, but has been discredited more recently—especially after
the crises in that same country again in 2012, in Brazil in 2016, and at
present still ongoing in Venezuela, when action or inaction became so
controversial that the very reputation of Mercosur was challenged.38 These
crises highlighted the limits of the democratic clause in cases where a lack of
precise definition of democracy led to differing interpretations thereof, and,
worse, instrumental manipulation by governments. Furthermore, the
proliferation of democratic clauses within other regional organizations with
similar membership bases created a web of “overlapping mandates.” The fact
that these regional organizations’ reactions to the same crises have often led
to divergent outcomes calls into question the very effectiveness and
legitimacy of regional democratic clauses, as demonstrated by Weiffen.39
Stress factors and regional mitigators: Mercosur between

resilience and disintegration
Mercosur’s crisis results from global, regional, and domestic level (stress)
factors. At the global level, the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of China, the
end of the commodity boom, the recent emergence of populist and far-right
leaders worldwide, as well as the pushback against multilateralism have
between them all led its member states’ governments to reassess their interest
in even participating in the regional organization.40 The crisis of the EU has
also played a role, since that supranational body had always been a relevant
driver for Mercosur—not only due to its direct support via interregional
cooperation and its broader aim of supporting a “world of regions,” but also
by serving as a point of reference and as a model to be emulated.41
As suggested in the Introduction as well as Chapter 1 of this edited
volume, regional characteristics can reinforce or mitigate these stress factors
and determine whether the regional organization is prone to resilience or to
disintegration. In the case of Mercosur, low levels of regionalization and the
weakness of regional institutions—including the judicial system of dispute
resolution42—have reinforced the negative impact of stress factors. At the
domestic level, Mercosur has been criticized, on the one hand, by neoliberal
actors for being too “social” and interventionist, and, on the other, by social
movements and environmentalists for allowing neo-extractivism and
transregional infrastructure projects in protected areas.43 Thus only a handful
of political, economic, and social actors feel strongly committed to the
integration process. Finally, the decay of Brazilian foreign policy and
leadership in the region since the end of the government of President Lula—
but especially since the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff—has also
put pressure on Mercosur.44 The possible positioning of the political
leadership in the Bolsonaro government against Mercosur might contribute
even further to the latter’s fragmentation, if not outright disintegration.
Conclusion
This chapter has analyzed the advances and setbacks for Mercosur in different
policy areas, and has explored the stress factors that explain its current state of
crisis. It has argued that Mercosur has successfully promoted the mobility of
goods and people, as well as common norms, rules, and practices in
a number of areas such as health, education, and human rights. The
organization has had less success in the mobility of services and capital, and
the protection of democracy; it has not played an important role in security
and defense. Despite some significant achievements, Mercosur’s future does
not look promising. Should it disintegrate as a whole, this will not be due to
lack of accomplishments—but rather to deeper global, regional, and domestic
level changes shaking up political, economic, and social life in the region.
As a regional organization, Mercosur cannot do much to counteract these
emerging trends; its institutional design was never developed in a way that
would enable it to resist unfavorable deep changes in the status quo—such as
a declining commitment to multilateral (and particularly, regional)
cooperation and contestations over the ideas of human rights and democracy
that were once considered inherently shared values. Political and economic
elites within Mercosur member states are divided. While a new turn toward
neoliberalism is underway, it might lead to trade relations becoming bilateral
and thus result in a dismissal of Mercosur’s common external tariff and
a rolling back of the organization toward being a free trade area.
Convergence with the PA might not be innovative enough to provide for
the sustainable engagement of the region in the world economy. Being on
the periphery of global markets and over-relying on the export of
commodities and external capital flows, governments can barely find
windows of opportunity to engage in satisfactory conditions within global
value chains. The situation in Venezuela and conflicting geopolitical
alignments among Mercosur member states themselves have undermined the
key common interests that had sustained the tacit agreement on the
organization’s role since the 1990s. Populist pressure against “globalism” and
decreasing support for multilateralism in Brazil will affect Mercosur further, at
least in the medium term. Civil societies and social movements will resist
neoliberalism, but the domestic—not the regional—level will be the main
platform for rebuilding progressive politics.
Notes
1 Pia Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, eds., The Rise of Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in
Latin America (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2012); Jose Briceño Ruiz and
Isidro Morales, eds., Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in the Americas: Toward a Pacific–
Atlantic Divide? (London: Routledge, 2017); Andrea C. Bianculli, “Latin Amer-
ica,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and
Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 154–177.
2 Andrea Oelsner, “Articulating Mercosur’s Security Conceptions and Practices,” in
Regional Organisations and Security: Conceptions and Practices, ed. Stephen Aris and
Andreas Wenger (London: Routledge, 2014), 203–221; Jean Grugel, “Democra-
tization and Ideational Diffusion: Europe, Mercosur and Social Citizenship,” Jour-
nal of Common Market Studies 45, no.1 (2007): 43–68; Tullo Vigevani, Gustavo de
Mauro Favaron, Haroldo Ramanzini Junior and Rodrigo Alves Correia, “O
Papel da Integração Regional para o Brasil: Universalismo, Soberania e Percepção
das Elites,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 51, no.1 (2008): 5–27.
3 Gonzalo Berrón and Rafael Freire, “Los Movimientos Sociales del Cono Sur
contra el Mal Llamado ‘libre comercio’,” OSAL Observatório Social de América
Latina 5, no. 13 (2004): 296–306; Elizabeth Jelin, “Los Movimientos Sociales
y los Actores Culturales el Escenario Regional. El caso del Mercosur,” in Los ros-
tros del Mercosur. El Difícil Camino de lo Comercial a lo Societal, ed. Gerónimo de
Sierra (Buenos Aires, Argentina: CLACSO, 2001), 257–274.
4 Erica S. A. Resende and Maria Izabel Mallmann, eds., Mercosul 21 Anos: Maturi-
dade ou Imaturidade? (Curitiba, Brazil: Editora Appris, 2012); Andrea Ribeiro
Hoffmann, “Politicization and Legitimacy in MERCOSUR,” in The Legitimacy of
Regional Integration in Europe and the Americas, ed. Achim Hurrelmann and Steffen
Schneider (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 251–260; Olivier Dabène, “Con-
sistency and Resilience through Cycles of Repoliticization,” in The Rise of Post-
Hegemonic Regionalism in Latin America, ed. Pia Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie (Dor-
drecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2012), 41–64; Roberto Bouzas, Mercosur: Crisis
Económica o Crisis de la Integración? Grupo de Reflexão Prospectiva sobre
o MERCOSUL (Brasília, Brazil: IPRI/FUNAG-BID-MRE, 2002); Paula Wojci-
kiewicz Almeida, “O Caso das Papeleras,” Casoteca Latino Americana de Direito
e Política Pública (São Paulo, Brazil: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2007); Nicola Phil-
lips, “Regionalist Governance in the New Political Economy of Development:
‘Relaunching’ the Mercosur,” Third World Quarterly 22, no. 4 (2001): 565–583;
Marcelo de Almeida Medeiros, “Legitimidade, Democracia e Accountability no
Mercosul,” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 23, no. 67 (2008): 51–69; and
Andrés Malamud, “Mercosur Turns 15: Between Rising Rhetoric and Declining
Achievement,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2005): 421–436.
5 Bela Balassa, The Theory of Economic Integration (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962).
6 Nadia de Araujo and Carolina Noronha, “Inversiones Internacionales en el
MERCOSUR: El Ejemplo Exitoso del FOCEM,” Revista de la Secretaría del Tri-
bunal Permanente de Revisión 3, no. 5 (2015): 255–265; and Marcelo de Almeida
Medeiros, Mariana Hipólito Ramos Mota and Isabel Meunier, “Modernization
without Change: Decision-Making Process in the Mercosur Parliament,” Brazilian
Political Science Review 10, no. 1 (2016). doi:10.1590/1981-38212016000100001.
7 Julieta Zelicovich, “El MERCOSUR frente al ‘Regionalismo del Siglo XXI’.
Algunas Claves para la Comprensión del Devenir del Proceso de Integración,”
Revista Aportes para la Integración Latinoamericana 22, no. 34 (2016), 1–27.
8 Quoted in Zelicovich, “El MERCOSUR frente al ‘Regionalismo del Siglo XXI’.
Algunas Claves para la Comprensión del Devenir del Proceso de Integración.”
9 Zelicovich, “El MERCOSUR frente al ‘Regionalismo del Siglo XXI’. Algunas
Claves para la Comprensión del Devenir del Proceso de Integración,” 3 (transla-
tion by author).
10 Eduardo Viola and Jean Santos Lima, “Divergences between New Patterns of
Global Trade and Brazil/Mercosur,” Brazilian Political Science Review 11, no. 3
(2017). doi:10.1590/1981-3821201700030001.
11 Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), La Convergencia
entre la Alianza del Pacífico y el MERCOSUR: Enfrentando Juntos un Escenario Mun-
dial Desafiante (LC/PUB.2018/10) (Santiago, Chile: CEPAL, 2018); Sebastián
Herreros and Tania García-Millán, Opciones para la Convergencia entre la Alianza del
Pacífico y el Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR): La Regulación de la Inversión
Extranjera Directa (LC/TS.2017/81) (Santiago, Chile: CEPAL, 2017); Osvaldo
Rosales V., “La Alianza del Pacífico y el MERCOSUR: Hacia la Convergencia
en la Diversidad,” (Santiago, Chile: CEPAL, 2014); and Rita Giacalone, “Latin
American Answers to Mega-regional Projects: Options and Limits,” in The EU,
the US and Latin America: A New Atlantic Community, ed. Joaquín Roy (Miami,
FL: Miami-Florida European Union Center, 2015), 175–187 (175).
12 Raúl Bernal-Meza, “Alianza del Pacífico Versus ALBA y MERCOSUR: Entre el
Desafío de la Convergencia y el Riesgo de la Rragmentación de Sudamérica,”
Revista Pesquisa & Debate 26, no. 1.47 (2015), 1–34 (4) (translation by author).
13 “Declarações de Paulo Guedes sobre Mercosul surpreendem Membros do Bloco,”
Globo News, 30 October 2018, https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2018/10/
30/declaracoes-de-paulo-guedes-sobre-mercosul-surpreendem-membros-do-
bloco.ghtml; João Borges, “Paulo Guedes pretende fortalecer Política de Comér-
cio Exterior,” Globo News, 2 November 2018, https://g1.globo.com/economia/
blog/joao-borges/post/2018/11/02/paulo-guedes-pretende-fortalecer-politica-de-
comercio-exterior.ghtml (translation by author).
14 For integration in services areas such as transport infrastructure and energy see, for
instance, Stefano Palestini and Giovanni Agostinis, “Constructing Regionalism in
South America: The Cases of Sectoral Cooperation on Transport Infrastructure
and Energy,” Journal of International Relations and Development 21, no. 1 (2018),
46–74; and Thauan Santos “Segurança Energética no MERCOSUL+ 2: Desafios
e Oportunidades,” OIKOS 14, no. 2 (2015): 5–18.
15 Helcio Kronberg, Mercosul. A Livre Circulação de Capitais (Curitiba, Brazil: Hemus,
1999); Fernando Ignacio Leiva, Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions
of Post-Neoliberal Development (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
2008); Herreros and García-Millán, Opciones para la Convergencia entre la Alianza
del Pacífico y el Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR): La Regulación de la Inversión
Extranjera Directa, 14.
16 Carla Gallinatti and Natalia Gavazzo, “‘We Are All Mercosur’: Discourses and
Practices about Free Movement in the Current Regional Integration of South
America,” in Migration, Free Movement and Regional Integration, ed. Sonja Nita,
Antoine Pécoud, Philippe de Lombaerde, Kate Neyts and Joshua Gartland (Paris,
France: UNESCO and UN-CRIS, 2017), 201–235; Adriana Montenegro Braz,
“Migration Governance in South America: The Bottom-up Diffusion of the
Residence Agreement of Mercosur,” Revista de Administração Pública 52, no. 2
(2018): 303–320.
17 Willem Maas, “Trade, Regional Integration, and Free Movement of People,” in
The EU, the US and Latin America: A New Atlantic Community, ed. Joaquín Roy
(Miami, FL: Miami-Florida European Union Center, 2015), 111–121.
18 Diego Acosta, “Global Migration Law and Regional Free Movement: Compli-
ance and Adjudication–The Case of South America,” AJIL Unbound 111 (2017):
159–164 (160).
19 Ibid.; and Gallinatti and Gavazzo, “‘We Are All Mercosur’: Discourses and Prac-
tices about Free Movement in the Current Regional Integration of South
America.”
20 Viola and Lima, “Divergences between New Patterns of Global Trade and
Brazil/Mercosur,” 25.
21 Elias David Morales Martinez and Jessica Gomes Machado, “A Dimensão
Social da Integração Mercosulina: Uma Análise sobre o Projeto Mercosul
Social,” Monções: Revista de Relações Internacionais da UFGD 6, no. 12 (2017):
368–394 (375).
22 Alexsandro Eugenio Pereira, Glaucia Julião Bernardo, Ludmila Andrzejewski
Culpi and Huáscar Fialho Pessali, “Facilitated Governance in Mercosur: Policy
Transfer and Integration in Education, Health, and Migration Policies,” Revista de
Administração Pública 52, no. 2 (2018): 285–302.
23 Thauan Santos and Carlos Antonio Diniz Júnior, “Integração Regional
e Educação: O Caso do MERCOSUL,” OIKOS 16, no. 2 (2017): 22–36; Mer-
cedes Botto, “Policy Diffusion and Higher Education Reforms: Between Market
and State Regulation—Where Does Mercosur Stand?” in Regional Organizations
and Social Policy in Europe and Latin America, ed. Andrea C. Bianculli and Andrea
Ribeiro Hoffmann (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 165–184; and Daniela
V. Perrotta, “The Diffusion of Quality Assurance Policies in MERCOSUR,”
Diálogos sobre Educación 8, no. 14 (2017): 1–19, www.revistascientificas.udg.mx/
index.php/DialogosRespaldo/article/view/6927/5943; and Andrea C. Bianculli,
“From Free Market to Social Policies? Mapping Regulatory Cooperation in Edu-
cation and Health in MERCOSUR,” Global Social Policy 18, no. 3 (2018):
249–266.
24 Perrotta, “The Diffusion of Quality Assurance Policies in MERCOSUR.”
25 Bianculli, “From Free Market to Social Policies? Mapping Regulatory Cooper-
ation in Education and Health in MERCOSUR.”
26 Pia Riggirozzi, “Regionalism, Activism, and Rights: New Opportunities for
Health Diplomacy in South America,” Review of International Studies 41, no. 2
(2015): 407–428.
27 Instituto de Políticas Públicas en Derechos Humanos Mercosur, “IPPDH partici-
pou da Inauguração do Museu de Direitos Humanos do MERCOSUL em Porto
Alegre,” 8 April 2014, www.ippdh.mercosur.int/pt-br/ippdh-participou-da-inau
guracao-do-museu-de-direitos-humanos-do-mercosul-em-porto-alegre/.
28 Protocolo de Asunción sobre Compromiso con la Promoción y Protección de los
Derechos Humanos del Mercosur, 2005, www.mre.gov.py/tratados/public_web/
DetallesTratado.aspx?id=1/rUWpYuZNnue7PIseEbYg==&em=lc4aLYHVB0dF
+kNrtEvsmZ96BovjLlz0mcrZruYPcn8=.
29 Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, “At Last: Protection and Promotion of Human
Rights by Mercosur,” in Governance Transfer by Regional Organizations: Patching
Together a Global Script, ed. Tanja Börzel and Vera van Hüllen (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015), 192–208.
30 See the website of the Mercosur Human Rights Public Policy Institute: www.
ippdh.mercosur.int/.
31 For the areas of employment, social protection, and gender equality see, for
instance, Maria Belén Olmos Giupponi, “Free Trade and Labour and Environ-
mental Standards in Mercosur,” Colombia Internacional 81 (May 2014): 67–97;
Alma Espino, “Work and Employment in Mercosur from a Gender Perspective:
Challenges and Public Policies,” in Regional Organizations and Social Policy in
Europe and Latin America, ed. Andrea C. Bianculli and Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 139–161; Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann,
“Gender Mainstreaming in Mercosur and Mercosur-EU Trade Relations,” in
Gender Equality Norms in Regional Governance, ed. Anna van der Vleuten, Anouka
van Eerdewijk and Conny Roggeband (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014),
117–138; Sabrina Benedetto, María Julieta Cortés and Patricia Rojo, “La Igualdad
de Género y los Procesos de Integración en América Latina. Los Casos del
MERCOSUR y el SICA,” in Políticas de Igualdad de Género e Integración en Europa
y América Latina, ed. Inma Pastor, Laura Román Martin and Martha Zapata
Galindo (Burgos, Spain: Thomson Reuters-Aranzadi, 2017), 355–376.
32 Brigitte Weiffen, Leslie Wehner and Detlef Nolte, “Overlapping Regional Secur-
ity Institutions in South America: The Case of OAS and UNASUR,” International
Area Studies Review 16, no. 4 (2013): 370–389; Monica Herz, Maira Siman and
Ana Clara Telles, “Regional Organizations, Conflict Resolution and Mediation
in South America,” in Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America, ed.
Marcial A. G. Suarez, Rafael Villa and Brigitte Weiffen (London: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2017), 123–148.
33 Andrea Oelsner, “Mercosur’s Incipient Security Governance,” in The Security
Governance of Regional Organizations, ed. Emil J. Kirchner and Roberto Domin-
guez (New York: Routledge, 2011), 190–216.
34 Daniel Flemes and Michael Radseck, Creating Multilevel Security Governance in
South America, GIGA Working Paper no. 117 (Hamburg, Germany: German
Institute of Global and Area Studies, 2009), 20.
35 “Political Declaration of MERCOSUR, Bolivia and Chile as a Zone of Peace,”
24 July 1999, www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/70988.htm.
36 Herz, Siman, and Telles, “Regional Organizations, Conflict Resolution and
Mediation in South America,” 125.
37 Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, “As Organizações Regionais e a Promoção e Proteção da
Democracia: Reflexões a partir das Práticas de Intervenção Democrática na América
do Sul,” Caderno CRH 29, no. SPE 03 (2016): 47–57. In addition to Mercosur’s full
member-states, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela signed the Protocol of
Montevideo, but so far only Venezuela and Ecuador ratified it; see: www.mre.gov.
py/tratados/public_web/DetallesTratado.aspx?id=dxmiRrluWRS5wpK1lax3q
w==&em=lc4aLYHVB0dF+kNrtEvsmZ96BovjLlz0mcrZruYPcn8=.
38 Carlos Closa and Stefano Palestini, “Tutelage and Regime Survival in Regional
Organizations Democracy Protection: The Case of MERCOSUR and
UNASUR,” World Politics 70, no. 3 (2018): 443–476; Alexandre San Martim
Portes, “Regime Effectiveness and Democracy Protection: The Responses of
Mercosur to the Impeachment Processes in Paraguay and Brazil,” Revista Conjun-
tura Austral 8, no. 41 (2017): 58–70.
39 Brigitte Weiffen, “Institutional Overlap and Responses to Political Crises in South
America,” in Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America, ed. Marcial
Suarez, Rafael Villa and Brigitte Weiffen (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017),
173–197.
40 Mercedes Botto, “El Mercosur y sus Crisis: Análisis de Interpretaciones sobre el Fracaso
de la Integración Regional Sudamericana,” Estado & Comunes 2, no. 5 (2017): 155–176;
Juliana Peixoto Batista and Daniela V. Perrotta, “El Mercosur en el Nuevo Escenario
Político Regional: Más allá de la Coyuntura,” Desafíos 30, no. 1 (2018): 91–134.
41 José Briceño Ruiz and Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano, “The European Union and
the ‘Making’ of South American Regionalism,” in The EU and World Regionalism:
The Makability of Regions in the 21st Century, ed. Philippe de Lombaerde and
Michael Schulz (London: Routledge, 2009), 101–114; Lorena Ruano, “The EU
and Regional Integration in the Americas,” in Regionalism and Governance in the
Americas: Continental Drift, ed. Louise Fawcett and Monica Serrano (London: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2005), 52–67; Mahrukh Doctor, “Interregionalism’s Impact on
Regional Integration in Developing Countries: The Case of Mercosur,” Journal of
European Public Policy 22, no. 7 (2015): 967–984.
42 Alejandro Daniel Perotti, “¿Quién Paga los Costos del Incumplimiento de las
Sentencias del Tribunal Permanente de Revisión (Mercosur)?” Revista Quaestio
Iuris 4, no. 1 (2011): 424–487.
43 Fernando Ignacio Leiva, Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-
Neoliberal Development (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008);
Markus Kröger and Rickard Lalander, “Ethno-territorial Rights and the Resource
Extraction Boom in Latin America: Do Constitutions Matter?” Third World Quar-
terly 47, no. 3 (2016): 682–702.
44 Miriam G. Saraiva, “Brazil’s Rise and its Soft Power Strategy in South America,”
in Foreign Policy Responses to the Rise of Brazil, ed. Gianluca Giardini and Maria
Hermínia Tavares de Almeida (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 46–61; Ale-
jandro Frenkel and Diego Azzi, “Cambio y Ajuste: La Política Exterior de Argen-
tina y Brasil en un Mundo en Transición (2015–2017),” Colombia Internacional 96
(Octubre-Diciembre 2018): 177–207.
8 UNASUR on the edge
Nicolás Matías Comini and Alejandro Frenkel
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) is on the verge of

disappearing. On 20 April 2018 the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru suspended their participation in the
organization. A few months later, the Colombian government went a step
further by denouncing UNASUR’s treaty. In the official statement of
suspension of their activities, the six governments demanded “concrete results
to ensure the functioning of the organization in the coming weeks.”1 This
implied pressure to appoint the Argentine politician and diplomat José
Octavio Bordón as the secretary-general of the bloc, who was rejected by
Venezuela and Bolivia. It also meant claiming the revision of decision-
making rules based on the rule of unanimity and a new orientation of the
organization towards cooperation in specific issue areas to fit into their
national agendas such as trade or integration of physical infrastructure.
It is obvious that the organization is confronted with major challenges that put
its survival at risk. The original initiative of the early 2000s envisioned the creation
of a new dynamic of multidimensional regional integration, which in its early days
helped to overcome several conflicts and crises affecting the South American
countries, such as the separatist crisis in Bolivia in 2008 and the attempted coup
against Rafael Correa in 2010. UNASUR also attempted to restructure the
regional political geography of “open regionalism” of the 1990s, which was linked
to neoliberal ideology and saw regional organizations as stepping stones toward
integration into the world market. In turn, UNASUR’s Constitutive Treaty
originally set out to build a space of integration and union in the cultural, social,
economic, and political spheres, with the intention of eliminating socioeconomic
inequality, achieving social inclusion and citizen participation, strengthening
democracy, and reducing asymmetries. UNASUR was conceived as a platform to
strengthen the sovereignty and independence of states.2
The picture has been reversed today; the prevailing view of regionalism
among the countries of South America is again oriented towards global markets.
The main objectives are associated with broader liberalization and trade opening,
as well as with the strengthening of competition and the participation in global
value chains. Even though UNASUR did not represent an institutional obstacle
to those objectives, it is nevertheless starting to be dismantled.
134 Nicolás Matías Comini and Alejandro Frenkel
There are diverse interpretations of UNASUR’s current situation and
prospects for the future. Some authors have argued that UNASUR’s current
situation can be explained by a “paradox of autonomy,” which suggests that
the conditions that favored the emergence of UNASUR as a collective
project of South American regional autonomy—strong national leadership,
high commodity prices, and the United States’ shift of attention towards
other world regions—are the same conditions that strengthened national
autonomy.3 An alternative approach—driven by an ideological rather than an
institutional rationality—argues that the “exit” of the six countries means
a bet on the market as a mechanism of regulation and organizing principle of
foreign relations.4 Regarding prospects for the future, an optimistic view
proposes that “the impasse may provide opportunities to transform
UNASUR into a more effective organization,”5 while a pessimistic one
asserts the institution is being destroyed by a kind of soft coup.6
What are the stress factors that have led UNASUR into this crisis? This
chapter comprises three levels of analysis: systemic, regional, and domestic.
The systemic level refers to the question of globalization and the crisis of
multilateralism. On the regional level of analysis, the key issues to be
discussed are the lack of leadership, the dimensions of integration, and the
security agenda. Finally, the domestic level includes the electoral cycle,
political instability, and the foreign policy orientations. On each level, one
can make a distinction between conjunctural stress factors and more long-
term structural factors. While the first are useful for understanding why
UNASUR entered into a state of fragmentation, the existence of certain
structural factors has reinforced those centrifugal trends.7
Our analysis presents strong evidence that a number of factors have contributed
to UNASUR’s paralysis. The combination of an adverse international system with
recent changes of government and political instability in the sub-region raises
questions about the bloc’s effectiveness in the construction and implementation of
regional public policies. Likewise, the context of “post-globalization,” divergent
foreign policy orientations, and the absence of regional leadership have
contributed to the progressive deterioration of UNASUR.
The remainder of this chapter is divided into three sections that introduce
the stress factors at the systemic, regional, and domestic levels that led to
UNASUR’s crisis. Within each section, we also explore how structural factors
have exacerbated the negative impact of the stress factors. We conclude with
a discussion of the implications for the future of UNASUR.
Systemic factors
Crisis of multilateralism
The question of whether and how states should cooperate has long been
a subject of discussion.8 According to Thompson and Verdier, “the question of
‘lateralism’ relates to whether countries should be treated equally under
UNASUR on the edge 135
international law or differently.” Recently, the World Bank stated that a “more
9
inclusive and more innovative multilateralism” is needed; a reference to the

position of China’s President Xi Jinping on the global market system, who said
that the market “is the ocean we all swim in and cannot escape from.”10
Beyond a manifest propensity towards bilateralism and, sometimes,
unilateralism, multilateralism still resists in diverse expressions from the
United Nations to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-
Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). However, multilateralism seems to be under
challenge from different perspectives. International institutions and global
governance are under strain and adapting their format: multilateralism is
increasingly networked, disaggregated, and bottom-up.11 It does not matter if
this is referred to as a complex multilateralism,12 a new multilateralism,13 or
a sui generis multilateralism.14
The crisis of multilateralism is a result of both the resurgence of
protectionism in the central countries and the failure of some of the major
multilateral economic negotiations. Protectionist rhetoric is currently
prevalent in different parts of the world, but very manifest in the discourse of
the Trump administration in the United States. Trump’s election has had
a negative global impact in the contestation of multilateralism.15 From a Latin
American perspective, the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) and the evocation of the Monroe Doctrine by former US Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson16 are illustrations of this tendency. Meanwhile,
unilateralism has become a frequently used option for the US and other great
powers in the Middle East and other regions.
In a similar vein, South American governments are calling multilateral
cooperation into question. The new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, questioned
multilateral and regional organizations such as the United Nations or Mercosur,
expressing a preference for bilateral linkages. The Uruguayan government has
continued to maintain the need for a two-speed negotiating scheme with extra
Mercosur countries.17 Chile, to mention another case, has never abandoned or
revised its traditional policy of signing bilateral free trade agreements.
All of this also creates new North–South dynamics, which frame the
relations between the countries of UNASUR and the great powers.
A discussion about the interrelation between multilateralism and regionalism
again becomes indispensable.18 Some time ago, the stagnation of the Doha
Round gave a fresh impulse to regionalism, while US foreign policy after 9/
11 boosted post-hegemonic19 and post-liberal20 regionalism in the 2000s. It is
not unreasonable to expect that, in the medium term, the crisis of
multilateralism at the global level might lead to a new demand for a greater
capacity to act autonomously and for a restructuring of cooperation between
South American countries. However, this does not mean that UNASUR is
going to be the platform for this renewed cooperation. As with George
W. Bush’s unilateralism after 9/11, the primacy of bilateralism in the Trump
administration’s foreign policy could lead to the adoption of a soft balancing
approach of regionalism seeking to curtail US power.
Post-globalization
The process of globalization has been going on for some time, and could
therefore be considered a structural factor. However, some scholars claim
that the process of globalization has changed course, towards a crisis of
globalization, or even of a process of “post-globalization” or
“deglobalization.” From a pro-trade view, globalization in the sense of
economic and financial interconnections is ongoing, because the United
States maintains its predominance. This perspective highlights that the global
economy is dominated by large US firms. Despite Donald Trump’s
discourse on globalization, it is a fact that 134 of Fortune’s Global 500
companies are American.21 Those who defend globalization consider
protectionism as inefficient in terms of containing the current technological
revolution and assume that “countries should recognize that the global
economy and the technological revolution require large, sustained national
efforts to equip workers with the skills, capital and infrastructure.”22
On the other side are those who assert that the international system is
going through a process of “post-globalization.” Living in the post-
globalization world—“Version X.0”—implies leaving behind a “primitive”
version of globalization characterized by centralization in terms of internal
corporate policies, mindsets, and procedures.23 The notion of post-
globalization marks a new stage characterized by significant levels of digital
economy integration as well as reorganization and fragmentation of markets
and global value chains. Such processes had taken place even before Brexit
or Trump’s arrival in the White House. Evidence is the increasing
protectionism of the G20 and the retraction of the multinational firms
based in outsourcing as a business model.24 The benefits of this type of
companies are falling, while smaller domestic companies are increasing
their profitability.25
The changing nature of globalization may exacerbate the centrifugal forces
triggered by the crisis of multilateralism; in particular, the idea that
multilateral schemes are useful for increasing international cooperation is
being questioned. As a consequence, inter-state rivalry is growing, as
exemplified by the so-called “trade war” between United States and China;
the increase of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and rising interest
rates;26 and in the signs of a new arms race and the construction of
alternative cooperation schemes.27
The crisis of globalization could lead to better regional institutions. In
addition, in the face of declining global value chains, it would be logical to
strengthen regional markets. Nevertheless, the perception of a hostile
international system can also create incentives to adopt individualistic attitudes
of “everyone saves themselves.” It seems that South American states are
currently inclined towards this kind of “strategy.”
Regional factors
Lack of leadership
The current absence of leadership in South America has contributed to the
crisis of UNASUR. At the same time, leadership issues are a structural
regional characteristic that may have made UNASUR less resilient to
stress. If leadership requires an appropriate and flexible diplomacy,
sufficient tangible and intangible resources, adequate attention to the
regional problems, and a basic domestic consensus to deal with possible
challenges,28 it can be argued that South America has always lacked a state
with these characteristics. Since the independence of Latin American
countries from the colonial powers until the second half of the twentieth
century, relations between South American states have been characterized
by a combination of rivalry, a propensity to peaceful conflict resolution,
and a “special” relationship with extra-regional powers, particularly with
the United States. This combination hampered the formation of regional
leadership, except in a few isolated cases. The situation did not change
significantly in the 1980s and 1990s, when the regional rivalries faded. For
example, enduring differences between Argentina and Brazil became
evident during Mercosur’s early years.29
Leadership implies a multiplicity of dimensions, among which the ability to
define norms stands out. Reflecting on the purpose of international law,
Koskenniemi differentiated instrumentalist from formalist approaches. While,
from an instrumentalist understanding, law exists “to realize objectives of
some dominant part of the community,” the formalist perspective assumes
that norms provide “a platform to evaluate behavior of those in dominant
positions.”30 From an instrumental perspective, UNASUR was shaped by
Brazil and reflected Itamaraty’s core interests and goals at a time when Brazil
emerged as a rising power, both on the regional and the global level. From
a formalist approach, the regional bloc contributed to reduce asymmetries and
to achieve social and human development with equity and inclusion.31
UNASUR existed to advance the repertory of substantive values, preferences,
and practices32 that those in dominant positions sought to realize. UNASUR
was originally both a Brazilian instrument to consolidate its position in South
America—and to realize its aspiration to get a permanent seat in the United
Nations Security Council—and a strategy to consolidate regional
autonomy.33
As Malamud remarked, in UNASUR’s early years Brazil faced an
unexpected situation: while the country gained increasing global recognition,
its regional leadership met with growing resistance.34 During the first years,
the principal voices involved in the decision-making process of UNASUR
also included Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, and Ecuador. Some of them
openly contested Brazil’s leadership,35 which demonstrated the existence of
counterweights—or “secondary powers”36—to the leadership claims of the
regional power. The foundation of UNASUR implied the search for
convergence among a very heterogeneous group of governments, beyond
Brazil, which were ready to assume an active role in the process of regional
agenda setting.37
Currently, no one seems to be willing and able to lead South America. On
the contrary, several of the countries that led the organization during its
initial days intend to move away from UNASUR. Some of them have
decided to spend their energy creating other forums to address sensitive
issues, rather than strengthening existing institutions. An example is the
“Lima Group,” an informal alliance of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay,
and Peru that has been created to confront the sensitive situation in
Venezuela.38
The lack of leadership has a direct impact on regionalism. Although power
is distributed unevenly, and regional norms are distributed evenly,39 neither
powerful nor smaller states show the capacity or will to play a leading role in
the subcontinent. As Grabendorff explained, the intention of a middle power
to become a global player requires first to become a regional leader.40 This
current situation seems to indicate a scarcity of middle powers in South
America.
Contested dimensions of integration

The increasing gravitation of South American regionalism in global politics
during the first decade of the twenty-first century, the change of multilateral
association among states, and the renewed intention to transform international
norms, were characterized as post-hegemonic or post-liberal.41 This new
regionalism42 implied a shakeup of the regional scenario within a multiplex
world,43 where the options and forms of international insertion are numerous
and diverse. The definition as post-hegemonic is related to the idea of
multidimensionality, avoiding the classical focus on economic integration and
moving towards integration schemes that comprise multiple axes.44 The
actors integrate without defining a central axis, but decide to advance in
several areas simultaneously. These areas may cover commercial and financial
issues, but also—and synchronously—issues such as combating poverty,
exclusion, and social marginalization; eradicating hunger; improving health
and education; reducing inequalities; or even coordinating defense and
security. Multiaxial models do not rotate on the same axes. They vary
according to time and place. Nor do they imply the same intensity,
velocities, or pulses.45
Currently, however, the number of Latin American governments with
foreign policies self-defined as “pragmatic” is increasing. The central axis
revolves again around a revised “uniaxial open regionalism” based on the
promotion of the private sector and foreign direct investment (FDI) and the
alignment with the liberal order, with policies, standards, and practices
determined by the Bretton Woods institutions and the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The re-prioritization of
open regionalism entails a polycentric conception of the global political
order. The main objectives are again associated with the increase in trade,
FDI, and credit flows.
Some countries demand more flexibility and efficiency to achieve those
aims and, according to their opinion, UNASUR does not contribute to that
goal. At the same time, the attacks against UNASUR have not tackled the
problem of overlapping of several regional organizations. To increase
autonomy from great powers, minor powers can create new regional
institutions as an instrument of resistance against a regional organization
dominated by a powerful state,46 leading to all kinds of negative47 and
positive48 consequences.
New security challenges

The third regional factor derives from the global security agenda, which
combines a broad range of concepts. Multidimensional security is one of
them, including issues ranging from drug trafficking, cyber security, money
laundering, and terrorism to health, environmental footprint, migration, or
poverty.49 Other concepts within this agenda are “preventive wars” or
“coalitions of the willing,” which replace the previous permanent alliances.
The United States plays a key role in the definition of the global security
agenda, generating increasingly restrictive policies with respect to the actions
of other states in international politics. President Trump has pointed out
several times that it is important to “revitalize the American economy,
rebuild our military, defend our borders, protect our sovereignty, and
advance our values.” The US National Security Strategy mentions China and
Russia as challengers to American power, influence, and interests.50
In any case, the US strategy of “primacy” and the preference for
unilateralism in an increasingly securitized agenda is expected to have an
impact on UNASUR. The Trump administration’s security strategy does not
mention South America and barely mentions the Western hemisphere at all.
However, although it is not formally stated, the United States does have an
agenda for Latin America that focuses on two main issues: migration and the
fight against illegal drugs. Far from being isolationist, some analysts consider
the White House’s attitude towards the region as part of the reaffirmation of
an “obscured primacy” (primacía ofuscada).51 The interaction of the political,
economic and security agendas marks, and will continue to mark, the pulse
of the relationship between the United States and the UNASUR member
countries.
These interactions also affect the relations among the governments of the
member countries, which have to decide whether to move towards
cooperative security mechanisms52—such as those that have been created
within the institution (the councils of defense and citizen security)—or
whether to prefer atomized unilateral or bilateral security schemes. The
ideological and operational divergences between the UNASUR countries
make this second option more likely.
The fight against illegal drugs is an example of this problem. UNASUR’s
constitutive treaty describes the fight against drugs as one of the
organization’s purposes.53 Responding to the internal differences and
disparate standards among the members of the South American Defense
Council, a South American Council on the World Drug Problem
(SACWDP) was created in August 2012. The twelve member countries
agreed that all issues of demand reduction, supply reduction, and international
cooperation should be addressed in a balanced manner.54 However, military
logics are often progressively incorporated into the fight against illegal drugs.
This dynamic usually begins with the acceptance of some “additional”
responsibilities for the military, such as monitoring or detecting drug
trafficking, and tends to mutate towards interdiction and eradication tasks.
What begins as a temporary participation eventually becomes one of the
missions of the armed forces.55 Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela are
examples of this approach. Debates within Argentina and Ecuador and the
action of Chile’s naval forces also denote the intentions of some actors to
expand the role of the military in the war on drugs. In the fight against
drugs, national solutions as well as bilateral ties between the countries of the
region and the central powers tend to be prioritized, to the detriment of
regional cooperation.
Domestic factors
Electoral cycles
A first stress factor coming from the domestic sphere is related to changes of
government in the region. Each new electoral cycle brought new
governments into office. Even in the case of continuity, they might prioritize
different projects of international insertion. Regional integration is politically
dependent on the preferences, interests, and will of the political actors—
mainly the governments—that participate in shaping state policies at specific
historical moments. Thus, integration is conceived as the process by which
differentiated political units organize common and unified decision
structures.56 Far from being presented as a single and determined formula,
integration adopts different ways, paths, representations, and symbols,
depending on the case. Liberal intergovernmentalism assumes that states act as
unitary actors to the outside world. Cooperation among members depends on
the relative power of each of the actors involved in that process. The focus
of this perspective is on governments.57
From this perspective, integration implies the adoption of common
decisions, but also the maintenance of veto power. Following this line, the
Cartagena Agreement of 1969 defined integration as a “historical, political,
economic, social and cultural mandate of their countries in order to preserve
their sovereignty and independence.”58 The intergovernmental character of
the organization also constitutes the link between the electoral cycle and
UNASUR’s current crisis. Integration is seen as an instrument to strengthen
national sovereignty. Regional institutions are highly dependent on the
preferences, interests, and will of the sovereign member states, or of the
political leaders in control of government policies. The movements, pulses,
accents, reliefs, and beats of integration are demarcated by the states, or by
the agents who speak in their name, although not all states have the same
resources and means.
The current map of the region is quite different from that of 2008, which
has a direct impact on UNASUR’s performance. Lula da Silva, Hugo
Chávez, Cristina Fernández, and Rafael Correa are no longer in office. As of
mid-2019, only two presidents of that time were still (or again) in power:
Tabaré Vázquez (Uruguay) and Evo Morales (Bolivia). Government changes
involve shifts in their political orientations and in the degree of identification
with foreign policy projects such as UNASUR. Support, indifference, or
rejection of a regional project is usually the result of multiple internal factors.
The picture has become even more complex with the 2018 elections in
Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil, and the 2019 elections in
Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay. The region is transforming its political
contours. As a result, South American governments have also changed the
priority they give to UNASUR. For several of the new governments,
UNASUR is a symbol of “ideological” regionalism, molded by the former
leftist, Bolivarian governments.59 At the same time, there is a reorientation
toward uniaxial regionalism based on trade, which is in conflict with the
multidimensionality that characterized UNASUR.
Political instability
The political instability of the sub-region is a second important domestic
factor that affects UNASUR. There have been some interesting debates
regarding the linkage between domestic support and regional cooperation,60
and it is contested whether weak governments need more internal support
than strong ones to develop regional public policies.61 Weak governments are
typically associated with leaders who have little margin to define and
implement both domestic and foreign policies, with “unpopular heads of
government, divisions within legislature, and/or constitutional order that
limit the power of heads of government.”62 Some scholars have highlighted
the effect of coalition governments, based on the assumption that cooperation
becomes more difficult if the number of actors is large. The higher the
number of actors which participate in the decision-making process, the less
they would internalize the costs that a certain policy will impose on others.63
Remarkably, the most powerful states in UNASUR have coalition
governments.
Other scholars have pointed to political party fragmentation and the lack of
majority support for the executive.64 The traumatic resignation of Pedro
Pablo Kuczynski as president of Peru following the discovery of his links
with the Odebrecht scandal and accusations of buying votes to exchange
money for favors was related to the fact that he did not have a majority in
the Congress, which was dominated by the Fujimori party.65 A weak
government is often perceived to be ineffective. Polls have found that
77 percent of the Brazilian population evaluated Michel Temer’s presidency
as “bad or terrible,”66 and that only 14 percent of Colombian voters
supported Juan Manuel Santos during his last year as president.67 Other
problems can aggravate the situation. Corruption scandals, ranging from the
Operation Lava Jato to the Panama Papers, disclose institutional deficits. The
judicialization of politics, macroeconomic volatility, and public indebtedness
mark the rhythm of several of the South American administrations,
sometimes in combination with high levels of inflation, as in Venezuela and
Argentina.68
Changing foreign policy orientations

The third domestic limitation for South American regionalism is linked to
national strategic objectives—that is, the goals of the actors controlling state
institutions—and foreign policies. Institutional and political changes, as well
as conflicts of interest and, of course, the influences coming from a global
and regional system in constant reconfiguration, tend to lead to an alteration
of the guiding principles, strategies, and instruments of international insertion
of the countries of the region.69
The UNASUR countries display, with discernible nuances, high levels of
dependence on global markets. At the same time, the wide disparities among
sub-regions determine a high heterogeneity within the subcontinent.
Therefore, differences in productive structures define strong contrasts in
economic performance and growth prospects, as well as in their strategies for
external projection.
There are several approaches to classify foreign policy-making in Latin
America. Russell and Tokatlian argued that Latin American countries have
followed one of two rationales of foreign policy: acquiescence or autonomy.
The relative weight of these rationales has changed over time.70 Regarding
the relationship with the United States, the same authors proposed five
alternatives: adhesion, accommodation, limited opposition, challenge, and
isolation.71 An additional approach, which has stressed a fracture between
Atlantic and Pacific countries, has also been widely discussed.72 Finally, some
analysts have described a division within UNASUR regarding polygynous
versus concentric foreign policy strategies. The polygynous strategy prioritizes
international insertion based on a transverse structure with simultaneous
negotiations at the global, hemispheric, and regional levels. In contrast, the
concentric strategy gives priority to regional markets and prefers
a multidimensional approach and collective negotiations with extra-regional
powers.73
Out of this menu, three types of foreign policy rhetoric, which are
somewhat contradictory, can currently be identified: autonomy, challenge,
and pro-market policy in line with the polygynous strategy.74 Ever since the
creation of UNASUR, there has been a change in the equilibrium of
international insertion strategies. Autonomy has been a central concept in the
history of cooperation in the region.75 UNASUR was designed as a political
project that privileged the autonomy of the member states according to the
economic development strategies of the ruling elites at that time. The
autonomy strategy recognizes power asymmetries in different dimensions and
proposes building a common political space to be inserted regionally in the
international system. Today there are only six active members in UNASUR
and the autonomy discourse prevails among them, albeit subtly in the case of
Uruguay.
Second, some governments have enacted a strategy of challenging the
United States, ranging from limited to absolute resistance. This option
presents the greatest degree of confrontation to the neoliberal model of
globalization and the actors that embody it. Venezuela constitutes the
most extreme case, while Bolivia has been more moderate in its strategy
of contestation. The main objective is to build alternative projects, albeit
sometimes combined with an element of pragmatism to attract foreign
direct investment and to guarantee trade flows. However, this strategy
takes into account the asymmetry of the involved parties. It intends to
recover the power of the state, strengthen it, and expand its advocacy
capacity.76
Finally, pro-market strategies (which are more or less identical to the
polygynous strategy outlined above) incorporate the neoliberal model of
openness and insertion in the globalization process, both economically and
politically. According to this strategy, the best option is to carry out structural
reforms and to comply with all the requirements of the model, with the
objective of improving the options and intensity of international trade and
foreign investment. Foreign policies are framed as a supposedly “de-
ideologized” and “pragmatic” response to globalization. Such policies are
based on open regionalism, with a tendency toward a fragmenting
bilateralism, founded in the promotion of the private sector and foreign
direct investment (FDI); and aligned with the liberal order through the
dominant policies, standards, and practices in the multilateral system.77 Those
governments that have decided to suspend their membership in UNASUR
could be included in this group, although there are also visible dissimilarities
regarding their foreign policies among Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Paraguay, and Peru.
Conclusion
UNASUR is under stress, perhaps more than any other organization in the
region. Some of the basic characteristics of the current crisis of South
American regionalism include the fragmentation of regional governance
structures, the erosion of the existing regional institutions, and the loss of
credibility and attraction. This chapter has shown that systemic, regional, and
domestic factors have led to UNASUR’s paralysis. These factors are deeply
interrelated and there are many additional intervening processes and
dynamics. As stated above, more long-term structural features reinforce the
stress factors, making UNASUR less resilient to the dynamics of
disintegration. These include the trajectory of globalization, deficiencies in
regional leadership, and divergent foreign policy orientations among South
American states.
The lack of substantive advances in regard to the institutionalization of
cooperation and coordination among the member countries favors a logic of
“damage to the neighbor.”78 The image of integration in the public opinion
of the South American countries is shaped by numerous damaging interactions.
There is a negative feedback process in which elites and the media play a leading
role in orienting the process of opinion formation in one direction or another.
Economic and social polarization and political tensions have been
deepened as result of the absence of one or more states that provide regional
leadership and promote the impartial application of rules within the regional
institution. The overlapping of integration projects and the mistrust among
South American governments reinforce the argument of several pro-market
governments that regionalization has become an obstacle—and that
UNASUR represents a barrier—to the global insertion of their countries.
Furthermore, UNASUR is in crisis because a large number of the
countries in the region demonstrate high levels of political instability, as
evidenced by the institutional crisis and political cataclysm in Brazil during
and after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the politically motivated
violence in Colombia, and the institutional crisis in Peru. In South America
the fate of regional organizations reflects what happens on the domestic level,
especially in the most powerful states. The combination of distrust in the
regional organization and limited solidarity and coordination within the
organization demarcate a turning point.
UNASUR’s future is uncertain. This chapter has delineated a tendency for
the viability and the legitimacy of the organization to suffer significant
regression. Several factors add up to a discouraging picture: the inability of
the member countries to adapt themselves to global transformations; the
diversity of foreign policy orientations and the lack of cohesion in the face of
the challenges of the globalization process; low management capabilities
relative to the capitalization of opportunities and the containment of threats
linked to external processes; governability deficits; and the limited creativity
and capacity to implement alternative strategies and policies. These are times
of skepticism about the possible scenarios for UNASUR. The discussion
about the future of UNASUR requires a long-term perspective, both
analytically and with regard to the projection of regional public policies.
Without a guiding perspective for this kind of policies, it is probable—as it is
currently happening—that a logic of tensions and friction will prevail in
regard to UNASUR.
Notes
1 “Seis países, entre ellos Argentina, abandonan la Unasur,” Télam, 20 April 2018,
www.telam.com.ar/notas/201804/273195-seis-paises-argentina-abandonan-
unasur.html.
2 UNASUR, Tratado Constitutivo de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas,
23 May 2008.
3 Detlef Nolte and Víctor M. Mijares, “La crisis de Unasur y la deconstrucción de
Sudamérica,” El Espectador, 23 April 2018, www.elespectador.com/noticias/el-
mundo/la-crisis-de-unasur-y-la-deconstruccion-de-sudamerica-articulo-751730.
4 Diana Tussie and Pia Riggirozzi, “Las Pujas no Deberían Ser Sinónimo de
Crisis,” Clarín, 9 May 2018, www.clarin.com/opinion/cambio-rumbo-regio
nal_0_rkf6AYyAG.html.
5 Stefano Palestini Céspedes, “South America: Is UNASUR Dead?” Aulablog,
27 April 2018, https://aulablog.net/2018/04/27/south-america-is-unasur-dead/.
6 Guillermo Carmona, “El Golpismo Llegó a la Unasur,” Página 12, 23 April 2018,
www.pagina12.com.ar/110066-el-golpismo-llego-a-la-unasur.
7 The structural factors are more or less equivalent to the characteristics of the
region mentioned in the theoretical framework of this volume.
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26, no. 1 (47) (2015): 1–34.
73 Nicolás Comini and Alejandro Frenkel, “Una Unasur de Baja Intensidad: Mode-
los en Pugna y Desaceleración del Proceso de Integración en América del Sur,”
Nueva Sociedad 250 (2014): 58–77.
74 Laurence Whitehead, ed., Emerging Market Democracies: East Asia and Latin America
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Carlos Moneta, “Inte-
gración, Política y Mercados en la Era Global: Mercosur y Alca,” in América
Latina al Inicio de un Nuevo Milenio, ed. Georges Couffignal, Silvia Tabet and
Carlos Moneta (Buenos Aires, Argentina: IHEAL-UNTREF, 2002).
75 Juan Gabriel Tokatlian and Leandro H. Carvajal, “Autonomía y Política Exterior:
Un Debate Abierto, un Futuro Incierto,” Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals 28
(January 1995): 7–31; María Cecilia Míguez, “La Autonomía Heterodoxa y la
Clasificación de las Políticas Exteriores en la Argentina,” Revista de Relaciones Inter-
nacionales, Estrategia y Seguridad 12, no. 2 (2017): 207–229.
76 Carlos Moneta, “Informe de Avance no. 9,” Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores,
Comercio Internacional y Culto, 2005.
77 José Antonio Sanahuja and Nicolás Comini, “Las Nuevas Derechas Latinoameri-
canas frente a una Globalización en Crisis,” Nueva Sociedad 275 (May–June 2018):
32–46.
78 Fernando Porta, “Una Nueva Racionalidad: La Importancia de la Coordinación
Macroeconómica,” in Evaluación del Desempeño y Aportes para un Rediseño del
MERCOSUR: Una Perspectiva desde los Sectores Productivos Argentinos, ed. Bernardo
Kosacoff (Buenos Aires, Argentina: CEPAL, 2004).
9 The Pacific Alliance
Regionalism without stress?
Detlef Nolte
At the moment Latin American regionalism seems to be overstressed. After

the end of Ernesto Samper’s stint as secretary general in January 2017, the
member countries of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)
could not agree on a successor—and thus the position remained vacant. In
April 2018, the foreign ministers of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Paraguay, and Peru suspended their participation in UNASUR, including
their payments toward the budget of the organization; three months later, the
president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, announced the conversion of the
UNASUR building in Ciudad Mitad del Mundo into a university for higher
indigenous studies. In August 2018, the new Colombian government of
President Iván Duque Márquez declared—in one of its first foreign policy
activities—that the country would definitively withdraw from UNASUR; in
January 2019, the Colombian government came out with the idea to create
a new regional organization substituting UNASUR.
Not only UNASUR is in trouble, however.1 Other Latin American
regional organizations are also in bad shape, including the Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Bolivarian Alliance for
the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), and to a lesser degree also the Andean
Community of Nations (CAN) and the Southern Cone Common Market
(Mercosur).2 In October 2017 the CELAC–European Union summit
(scheduled to take place in San Salvador) was postponed indefinitely due to
conflicts between Latin American governments. The new Ecuadorian
government announced its withdrawal from ALBA in August 2018. After the
electoral victory of Jair Bolsonaro in October 2018, his future minister of
economy, Paulo Guedes, declared in an interview that Mercosur is
a cognitive prison and is not a priority for the Brazilian government.3
In contrast, the Pacific Alliance (PA)—which includes Chile, Colombia,
Peru, and Mexico—seems to be one of the few Latin American regional
organizations not currently under pressure; it might even be perceived as
a model for averting stress. The PA is in good health, and it is even expanding
both in scope and depth. At its 12th Summit (2017) in Cali (Colombia), it
created a new category of “associated members” (which includes Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore); it increased the number of observer
The Pacific Alliance 151
Table 9.1 Members and observer countries of the Pacific Alliance
Status Countries
Full members Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru

Associated members
(negotiations since 2017) Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore
Observer countries
2012 Costa Rica, Panama (candidates for full membership)
2012 Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, Uruguay
2013 China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France,
Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Netherlands,
Paraguay, Portugal, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, United
Kingdom, United States
2014 Belgium, Finland, India, Israel, Morocco, Singapore, Trinidad
and Tobago
2015 Austria, Denmark, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia,
Poland, Sweden, Thailand
2016 Argentina, Czech Republic, Egypt, Norway, Slovakia, Ukraine
2017 Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia
2018 Belarus, Serbia, United Arab Emirates
2019 Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Philippines
Source: Author’s elaboration (as of July 2019).
countries as well (to 59 in July 2019; see Table 9.1 above). Even three
Mercosur countries (Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay) and one (former)
ALBA country (Ecuador) have successfully applied for observer status. The high
number of observers can be interpreted as an indicator of success, because it
demonstrates the importance that other states attach to the PA.
This chapter describes, then, what makes the PA different compared to
other Latin American regional organizations. It analyses why it is more stress
resistant, and it asks whether and under which conditions this current
exceptionalism can be prolonged. Furthermore, it will identify possible stress
factors for the PA. Before discussing why this particular organization suffers
less stress than other regional ones, it will be necessary to elucidate the
current stress factors as well as structural and institutional constraints that
Latin American regionalism faces at large. But first the chapter will start with
a short overview of the development and structure of the PA itself.
The poster child of Latin American regionalism

In recent years the PA has become the poster child of Latin American
regionalism. On 6 June 2012 the presidents of Chile, Colombia, Peru, and
Mexico signed the Constitutive Treaty for the Pacific Alliance (Acuerdo
152 Detlef Nolte
Marco de la Alianza del Pacífico) in Antofagasta, Chile. As conditions of
membership, the PA framework agreement requires that affiliated countries
are democracies, comply with the rule of law, practice the separation of
powers, respect human rights, and guarantee fundamental liberties (Article 2).
As outlined in its various declarations, the primary goal of the PA is to build
a zone of deep economic integration and ensure progress toward the free
movement of goods, services, capital, and people. A supplementary
agreement (Protocolo Adicional al Acuerdo Marco de la Alianza del Pacífico)
that was signed in Cartagena in February 2014 and came into force in
May 2016 specified that tariffs would be eliminated for 92 percent of
member states’ mutual trade. The remaining eight percent of tariffs—which
apply to politically sensitive sectors such as agriculture, textiles, and garments—
will gradually be removed over a period of three to seven years. For a small
percentage of these products, this could take up to a maximum of 17 years.
In 2017 the PA member countries represented 35 percent of the Latin
American population and 32 percent of the nominal gross domestic product,
accounted for 56 percent of all Latin American exports and 58 percent of
imports, and received 40 percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin
America (2016).4 The PA is open to integrating more states; however, full
membership will only be granted to countries that already have a free trade
agreement (FTA) in place with each PA member state—which was the case with
regard to the four founding members. This approach is different from the way of
proceeding chosen by other regional organizations, which were founded with
the objective of creating a free trade area (or later, a customs union).
Like most Latin American regional organizations, the PA has not created
supranational institutions. What is more, it has opted for a much leaner
institutional structure than Mercosur or even UNASUR. The PA has no
permanent secretariat or administrative body to support decision-making. The
member states’ foreign and trade ministers constitute the Council of
Ministers, which holds ordinary meetings once a year and extraordinary ones
upon members’ request. In line with the intergovernmental nature of the
group, Council of Ministers’ decisions must be unanimous. The PA
presidency is pro tempore (one year) and rotates between member states in
alphabetical order. The presidential summit is the supreme decision-making
forum, and vital in moving the integration process forward. Between
April 2011 and July 2019, 16 summits were held—including two “virtual
summits” by videoconference, in March 2012 and March 2018.
The PA has also created additional bodies such as the Inter-
Parliamentary Monitoring Commission of the Pacific Alliance (Comisión
Interparlamentaria de Seguimiento a la Alianza del Pacífico), which meets
biannually and is composed of eight congress members from each member
state, who are appointed for a period of four years according to the rules
of their national parliaments. The Commission had its sixth meeting in
Cali in June 2017. Looking at its documents (resolutions), it seems that
the Commission does not really fulfill a monitoring function. More
important is the Business Council (Consejo Empresarial). From the
beginning, the PA involved companies and private entrepreneurs as
stakeholders in the integration process:
The Pacific Alliance’s commercial nature is reflected in its institutionality. It

has a Business Council, made up of high-level businessmen from the four
countries. Their functions are to present recommendations and suggestions
to facilitate the process of economic and commercial cooperation among the
members, and to propose joint actions toward third markets, especially Asia
Pacific.5
Although the PA has only a lean structure, it is nevertheless quite dynamic with
regard to joint activities. First, it brought together the stock markets of Chile,
Colombia, and Peru to create the Latin American Integrated Market (MILA) in
2011; Mexico joined MILA in 2014. MILA is, however, still very much a work
in progress. Second, since the end of 2012, visas have no longer been required
for travel within the PA. Third, PA member countries have started to share
diplomatic and consular representation abroad, with joint embassies now
operating in Ghana (Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), Vietnam (Colombia
and Peru), Morocco (Chile and Colombia), Algeria (Chile and Colombia), and
Azerbaijan (Chile and Colombia), as well as at the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris (Chile and Colombia).
Fourth, PA member states have started to coordinate trade- and investment-
promotion activities in order to present the regional alliance as an integrated
economic space. Fifth, the PA has established a joint student scholarship program.
Stress factors and constraints for Latin American regionalism

What are the major structural and institutional constraints as well as stress
factors for Latin American regionalism? Certain characteristics of the region
have already long acted as impediments to regional integration and can thus be
considered structural and institutional constraints. First, Latin America is
a fragmented region where different regional and sub-regional integration
schemes overlap and interact with one another. There are deep-rooted tensions
between a Latin American and a South American integration project,6 and
between a continental project of the Americas (as during the negotiations over
the Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA) and an exclusive (without the
United States and Canada) Latin American and Caribbean cooperation one
too. This fragmentation still continues. As Quiliconi and Salgado write:
The current situation seems to be a construction of new regionalism

through new regionalization processes that are redefining the previous
“regional” identities and stimulating the projection of new actors in
a multipolar world. It is possible to see a multiplicity of identities, namely
154 Detlef Nolte
a Pacific identity, a South American identity, a Bolivarian identity, as well
as a new Latin American identity that previously seemed to be in crisis.7
Defining and establishing (geographic) limits for the different integration

projects has been a permanent challenge for Latin American governments,
closely linked to the problem of managing the overlap between regional
organizations regarding members and mandates.8 Overlapping regionalism
can lead to cross-institutional strategies by respective governments (such as
forum shopping) and inter-institutional conflicts, which may result in the
watering down of regional norms—or, in the extreme case, in the paralysis of
regional organizations. Moreover, the sub-regional fragmentation of
preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in Latin America has reinforced the
negative effects of small markets and similar comparative advantages of
regional economies.9
Second, just like with its African counterpart,10 Latin American regionalism is
based on a limited level of economic regionalization. As a corollary, extra-
regional economic links are much stronger than intraregional ones. Intraregional
trade is quite low compared to other world regions.11 While between 1990 and
2014 intraregional trade (all regions) contributed to 45 percent of global trade, in
the same period the share of intraregional trade in total trade in Latin America
and the Caribbean was lower than 20 percent.12 The shares of intraregional
trade (in goods) are even lower at the sub-regional level (2017: CAN
eight percent; Mercosur 12 percent; Central American Common Market
(CACM) 26 percent; PA three percent). Therefore, the benefits of further trade
liberalization, as a core objective of many traditional regional integration projects,
may ultimately be limited.
Third, Latin America as a region has always been quite porous; the United
States has been and continues to be an important actor in Latin American
regionalism. US hegemony has both stimulated—like in the case of
posthegemonic regionalism, which emerged as a reaction against the United
States13—and blocked regional integration (for example when the United States
signed bilateral trade agreements with Latin American countries after the
negotiations over the FTAA stalled). Since the turn of the century, China’s
increasing economic clout in Latin America has had a centrifugal impact on
intraregional exchange and cooperation, resulting in a reprimarization of Latin
American exports.
Fourth, Latin American regionalism is intergovernmental and centered on the
preservation and defense of sovereignty—which limits deeper integration and the
creation of strong regional institutions with a certain degree of autonomy in
decision-making.14 What dominates instead is the principle of decision-making
by consensus (thus giving veto power to each member state), which ultimately
might lead to blockades. While strong regional organizations do not prevent
political and ideological conflicts between member countries, they might help
avoid the paralysis of the organization in times of crisis and keep regional
15
business going. In contrast, a low degree of institutionalization decreases the
costs of leaving or blocking a regional organization.
Fifth, member states’ quest to preserve as much of their autonomy as
possible within regional organizations combines with the inter-presidentialism
of Latin American regionalism.16 Inter-presidentialism can foster integration
in times of presidential leadership and presidential political affinities but leads
to stalemate under conditions of political polarization and a lack of consensus.
This became manifest in the impact of the Venezuelan crisis on regional
organizations such as CELAC and UNASUR. Regional cooperation depends
very much on domestic politics; changes in the political cycle (as from the
“pink tide” of leftist governments to the “light-blue tide”17 of rightist
governments) very often lead to shifts in the patterns of regional cooperation,
as was illustrated by the recent changes of government in Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Uruguay.
What, meanwhile, are the current stress factors? These are closely related
to the broader structural and institutional constraints. Often, indeed, these
constraints and stress factors reinforce each other. First, intraregional trade has
not flourished during the past decade; it even diminished between 2013 and
2016 in both absolute and relative terms. While the percentage of
intraregional trade increased in 2017 and 2018, it was still below the 2010
level in value and as a percentage of total trade.18
Second, during the pink tide, regional cooperation benefited from inter-
presidentialism due to the political-ideological concordance (or sympathy)
between leftist governments. However, since 2015 Latin America has entered
into a period of major ideological conflict between presidents of different
political-ideological orientations—which has led to the blockading of new
regional initiatives and already existing regional projects. In the end, cross-
institutional strategies as a reaction to the Venezuelan crisis led not only to
a paralysis of Latin American and especially South American regionalism19 but
affected also the very role of Latin America as an actor in international politics.20
Third, the lack of regional leadership constitutes a major stress factor for
various regional organizations such as CELAC and UNASUR. The times
have passed when a number of Latin American presidents (such as, for
example, Lula da Silva of Brazil and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela) were
competing for regional leadership. Today, no Latin American president claims
a regional leadership role, nor does any country have the material capabilities
to fully assume such a role.
Fourth, the external pull factors on Latin American regionalism increased.
China’s influence in Latin America as trade partner, investor, and lender
grew. The United States is slowly trying to counter Chinese advances.
Europe is also reinforcing its linkages with Latin America, opting more and
more for a differentiated strategy with its respective partners there. In the face
of this changed international environment, the incentives for cross-
regionalism21 have become stronger, and minilateral agreements between
countries in different regions—as, for example, the Comprehensive and
156 Detlef Nolte
Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP, or TPP-11)—
prospered, which may produce an additional centrifugal effect for regional
integration processes.22
Fifth, the government of Donald Trump, with its negative agenda for the
region, has brought more instability to Latin America and has further
reinforced centrifugal forces. Trump has not stimulated greater cooperation
between the Latin American countries, but rather further fragmentation—
because most governments of the latter are now looking for a separate (and
hopefully special) arrangement with the US administration. The new
aggressive trade policy of the United States will also affect Latin American
economies. Also, there exists the risk that the global conflict between the
United States and China will intensify—with negative repercussions for Latin
America.23 As during the Cold War, Latin America might again become
a battlefield in the competition between two global powers.
The crisis of Latin American regionalism and the paralysis of many regional
organizations has come at a moment when there is, in fact, a pressing need for
greater regional cooperation. Remarkably, however, some regional organizations
such as the CACM and the PA are much less affected by the current crisis than
other ones are. What, then, makes the PA more stress resistant?
Anti-stress therapy: the case of the PA

This section will first introduce some of the innovative elements of the PA
and then investigate which of those factors might contribute to its apparent
stress resistance. In contrast to postliberal regional organizations such as
UNASUR or CELAC, which predominantly have a political and
noneconomic agenda, the PA is trade-driven and has first and foremost an
economic orientation. The PA constitutes an updated version of open
regionalism, now adapted to the changing environment of international trade.
When Mercosur was created, China still did not appear in Latin American
trade statistics as an important partner. The open regionalism of the 1990s
had as its objective to produce markets of scale to attract foreign investment
and to make national companies competitive on the world market. In turn,
the PA aims at attracting FDI not by creating a bigger (common) market but
by selling each country as a promising location for investment and partner for
trade. Alongside joint marketing,24 each country has the freedom to act
individually and develop its own unique strategy.
However, the PA is more than just open regionalism reloaded, as some
authors claim.25 Furthermore, it may reinforce member countries’ positions
in third markets—if not necessarily in Latin America itself. It responds to the
changing international political economy of regionalism in a multipolar,
decentered world that affords small and medium powers more room for
action in looking for partners in other regions (as, for example, in the case of
the CPTPP).26 At the same time, major powers in other regions reach out to
Latin America in search of new partners. Smaller states may prefer the
relatively low political costs of cooperating and exchanging with distant
powers over closely engaging with the leading power in their region, doing
which may create asymmetric economic dependencies.27
The PA fully responds to this logic. It can reduce the dependency on
major powers within the region. In the case of Mexico this means the
United States; in the case of South America this means Brazil. Some authors
even perceive the PA to be an instrument of (institutional) soft balancing.28
While the Mexican economy is much stronger than those of the other PA
member countries, it is still less dominant than Brazil’s. Moreover, it is not
a South American country. From this perspective, one might even see the
PA as an example of “Latin American cross-regionalism” in its linking of
three South American countries with both Central and North America.
While the PA aims for a deep integration area, it does not mean to create
a customs union—as other regional projects previously did. Rather, the focus
consists of the “plurilateralization” of bilateral commitments, with the objective
of reducing transaction costs for companies operating in or trading with
member countries of the PA.29 This means that the Alliance will make
applicable among all of its members many commitments important for trade
facilitation that applied only bilaterally under the existing agreements, such as
the accumulation of rules of origins.30 This might facilitate the creation of
regional value chains. The PA also fosters initiatives for the harmonization and
mutual recognition of technical regulations (as important nontariff barriers).
The declared objective of the free movement of services and capital might
prove more important than growth in the intraregional trade in goods,31 which
even decreased between 2013 and 2017 as a percentage of total trade.32 While
the intraregional trade of goods as a percentage of total trade is still quite low
within the PA, its member countries have growing FDI links—especially
between Chile, Colombia, and Peru. This reflects the expansion and
internationalization of Latin American multinational companies. Moreover, the
PA countries have become important markets for members’ exporting of
services.33
After the description and characterization of some of its new elements, the
question remains of which exact factors make the PA more stress resistant.
First, the PA might be described as an example of an essentially socially
constructed region—one that is not so much grounded in geography and
territory, but based on identities, values, and shared ideological worldviews.34
For its member countries, it is an instrument for the international projection of
national identities or self-perceptions (joint nation-branding, by establishing the
PA as a trademark);35 with the objective of differentiating themselves from
other governments in the region that promote opposing economic policies.36
Second, the PA has more restricted goals as compared to the open
regionalism of the 1990s (CAN, Mercosur). During that period, regional
organizations aimed at a customs union and a common market. In contrast,
FTAs in which states have only to coordinate tariff rates relative to each
other but not to outsiders—as in the case of the PA—have much fewer
158 Detlef Nolte
policy coordination problems. One might speak of a pragmatic form of
regionalism here, with lower but more realistic expectations and targets.
Third, the PA tries to avoid some procedural mistakes of open
regionalism in the 1990s,37 which defined ambitious objectives but failed
to fulfill many of its self-imposed benchmarks. The regionalism of the
1990s was more focused on stipulating the final goals than on the
procedures to realize these.38 It is without doubt an advantage for the PA
that from the very beginning free trade agreements between all member
countries have been in force; this is, as noted earlier, also the threshold for
future accession candidates before they can become a member of the PA.
Moreover, the supplementary agreement of the Alliance signed in 2014
and in force since May 2016 set a clear timetable for trade liberalization—
which is no longer a topic for negotiation between member countries.
Fourth, the focus of the PA is on broadening trade by including services
and reducing nontariff barriers. Moreover, the PA is interested in promoting
FDI between member countries. Its aims are in line with the trade promotion
agenda of international development banks39 and financial organizations. In
2016 the International Monetary Fund conducted a survey of Latin American
and Caribbean country authorities on trade policy objectives as well as
strategies, and found that nontariff measures—especially sanitary and
phytosanitary standards and technical barriers to trade—were deemed more
relevant than tariff barriers with regard to exports in and from the region.40
A major obstacle to intraregional trade is the multiple rules of origin regimes
that have been adopted in existing PTAs. Removing these barriers would
generate prospects for increased intra-industry trade and the formation of
regional value chains. The PA promotes precisely this kind of trade policy.
Fifth, the PA exists in line with a key characteristic of Latin American
regionalism. It does not curtail the autonomy and sovereignty of member
states, which are totally free with regard to their trade policies vis-à-vis third
countries. As mentioned before, the institutional structure of the PA is much
lighter than in the CAN, Mercosur, and even UNASUR. Thus, it reflects
the institutional DNA of Latin American regionalism and at the same time
diverges from the organizations that embodied open regionalism of the 1990s:
The PA has a liberal economic agenda, but without the more ambitious
institutional structure of the CAN or Mercosur.41 This way, it responds to
the new strategic advice of the Inter-American Development Bank, which
argued in its 2017 annual report that: “If anything can be learned from more
than a half-century of integration, it is that complex architecture like
a customs union with supranational institutions should be avoided …
Likewise, the institutional architecture should be intergovernmental rather
than supranational in nature.”42
Sixth, the PA is still a quite small organization, with only four member
states. This reduces coordination problems. It also gives the organization
a high degree of “agility and versatility,”43 which is more difficult to
accomplish in organizations with a broader membership basis.
Seventh, the PA has solved the leadership problem that constitutes a serious
challenge for regionalism,44 and especially for Latin American or South
American regionalism—because leadership implies to accept the roles of
a regional paymaster and regional follower(s). In the PA there is not one leader
but shared leadership (liderazgo compartido),45 or pragmatic leadership
(liderazgo pragmático),46 by the four countries within the framework of
cooperative multilateralism.47 The shared leadership model—or the lack of an
omnipotent leader—is also possible because the maintenance costs of the PA
are quite low for now. While differences exist in regard to GDP per capita and
benefits from intraregional trade, there has so far been no discussion about the
establishment of compensation mechanisms among members—which might
eventually put more strain on their cooperation. For the moment, there is no
need for a paymaster in the PA.
Eighth, so far there have been no major ideological rifts between the
countries of the PA with regard to the basic economic orientation of the
involved governments and their trade policies. The economic agendas and geo-
economic strategies of the Chilean, Colombian, Mexican, and Peruvian
governments have coincided and overlapped to a high degree.48 It is
remarkable that in all four countries the basic parameters of economic policy
have not been questioned whoever has been president. Since the foundation of
the PA, governments changed between left and right (in Chile), or within
a complex and changing political spectrum (Peru), but the basic trade
liberalization agenda has nevertheless remained the same. Moreover, the PA
member countries are involved in the same international networks. All of them
have signed FTAs with the United States and the EU, and partnership
agreements with China. Chile, Colombia, and Mexico are the only Latin
American OECD members.
Ninth, the PA is the first brand of Latin American regionalism that has
a strong inter-regional component to it.49 As in other Latin American regional
integration schemes, the interdependence (intraregional trade) among PA
member countries is low and their economies are not complementary. For this
reason, the basic orientation of the PA is beyond Latin America—as
a springboard to promote trade, especially with Asia—and not focused on the
region per se.50 The members practice cross-regionalism. This approach of
regional cooperation might be labeled “strategic regionalism” (regionalismo
estratégico), with an outward orientation to it.51 By both diversifying their
trade partners and reaching out to ones beyond their regional neighborhood,
they aim ultimately at strengthening their autonomy within the global
economy.
Stress factors for the PA

The PA has become a dynamic factor in Latin American economic
integration and development by promoting free trade, advancing trade
facilitation measures (regulatory issues, border controls, and the like),
160 Detlef Nolte
harmonizing and accumulating rules of origin, easing the mobility of people
between labor markets, promoting FDI, integrating financial markets, and
increasing economic links to the Asia-Pacific region through regional FTAs.
The Inter-American Development Bank recommends that the region head
toward a new all-encompassing, region-wide agreement and claims that: “To
get there, the Pacific Alliance offers what has been, so far, the most successful
road map.”52 But there might also be some obstacles to overcome further
down the road. While the PA currently seems to be well consolidated and
indeed advancing, certain stress factors might come to cloud the horizon.
Conflicts and disharmony might arise both from the structural constraints of
Latin American regionalism and from new developments emerging.
The absence of economic complementarities between member countries is
still a major obstacle to increased trade within the PA. Moreover,
geographical distance and inadequate transport infrastructures constitute
another barrier to such increased trade and to creating intraregional value
chains. Besides low levels of regionalization, regional fault lines might pose an
additional hurdle. While the PA countries share economic interests that have
not hitherto been contingent upon the incumbent government, the same is
not always true in regard to other political strategic issues. Peru and Chile
still have pending disputes regarding their maritime borders. Additionally, the
member countries are confronted with different domestic security challenges
(e.g. post-conflict peacebuilding in Colombia and drug-related crime in
Mexico). Last but not least, these countries’ security agendas are determined
by the (sub)regional context. Mexico, for instance, is closely linked to the
United States, while the South American governments created their own
security architecture with UNASUR (with the South American Defense
Council at its core), which is, as outlined earlier, now in crisis. Up to now
there has been no spillover from economic cooperation to security
cooperation in the PA.53
During its creation the PA had a strong component of identity projection
to it,54 as a group of countries with a market-oriented and trade liberalization
economic agenda—that in contrast to more statist and protectionist countries.
But in the case of an ideologically radical government turnover, this selling
point of joint nation-branding55 might fade. At present, only three of the
four member countries are in line with the aforementioned light-blue tide of
politics in Latin America. The image of the new government of Andrés
Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, in office since 2018, might not totally fit
in with what has otherwise been the marketing strategy of the PA up
to now.
Like other regional organizations based on inter-presidentialism, the future
of the PA depends very much on the good will and the foreign policy
agendas of the incumbent presidents.56 The governments have been
characterized by the same basic political orientation in regard to economic
development and trade strategy. It will be interesting to see whether the
election of López Obrador as Mexican president will have an impact on that
country’s future relations with the PA. There are first signs of fissures.
Up until the election of López Obrador, it was possible to identify
a growing foreign policy convergence between the governments of the PA.
This was demonstrated by the voting behavior in critical sessions at the
Organization of American States (OAS) or by the fact that the PA countries
formed the core of the so-called Lima Group created to confront the
Venezuelan crisis. Unlike CAN, CELAC, Mercosur, and UNASUR, up
until January 2019 the PA had not been fractured due to the diverging
positions of its member countries regarding Venezuela. But when the OAS
Permanent Council voted, on 10 January 2019, on a resolution not to
recognize the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro’s new term as Venezuelan
president, the Mexican government abstained; the other three members of
the PA supported the resolution. Nor did the Mexican government back
a similar statement by the Lima Group (adopted on 5 January 2019), which
was supported by all 13 of the other members of it. Instead the Mexican
government declared that self-determination and nonintervention would be
the leitmotivs of its foreign policy.
As an organization composed of only four countries, the PA has had
comparatively low coordination costs. This comparative advantage might
change with the inclusion of more member states, which might also serve to
increase ideological heterogeneity. Costa Rica and Panama have applied for
membership in the past (they have the status of candidate members; see Table
9.1), but their incorporation became stuck due to domestic contestation
(Costa Rica) or bilateral trade problems (Panama) with PA member
countries.57 More recently Ecuador was invited to join, and the government
seems to have taken the formal application for membership into
consideration.58 So in the future the PA might be confronted with the
classical dilemma between broadening (more members) and deepening (in
regard to issue areas and organizational structure) cooperation.
The freedom of action of members in negotiating with other countries,
especially with China and with Asian ones, may weaken the impact of the
PA (as a joint endeavor). Yet the development of a joint strategy for example
with regard to Asia might need more foreign policy coordination mechanisms
to define and implement such a measure. One can thus ask what the limits
are for advancing economic cooperation and trade without assuming higher
costs of integration.59
In 2019 the PA had 59 observer states (including four associated members).
This high number of observers can be interpreted as an indicator of success,
because it demonstrates the importance other states attach to the PA.
However, it also confronts the PA with the challenge of how to take
advantage of this interest and to engage with its observer states. Otherwise,
there is a risk that observer status will become merely symbolic; observers
may thus lose interest in the PA.60 Moreover, the high number of observer
states might create a false impression and overvalue its actual attractiveness.
162 Detlef Nolte
While many countries have a genuine interest in the PA, others might be
more attracted by the broader South American economic space—with the
objective to use the PA as a privileged springboard61—and put their stake on
closer cooperation between the PA and the Mercosur countries. This could
result in a Latin American free trade area. The Chilean government has been
quite active in promoting closer cooperation between the PA and Mercosur,
and there have been official negotiations between the two organizations. But
there have also been critical voices regarding an overly optimistic view of the
future benefits as well as possible negative effects of such a free trade
arrangement, as in the case of Argentina.62
Until now the PA has functioned, as noted, on the basis of a very lean
institutional structure. But the increase in scope (areas) of cooperation and
the growing international actorness of the organization—for example in
regard to the relations with the new category of associated members—might
create a demand for stronger institutions. This, in turn, might create tensions
with the strong tradition of pursuing autonomous foreign and trade policies.
Conclusion
Regional organizations might act as firewalls against trade liberalization beyond
the region; alternatively, they may define themselves as gateways to increased
trade with economies outside of it.63 The orientation taken depends on
whether the member countries see trade liberalization as a threat or an
opportunity. The members of the Pacific Alliance have opted for a strategy to
take advantage of globalization. The PA has, then, been swimming with the
current of free trade and trade liberalization. But the winds have been shifting
of late, and the member countries are now confronted with the
countercurrents of US protectionism and international trade wars. The PA has
to demonstrate, therefore, that it can also advance in difficult times. In this
regard, the active participation of three PA countries in the transformation of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) into the Comprehensive and Progressive
Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the advances made in
the negotiations with the Mercosur countries are positive signs.
In a certain way, the failure of the TPP (as a result of the political
turnaround of President Trump) was a positive factor for the PA. The
organization faced the risk of losing importance as an autonomous Latin
American integration project should a broader free trade agreement under US
influence be concluded.64 Instead, the PA countries—especially Chile—came
to play an important role in the constitution of the CPTPP, demonstrating
the possibility of agreeing major transregional trade agreements without the
participation of the United States.65 Moreover, the PA upgraded Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore—all part of the CPTPP—from
observer to associated status. Based on these advances, one might argue that
the PA is positioning itself as driver—or “eje articulador”66—of post-TPP
inter-regionalism without the United States.
Notes
1 See Chapter 8 by Comini and Frenkel in this volume.
2 On the latter, see Chapter 7 by Ribeiro Hoffmann in this volume.
3 “Para el futuro jefe de Hacienda de Brasil, el Mercosur y Argentina no son prior-
idad,” Clarín 28 October 2018, www.clarin.com/mundo/futuro-jefe-hacienda-
brasil-mercosur-argentina-prioridad_0_x2oQw-tbO.html.
4 CEPAL, La convergencia entre la Alianza del Pacífico y el MERCOSUR. Enfrentando
Juntos un Escenario Mundial Desafiante (Santiago, Chile: CEPAL, 2018), 18. How-
ever, the total figures for the PA are strongly influenced by Mexico, which in
2016 accounted for 56 percent of the PA population, 60 percent of its GDP, and
73 percent of PA exports.
5 Lorena Oyarzún Serrano, “The Pacific in Chile’s Foreign Policy: A Tool to
Reinforce Open Regionalism,” Latin American Policy 9, no. 2 (2018):
282–303 (294).
6 Carlos Malamud, “Regional Integration and Cooperation in Latin America: Diag-
nosis and Proposals,” Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies 7, no. 2 (2015):
92–120.
7 Cintia Quiliconi and Raúl Salgado Espinoza, “Latin American Integration:
Regionalism à la Carte in a Multipolar World?” Colombia Internacional 92 (2017):
15–41 (37).
Area Studies Review 16, no. 4 (2013): 370–389; Detlef Nolte, “Costs and Benefits
of Overlapping Regional Organizations in Latin America: The Case of OAS and
UNASUR,” Latin American Politics and Society 60, no. 1 (2018): 128–153.
9 Mauricio Mesquita Moreira, ed., Connecting the Dots: A Road Map for a Better Inte-
gration of Latin America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC: Inter-American
Development Bank, 2018).
10 See Chapter 12 by Hartmann in this volume.
11 Sean W. Burges, “Bounded by the Reality of Trade: Practical Limits to a South
American Region,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2005):
437–454; C. Malamud, “Regional Integration and Cooperation in Latin America:
Diagnosis and Proposals”; and Jean-Christophe Defraigne, “Is a Strengthening
South-South Regional Integration Possible? The Case of Mercosur and Latin
America,” Fédéralisme Régionalisme 16 (2016), https://popups.uliege.be/1374-
3864/index.php?id=1658.
12 Chad P. Bown, Daniel Lederman, Samuel Pienknagura and Raymon Robertson,
Better Neighbors: Toward a Renewal of Economic Integration in Latin America (Wash-
ington, DC: World Bank, 2017), 45–46. Excluding Mexico, with its strong trade
links with the United States, intraregional trade would be slightly over 20 percent;
ECLAC, International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2017 (San-
tiago, Chile: ECLAC, 2017), 58.
Latin America (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2012); José Briceño Ruiz and
Isidro Morales, eds., Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in the Americas. Toward a Pacific-
Atlantic Divide? (London and New York: Routledge, 2017).
14 Germán Camilo Prieto Corredor and Ricardo Betancourt Vélez, “Entre la Sober-
anía, el Liberalismo y la Innovación: Un Marco Conceptual para el Análisis de la
Alianza del Pacífico,” in Alianza del Pacífico. Mitos y Realidades, ed. Eduardo Pas-
trana Buelvas and Hubert Gehring (Cali/Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Santiago
de Cali/Fundación Konrad Adenauer KAS Colombia, 2014), 75–113.
164 Detlef Nolte
15 Victor Manuel Mijares and Detlef Nolte, “Regionalismo Posthegemónico en
Crisis: ¿Por Qué la Unasur Se Desintegra?” Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica 18, no. 3
(2018): 105–112.
16 Andrés Malamud, “Presidential Diplomacy and the Institutional Underpinnings of
Mercosur: An Empirical Examination,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 1
(2005): 138–164.
17 María Elena Lorenzini and Gisela Pereyra Doval, “La Copa Sudamericana de la
Integración Regional,” Perspectivas. Revista de Ciencias Sociales 3, no. 5 (2018):
22–34.
18 ECLAC, International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2018
(Santiago, Chile: ECLAC, 2018), 67.
19 Mijares and Nolte, “Regionalismo Posthegemónico en Crisis: ¿Por Qué la
Unasur Se Desintegra?”
20 Kevín Parthenay, Crise au Venezuela et Déstabilisation du Multilatéralisme Latino-
Américain, Note de Recherche no. 5 (Paris: IRSEM, 2018).
21 Cross-regionalism can be defined “as the participation of a country in multiple,
simultaneous small-scale bilateral trade agreements, and the strategic combination
thereof, with countries belonging to different regions of the world.” Jorge
Garzón and Detlef Nolte, “The New Minilateralism in Regional Economic Gov-
ernance: Cross-regionalism and the Pacific Alliance,” in Handbook of South Ameri-
can Governance, ed. Pia Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde (London and
New York: Routledge, 2018), 173–189 (175).
22 See Chapter 3 by Malamud and Viola in this volume.
23 The new US National Security Strategy of December 2017 mentions China as
challenge for US interests in the Western Hemisphere.
24 Or “joint nation-branding”; see Detlef Nolte, “The Pacific Alliance: Nation-
Branding through Regional Organisations,” GIGA Focus Latin America no. 4
(August 2016), www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publikation/die-pazifikallianz.
25 Quiliconi and Salgado, “Latin American Integration: Regionalism à la Carte in
a Multipolar World?”
26 “The improbable rebirth of the TPP as CP-TPP, albeit a diminished version, tells
us much about the shifting underpinnings of trans-Pacific realities. On both sides
of the Pacific, small and medium-sized powers are ready to take destiny in their
own hands, without waiting for the United States.” Jorge Heine and Nicolás
Albertoni, “New Pacific Alliances: Transforming Transpacific Relations,” Global
Policy—EGG Essays (April 2018), www.globalpolicyjournal.com/sites/default/
files/pdf/Heine%20and%20Albertoni%20-%20New%20Pacific%20Alliances%2C%
20Transforming%20Transpacific%20Relations_1.pdf, 6.
27 Jorge F. Garzón, “Multipolarity and the Future of Economic Regionalism,” Inter-
national Theory 9, no. 1 (2017): 101–135 (110).
28 Detlef Nolte and Leslie Wehner, “The Pacific Alliance Casts Its Cloud over Latin
America,” in ¿Atlántico vs. Pacífico?: América Latina y el Caribe, los Cambios Regio-
nales y los Desafíos Globales. Anuario de la Integración Regional de América Latina y el
Caribe, ed. Andrés Serbin, Laneydi Martínez and Haroldo Ramanzini Júnior
(Buenos Aires, Argentina: CRIES, 2014), 207–222; Daniel Flemes and Rafael
Castro, “Institutional Contestation: Colombia in the Pacific Alliance,” Bulletin of
Latin American Research 35, no.1 (2016): 53–69; and Martha Ardila, “La Alianza
del Pacífico y su Importancia Geoestratégica,” Pensamiento Propio 42 (2017):
243–261.
29 Sebastián Herreros, “The Pacific Alliance: A Bridge between Latin America and
the Asia-Pacific?” in Trade Regionalism in the Asia-Pacific: Developments and Future
Challenges, ed. Basu Das Sanchita and Masahiro Kawai (Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof
Ishak Institute, 2016), 273–294 (283).
30 Rules of origin are the criteria that determine the nationality of a product
(including the admissible percentage of inputs or materials from third countries)
for purposes of international trade. The rules of origin determine what products
can benefit from bilateral or multilateral tariff preferences.
31 Jesper Tvevad, The Pacific Alliance: Regional Integration or Fragmentation? Policy
Briefing (Brussels, Belgium: Policy Department, EU Directorate-General for
External Policies, 2014), 14.
32 José Durán Lima and Daniel Cracau, The Pacific Alliance and Its Economic Impact on
Regional Trade and Investment: Evaluation and Perspectives (Santiago, Chile: ECLAC,
2016), 12; and ECLAC, International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Carib-
bean 2017, 62.
33 Herreros, “The Pacific Alliance: A Bridge between Latin America and the Asia-
Pacific?” 279–281; Doris López, Felipe Muñoz and Angélica Corvalán, “Services
Commitments in the Pacific Alliance,” in The Pacific Alliance in a World of Preferen-
tial Trade Agreements: Lessons in Comparative Regionalism, ed. Pierre Sauvé, Rodrigo
Polanco Lazo and José Manuel Álvarez Zarate (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer,
2019), 137–154.
34 Carlos Alberto Chaves García, “Aproximación Teórica y Conceptual para el Aná-
lisis de la Alianza del Pacífico,” Desafíos 30, no.1 (2018): 21–45 (28, 36); and
Ardila, “La Alianza del Pacífico y su Importancia Geoestratégica,” 248.
35 Nolte, “The Pacific Alliance: Nation-Branding through Regional Organisations”;
Luis Olivera Cárdenas and Christian Rojas Suárez, “La Alianza del Pacífico, una
Ficción en la Comunicación Gubernamental,” Contratexto 27 (2017): 115–133.
36 Prieto and Betancourt, “Entre la Soberanía, el Liberalismo y la Innovación: Un
Marco Conceptual para el Análisis de la Alianza del Pacífico”; Oyarzún, “The
Pacific in Chile’s Foreign Policy: A Tool to Reinforce Open Regionalism,” 295.
37 Chaves, “Aproximación Teórica y Conceptual para el Análisis de la Alianza del
Pacífico,” 26–27.
38 Isabel Rodríguez Aranda, “Oportunidades y Desafíos que Plantea la Alianza del
Pacífico para la Política Exterior y para los Nuevos Modelos de Integración
Regional de sus Miembros,” in Perspectivas y Oportunidades de la Alianza del Pací-
fico, ed. Isabel Rodríguez Aranda and Edgar Vieira Posada (Bogotá, Colombia:
Editorial CESA, 2015), 63–102 (38).
39 Bown et al., Better Neighbors: Toward a Renewal of Economic Integration in Latin
America; and Andrew Powell, ed., Routes to Growth in a New Trade World (Wash-
ington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2017).
40 International Monetary Fund, Cluster Report—Trade Integration in Latin America and
the Caribbean, IMF Country Report 17/66 (Washington, DC: IMF, 2017).
41 Michel Leví Coral and Giulliana Reggiardo, “La Alianza del Pacífico en el
Regionalismo Sudamericano Actual,” Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior no. 106
(2016): 187–204 (196).
42 Powell, Routes to Growth in a New Trade World.
43 Jorge Heine, “Multilateralismo Latinoamericano: ¿De menos a Más?” Foreign
Affairs Latinoamérica 18, no. 2 (2018): 8–13.
44 Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Pacífico,” 27.
46 Catherine Ortiz Morales, “La Alianza del Pacifico como Actor Regional: Factores
de Éxito para la Cohesión Regional hacia la Proyección Internacional,” Desafíos
29, no. 1 (2017): 49–77 (62).
47 Ardila, “La Alianza del Pacífico y su Importancia Geoestratégica,” 244.
166 Detlef Nolte
48 Eduardo Pastrana and Rafael Castro, “La Alianza del Pacífico: un Eje Articulador
del Interregionalismo pos-TPP,” in América Latina y el Caribe: una compleja transi-
ción. Anuario de la Integración Regional de América Latina y el Caribe, ed. Andrés
Serbin, Laneydi Martínez and Haroldo Ramanzini Júnior (Buenos Aires, Argen-
tina: CRIES, 2014), 71–94 (74).
Pacífico,” 35.
50 Ardila, “La Alianza del Pacífico y su Importancia Geoestratégica.”
Marco Conceptual para el Análisis de la Alianza del Pacífico.”
52 Powell, Routes to Growth in a New Trade World, 67.
53 Juan Francisco Morales Giraldo, “La Alianza del Pacífico y los efectos políticos de
la interdependencia económica,” Politai: Revista de Ciencia Política 8, no.14 (2017):
33–52.
Marco Conceptual para el Análisis de la Alianza del Pacífico.”
55 Nolte, “The Pacific Alliance: Nation-Branding through Regional Organisations.”
Pacífico,” 42; Ortiz, “La Alianza del Pacifico como Actor Regional,” 72–73.
57 In Costa Rica, the agricultural sector is against membership of the PA. Former
president Luis Guillermo Solís (2014–2018) had postponed further negotiations
over full membership initiated by his predecessor Laura Chinchilla (2010–2014);
current president Carlos Alvarado (2018–2022) also pronounced himself against
PA membership; Gerardo Ruiz R., “¿Por qué Costa Rica se niega a ser parte de
la Alianza del Pacífico?”crhoy.com 8 July 2019, www.crhoy.com/nacionales/por-
que-costa-rica-se-niega-a-ser-parte-de-la-alianza-del-pacifico/. The access of
Panama, meanwhile, is currently blocked due to its unresolved trade dispute with
Colombia; “Dispute threatens Panama’s Pacific Alliance hopes.” Global Trade
Review 27 July 2016, www.gtreview.com/news/americas/panamas-pacific-alli
ance-hopes-undermined-by-tariff-dispute/; Panama has signed FTAs with Chile,
Peru, and Mexico.
58 Membership would presuppose FTAs with all member countries of the PA. Cur-
rently Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are members of the CAN. Ecuador has
signed trade agreements with Chile and Mexico, which might need updating so
as to comply with the conditions for full PA membership. In this decade,
21.1 percent of Ecuador’s exports have gone to the PA countries. Martha Ardila,
“Ecuador y la Alianza del Pacífico: Geoestrategia y Desafíos,” Nueva Sociedad
(Abril 2018), http://nuso.org/articulo/ecuador-y-la-alianza-del-pacifico-geoestrate
gia-y-desafios/; and “Ecuador Analizará Detenidamente la Propuesta para Integrar
la Alianza del Pacífico,” EFE 14 March 2018, www.efe.com/efe/america/econo
mia/ecuador-analizara-detenidamente-la-propuesta-para-integrar-alianza-del-paci
fico/20000011-3552189. EFE 2018.
59 Lorena Oyarzún Serrano and Federico Rojas de Galarreta, “La Alianza del Pací-
fico en América Latina ¿Contrapeso Regional?” Cuadernos sobre Relaciones Interna-
cionales, Regionalismo y Desarrollo 8, no. 16 (2013): 9–30 (23).
60 Thus, perhaps, it will be necessary to differentiate between observer status cat-
egories and to develop different cooperation mechanisms. See Jason Marczak and
Samuel George, Pacific Alliance 2.0: Next Steps in Integration (Washington, DC:
Atlantic Council and Bertelsmann Foundation, 2016). The PA is now reacting to
this challenge and intends to structure dialogue and cooperation with observer
states along four thematic axes: education; science, technology, and innovation;
internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises; trade facilitation.
Pacific?” 290.
62 Damián Paikin and Daniela Perrotta, “La Argentina y la Alianza del Pacífico:
Riesgos y Oportunidades de una Nueva Geopolítica,” Revista Aportes para la Inte-
gración Latinoamericana 22, no. 34 (2016): 67–101.
63 This section builds on reflections of Thomas J. Volgy, Paul Bezerra, Jacob
Cramer and J. Patrick Rhamey, “The Case for Comparative Regional Analysis
in International Politics,” International Studies Review 19, no. 3 (2017):
452–480 (465).
Pacific?” 289.
65 Giuliana Migale Rocco and Nicolás Comini, “América Latina frente al TPP-11,”
Nueva Sociedad (Marzo 2018), http://nuso.org/articulo/america-latina-frente-al-
tpp-11/.
66 Pastrana and Castro, “La Alianza del Pacífico: un Eje Articulador del Interregio-
nalismo pos-TPP.”
Part IV
EU–Latin American
Inter-regionalism
10 EU–LAC relations after Brexit
Regionalism and inter-regionalism à la
carte
Susanne Gratius
This chapter explores recent trends in European Union (EU)–Latin American

relations after Brexit and in the face of the crisis of European and Latin
American regionalism. Both phenomena have had negative effects on
“mimetic” Latin American regionalism and on the EU’s foreign policy
paradigm of inter-regionalism, which has been replaced by relations à la carte.
On a more positive note, Brexit and the crisis of regionalism have also
contributed to create a new balance of power in inter-regional relations and
could enhance a European–Latin American partnership driven by shared
problems such as debt, populism, inequity, insecurity, and climate change.1
At the same time, external factors like the gradual withdrawal of the United
States from Latin America or increasing concerns regarding China’s role as
a “neocolonial power” might reinforce the presence of the EU in some Latin
American countries and might have a positive effect on regionalism and
global governance in midst of a declining liberal order during the Trump
administration.2
Based on the academic debate on regionalism, regionalization, and inter-
regionalism, two observations will guide this chapter. First, following Brexit
and the crisis of European integration, Latin American regionalism is no
longer emulating the EU model and is instead developing more
autochthonous forms. Second, the crisis of regionalism altered traditional
patterns of relations between the two regions. Inter-regionalism lost appeal
and failed in its purest form of cooperation between two regional blocs.3 The
first part of the chapter thus presents an overview of current trends in Latin
American and Caribbean (LAC) and EU regionalism after Brexit. The second
part of the chapter discusses the consequences of Brexit and the crisis of
regionalism for inter-regional relations. The conclusion summarizes the
findings and outlines future scenarios.
Why Latin American regionalism will never be like the EU

In a world of increasing levels of disorder and conflict, Latin America and the
EU are part of the Atlantic space and share a long history of regional peace
and of defending—despite all nuances—a liberal agenda that is now
172 Susanne Gratius
questioned by President Trump’s economic protectionism (withdrawal from
free trade agreements and higher tariffs) and political nationalism (anti-
migration and racism). However, until very recently, EU–LAC relations have
been highly asymmetric, and Latin American regionalism was mimetic.
Regionalism refers to political and cultural identity and affinity in a certain
geographic space between neighboring countries that engage in a political
process to create a community and common institutions.4 Integration would
be the highest stage of regionalism as it includes the voluntary transfer of
national sovereignty to autonomous supranational institutions.5 In the 1980s,
parts of Latin America (particularly the Caribbean, Central America, and the
Andean Community) followed the European model between supranational
integration and inter-governmental regionalism. This changed with the
creation of the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR) in 1991
and, later, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the
Pacific Alliance. Notwithstanding large differences between them, all four of
these regional projects followed an inter-governmental approach and did not
intend to establish supranational institutions. They were a result of ideological
affinities between political leaders and of the momentum of a gradual
withdrawal of the United States’ hegemonic approach towards Latin America,
but no longer followed the logics of creating regional blocs as counterparts to
the EU. Thus, the EU and Latin America represent different stages and
“models” of regionalism.
In contrast to regionalism, regionalization denotes the level of interdependence
between neighboring countries in terms of trade exchange, migration flows,
investment, cultural adaptation, and people-to-people contacts.6 Hettne and
Söderbaum distinguished among five levels of regionalization and related them to
the emergence of regionalism, defined as a social and political construction of
principles, norms, and rules in a certain territory. The five levels are: (1) regional
space, which is a geographically defined entity; (2) regional complex, which is
increased interdependence; (3) regional society, which refers to increasing
cultural, political, and economic interactions leading to institutionalization; (4)
regional community, which is a region that acquires a collective identity and
institutionalized or informal actor capability; and (5) region-state, which is an
institutionalized region that has actorness and state-like behavior.7 While the
EU’s performance fits into levels 4 and 5, none of the regional entities in
Latin America and the Americas goes beyond level 3, and most of them could
be better characterized as regional complexes with a minimum of shared
institutions and relations. Therefore, one could say that most regional institutions
in Latin America remained empty shells that lacked the fundament of
regionalization.
However, Latin America and Europe share a trend towards fragmentation
—or “regionalism à la carte”—where countries can opt in and out depending
on their domestic preferences about whether to participate in or reject deeper
integration. In the EU, clear examples of different speeds of integration are
EU–LAC relations after Brexit 173
the 19 countries of the Eurozone, the group of 23 countries that seek to
further advance towards a security community or a European Defense Union,
and the Schengen agreement that includes non-members of the EU. In Latin
America, a particularity of regionalism is the overlap of mandates and
memberships that follow the logics of an à la carte menu with the advantage
of being able to easily opt in or out. Changing and overlapping membership,
as well as the appearance of new integration schemes and several redefinitions
of the goals of regionalism, reflects regionalism in flux. Its flexibility and
creativity, including the possibility to invent new initiatives like the Pacific
Alliance, is a strength of Latin American regionalism, but the low level of
commitment and institutionalization (for example, in the case of the CELAC
as an umbrella for Latin American and Caribbean countries) is also a clear
disadvantage and hurdle for both higher levels of regionalization (in terms of
economic interdependence between the countries) and regionalism.8
Latin American regionalism and European integration are both under
stress; however, unlike the EU’s recent existential crisis in Europe’s “lost
decade” (2008–2018), the risk of disintegration and fragmentation has always
been a regular feature of Latin American cooperation and integration schemes
that depended on the political will of presidents and their ideological allies in
the region. Shifting preferences of Latin American governments shaped an
unstable process between inter-governmental cooperation and supranational
integration. Changing patterns of regionalism contrasted with constantly low
levels of regionalization: intra-regional trade in Latin America rarely exceeded
20 percent, compared to trade interdependencies of 60 percent and more
among the 28 EU member states.
Although they represent different levels of interdependence, Latin America
and Europe share a top-down regionalism driven by the political elites after
a process of domestic bargaining in order to reconcile different national
positions, with little or no participation from civil societies. In the Latin
American case, the existence of regionalism contrasts with low levels of
regionalization, while both remain particularly high in the EU. Unlike in
Europe, the dominant pattern of inter-governmentalism9 in Latin American
regionalism is the result of a combination of presidential decision-making and
shifting ideologies in presidential systems10 and the defense of national
sovereignty by member states. This is done to counterbalance US hegemony,
but also to preserve their autonomy within regional organizations.
Despite repeated efforts, it is impossible to compare Latin American
regionalism with EU integration, given that their origins and fundaments are
completely different.11 First, the presence of the United States as regional
hegemon tended to reinforce the defensive regionalism (which serves to
protect national sovereignty and shield the region against US interference) at
the expense of an integration process beyond national boundaries. Second,
the weakness of infrastructure and physical integration remain serious
obstacles, particularly in South America and the Andean region, where
geographic conditions conspire against regionalization and integration. Third,
174 Susanne Gratius
the weakness of domestic institutions, combined with the central role of the
president in most countries, is another argument against a European-like
process.
Latin America: defensive regionalism in constant flux

The image of Latin American regionalism as a general category that includes
different types of inter-governmental cooperation schemes is particularly
colorful and variegated. The Organization of American States (OAS) focused
on regional governance in political and security issues.12 While the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM), the Central American Integration System (SICA),
and the Andean Community were integration projects that included
supranational institutions (albeit powerless ones) and more ambitious
economic goals (a common market), MERCOSUR and the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as “free trade plus” agreements do not
boast supranational institutions and their economic goals are more modest
(customs unions). The most recent example is the Pacific Alliance created in
2012 between Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru—the champions of
free trade and open economies—with an international record of 55 observer
states.13 Post-hegemonic or post-liberal regionalism14 generated new
initiatives like the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) or UNASUR, created in 2004
and 2008, respectively, and later CELAC, which did not fit into the
traditional category of economic integration processes. Instead, they
functioned as political forums—such as the UNASUR Defense Council or
CELAC, both considered to be South or Latin American alternatives to the
OAS for regional conflict resolution; or ALBA, which represents anti-
hegemonic South-South cooperation.15 The overlapping of regional schemes
(for example, Bolivia’s parallel membership in the Andean Community,
ALBA, CELAC, UNASUR, and perhaps MERCOSUR in the future) and
inter-governmental cooperation transformed Latin America into an example
of “fragmented” or “modular” regionalism16 composed of a varying number
of cooperation schemes with different political and economic goals.
Since the 1950s, Latin American regionalism has been under stress and
permanently threatened by fragmentation that might be a first step towards
disintegration. In fact, some Latin American initiatives like the Group of
Three (Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela), built in the 1990s, disappeared
from the map of regionalism due to ideological differences among the three
countries; in particular, Venezuela’s anti-imperialist populism clashed with
Colombia’s and Mexico’s close relationship with the United States. Others,
such as the moribund Andean Community, lost members, most recently with
the withdrawal of Venezuela in 2012. Moreover, performance did not match
ambitions. Most Latin American regional and sub-regional schemes could not
reach their initial goals and did not even manage to establish a full customs
union. Examples include the Andean Community or MERCOSUR, which
remained for more than 20 years at the stage of an incomplete customs union
far from the creation of a common market. Despite 60 years of regionalism,
economic interdependencies remain low. In the political sphere, regional
schemes were unable to solve regional crises like the Colombian armed
conflict or, more recently, the chaotic situation in Venezuela under President
Maduro. CELAC and UNASUR as political dialogue and mediation forums
lost their initial dynamism and struggled over the deep Venezuelan crisis that
divided its member states. To date, CELAC—the EU’s counterpart at inter-
regional summits—and UNASUR remain weak and are dwindling.
This picture shows that neo-functionalist spill-back, spill-around, and
“encapsulation”17 have been a normal praxis in Latin American regionalism,
which also lacks leadership. Although Brazil assumed a South American
leadership role in MERCOSUR and UNASUR under the Worker’s Party
(PT) governments (2003–2016), the economic crisis and the impeachment of
President Dilma Rousseff ended the cycle of Brazil’s proactive role as
a regional power. In the case of ALBA, the Cuban-Venezuelan axis had been
the pivotal point of the initiative that rose and fell with Castro and Chavez.18
Other initiatives, like SICA, CARICOM, the Andean Community, the
Pacific Alliance, and CELAC, always lacked a clear leader.
For these and other reasons, Latin American regionalism will probably
never transcend the deep-rooted discourse of autonomy and the focus on
national sovereignty. In contrast to European integration, Latin American
regionalism has always been defensive. During the (now ending) cycle of
post-liberal or post-hegemonic regionalism, the purpose of Latin American
regionalism has been to counterbalance or defend against Washington and to
create spaces of autonomy and emancipation from the United States or, in
the cases of Colombia and Mexico in the Pacific Alliance, to reduce
dependence on Washington by a strategy of hedging; that is, by placing
parallel bets in alternative partnerships.19 These patterns equally apply to
initiatives like ALBA and UNASUR, and to MERCOSUR during the
governments of Lula da Silva in Brazil and Néstor Kirchner and Cristina
Fernández in Argentina. Donald Trump’s hostile discourse against Mexico
and its Southern neighbors provoked a reinforcement of defensive
regionalism as the main paradigm and motivation for Latin American
regionalism.
The EU’s transition from normative to pragmatic integration

Latin American regionalism has always been measured in the mirror of the
EU’s constant evolution towards deeper integration, even after the complex
and ongoing process of widening to the East. In contrast to Latin America,
European regionalism meant a constant upgrading and deepening of
supranational integration until the Union’s existential crisis in 2008, which
resulted from the breakdown of the financial markets in Southern Europe
and revealed the weaknesses of the euro.20 Europe’s “lost decade,” which
was generated by the Eurozone crisis (with high social costs in Southern
176 Susanne Gratius
Europe) and the migration crisis in 2015, created for the first time
uncertainties about the future of the EU. It was conducive to the
revitalization of national and local identities and the rise of populist parties
denouncing the technocratic and “heartless” European institutions that were
allegedly bypassing the citizens.
As French President Emmanuel Macron put it, “Europe had become
a powerless bureaucracy … The Europe of today is too weak, too slow
and too inefficient.”21 His solution, reinforced by the rise of Eurosceptic
populist parties in most EU member states, is a European Defense Union
in accordance with the discourse of threats posed by terrorism and
migration. The outcome of the EU’s long crisis could be a “fortress
Europe” guided by principled realism and no longer by a “normative” or
“soft power” EU. In an amazing exercise of self-criticism, the EU Global
Strategy that outlines the Union’s future foreign and security policy
recognized “an existential crisis of the European integration process.”22
This crisis involved the risk of fragmentation or even disintegration (a
spill-back to the Single European Market, SEM) that, according to the
White Paper on the Future of Europe, is one of five possible scenarios for
the future of the EU.23 The EU Global Strategy was approved in the
“Brexit year,” when a narrow majority of British citizens chose, in the
referendum held in June 2016, to leave the EU.
Brexit could be seen as an indicator for a trend towards disintegration or
integration à la carte and some analysts have seen this as “the beginning of
the end” of the European model.24 A second perspective refers to “UK
exceptionalism” due to its Transatlantic vocation and strong alliance with the
United States25 and interprets Brexit as the continuation of a long process of
gradual disconnection of the United Kingdom from the EU. A third view
relates Brexit to the rise of populism and nationalism in several EU member
states as the result of a combination of factors such as the decline of liberal
democracy, the economic and financial crisis, the terrorist threat, and the
arrival of 1.3 million refugees to Europe.26
How the United Kingdom will ultimately leave the EU (either by settling
a long-term agreement between the parts in 2020 or without any deal) will
not only shape their future relations, but will also be decisive when it comes
to preventing or stimulating similar processes of withdrawal in the future.
The first stage of the Brexit negotiations—the way out and the transition
period—concluded in March 2018, when the European Commission
presented the framework for future relations between the EU and the United
Kingdom. According to the withdrawal agreement, revised in October 2019
and ratified in January 2020, the United Kingdom had to guarantee EU
citizens the same rights as before during a transition period until at least 31
December 2020. Estimates about the costs of Brexit vary between 0.1 and
1.5 percent GDP loss for the EU and 3–6 percent for the United
Kingdom.27
“Hard Brexit,” understood as achieving a maximum commitment of the
United Kingdom in terms of EU citizens’ rights and economic
interdependencies beyond a free trade zone at the lowest possible costs for
Brussels, is the EU’s preferred option to avoid opening the door for other
member states to opt out or demand an à la carte menu.28 European
negotiations and domestic decision-making were complicated and the process
turned out to last longer than the scenario of March 2019, when the United
Kingdom was originally supposed to end its EU membership and replace it
with another type of relationship. By 2020, when the transition period is
scheduled to end (together with the EU budget period 2014–2020), both
sides will have to define their type of relationship as either a free trade area,
a customs union, or the SEM.
Brexit negotiations had the surprising side-effect of strengthening the
internal cohesion of the EU that spoke (through Commissioner Michel
Barnier) with a single voice without any signs of internal divisions or
controversies. This contrasted starkly with the United Kingdom, where then
prime minister Theresa May was criticized by both the opposition and her
own party. Consequently, the United Kingdom clearly appeared as the
weaker part in the negotiation process. This imbalance offers an important
lesson of the costs (major concessions to the EU) of possible exits in the
future. The conditions under which the United Kingdom will ultimately
leave the EU and establish a new relationship with its member states, and
who will be considered the “winner” of the bargaining battle, will have
important implications for the integration or disintegration of Europe.
A strong and united EU might deter other member states from similar
adventures, particularly if the outcome proves to be negative for the country
that leaves, while internal divisions in the EU would send a dangerous
message of fragmentation and weakness.
Three years after the referendum, Brexit seems to confirm the second of
the above-mentioned scenarios—that of UK exceptionalism in Europe29 and
its Transatlantic vocation—rather than the first “beginning of the end”
scenario of disintegration. This is good news for an EU that recovered
strength with the presidential elections in France, when Macron triumphed
over right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, and the German elections in
September 2017, when voters elected Chancellor Angela Merkel to another
four-year period.
The reactivation of the traditional German-French tandem as the driving
force for deepening integration introduced new optimism30 and might
advance the banking union, a European Finance Minister or a European
Monetary Fund envisaged by several member states and the European
Commission (EC).31 The stable bilateral German-French axis will continue to
determine integration dynamics. In a March 2017 speech, Macron proposed
a “democratic, united and sovereign Europe” and presented a series of
proposals towards a deeper integration in security (a European Defense
Union, a collective police force, and a European Intervention Force) and
178 Susanne Gratius
migration affairs (a European Asylum Agency), as well as the maintenance of
a protectionist agricultural policy.32 His ideas were picked up on, several
months later, in EC President Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union
speech proposing a single European executive (replacing the Presidents of the
Commission and the European Council), a European Minister of Economy
and Finances, and a European Monetary Fund. These proposals will be at the
center of the debate between Unionists (Macron) and Federalists (EC) in the
near future. However, the de facto German dominance in the management
of the euro and refugee crisis, combined with the high dependency of the
integration project on national developments and the political color of the
governments in power, demonstrated the limitations of supranational
institutions, and confirmed the trend towards inter-governmentalism
responding to the formation of domestic preferences.33
Meanwhile, the British exit will create a new power balance in the EU.
First, the German-French axis might become even more important when it
comes to shaping the future of European integration, and the distribution of
tasks between Europe’s leading economy Germany and the nuclear power
France will need to be handled sensitively. If Germany continues to defend
its special position as a non-military power, the end of British EU
membership will leave France as the only EU member state with nuclear
arms and a veto power in the UN Security Council. This will further
undermine the EU’s “hard power,” which is already comparatively weak and
which Macron wishes to strengthen.
Second, South European countries such as Italy and Spain, together with
East European countries, will become more important powers in an EU
without the United Kingdom. The Italian elections in March 2018, when
traditional parties lost against right- and left-wing populists, particularly
reinforced the rise of xenophobic and Eurosceptic parties that affects nearly
all EU member states, including France and Germany.
If Macron is able to implement his vision of a European security community
and EU agricultural policy, Brexit might also reinforce the trend towards
a fortress Europe, with border controls to avoid a new refugee crisis and
economic protectionism on agriculture. At the same time, the EU remains
a democratic island surrounded by unstable and autocratic neighborhoods on its
eastern and southern borders. In this geographic and geopolitical context, the
EU’s self-imposed role as a normative power and strong defender of human
rights will be measured by its generosity in terms of development assistance. As
one of the few countries that reached the 0.7 percent target, the United
Kingdom will have to be replaced by other countries if the EU wants to
preserve its status as the world’s largest donor of development assistance.
The end of mimetic regionalism

Similar to other world regions, the Latin American experience with regional
integration has, until recently, been strongly influenced by the European
model and particularly by the evolution towards the EU and the creation of
the Eurozone. Since the 1950s, when the first Central American integration
initiatives started, the European model inspired Latin American attempts to
advance regionalism and integration. In the 1950s and 1960s, the
“Europeanization” of the Latin American integration process became evident
in the cases of the Central American Common Market (CACM) and the
Andean Pact, which sought to emulate the European model of supranational
institutions in a completely different regional context. None of the two
regional entities can be compared to the EU. Only regional organizations
created by small states such as CARICOM or SICA reached higher stages of
economic integration, such as customs unions and incomplete common
markets with supranational institutions.
The creation of MERCOSUR in 1991 and of NAFTA three years later
coincided with the deepening (Maastricht Treaty) and widening (Austria,
Finland, and Sweden) of the European integration process. Although these
organizations discussed the idea of a common currency at the end of the
1990s, parallel to the process towards the European economic and monetary
union, neither an economic nor a political union are currently part of the
broad menu of Latin American regionalism. Today, considering that both
Latin American projects steered toward limited, inter-governmental regional
cooperation without supranational institutions, most analysts agree that the
attempts to emulate the European model in the Americas have failed.34 The
only organization that introduced a virtual currency (the Sucre) between its
member states is the currently declining ALBA, the political alliance based on
the bilateral axis between Cuba and Venezuela and their closest ideological
partners in Latin America and the Caribbean.35
In the post-Cold War period of the 1990s and beyond, in a context of the
search for autonomy36 and emancipation, Latin American experiences with
integration began to be distanced from the European model, and Latin
America developed its own laboratory of experiences with regionalism and
integration.37 Regionalism served as a strategy to reach autonomy from the
US (as in the case of the South American integration processes and CELAC),
as an open challenge to Washington’s imperialist behavior (ALBA), as
a formula to increase the collective bargaining power of small states
(CARICOM and SICA), or as a strategy of international insertion by
dismantling trade and other barriers and reducing dependence on the US
(Pacific Alliance). In the midst of this renewed intra-Latin American debate
about alternative forms of regionalism, the EU lost its appeal as the main
point of reference for regional integration due to the unequal distribution of
the costs of the Eurozone crisis, the subsequent North-South divide, the rise
of populist discourses and nationalism, Brexit, and the continuing paralysis of
the EU.
From 2008 to 2018, the EU’s image as a normative and soft power
undoubtedly suffered serious damage. For the first time since the Rome
Treaties, Brexit sent the strong message that even European integration is
180 Susanne Gratius
reversible and that opting out is possible. The decade of crisis of the EU
wrested credibility to the world’s most successful integration process that had
served as a model for other regions, particularly Latin America. It reinforced
Latin American skepticism over the viability of the European supranational
model, which had demonstrated its limits in the cases of “first-generation”
regional agreements such as the Central American integration process or the
Andean Pact and has never been successfully implemented in other regions.
The crisis also signified the end of the European paternalist policy of
exporting regionalism.
Latin American politicians had few public reactions to Brexit. The Chilean
Foreign Minister used the crisis to contrast “the surprise and disintegration
because of Brexit” with “a pragmatic, flexible and realist integration”38 in the
Pacific Alliance. The EU crisis introduced a horizontal dimension into the
traditional pattern of asymmetry and opened a window of opportunity
towards a more balanced debate on the limits of integration and the
advantages of less ambitious, “fragmented,” or “flexible” regionalisms. In this
sense, after a long period of mimetic relations, the crisis may induce
a broadening of the traditional (and in part declining) agenda based on trade
and development by a shared problem approach addressing common
challenges such as financial crisis and social inequity, citizen insecurity,
populism, and the crisis of regionalism itself.
Although the crisis of the EU, and particularly Brexit, had negative
repercussions in LAC, the region had already started to distance itself from
Europe by diversifying its trade preferences towards the Asia-Pacific region,
especially China. In 2016, Latin America had approximately 26 percent of its
total trade exchanges (exports and imports) with Asia, compared to
14 percent with the EU—a clear indicator of an economic shift from the
Atlantic to the Pacific.39 In particular, the Pacific Alliance members Chile
and Peru now concentrated their trade relations on Asia, which accounts for
more than one-third of their imports and exports and has clearly replaced the
US and EU as the countries’ first and second markets, respectively. The
Pacific drift of South America—including Brazil, whose main export market
since 2013 has been China—changed the dynamics of regionalism and
integration from the traditional focus on the European model towards an
emphasis on Asian-style, less institutionalized models of integration with the
defense of national sovereignty and inter-governmental, presidentialist
decision-making. Nonetheless, in contrast to Latin America’s Asian partners,
regional pragmatism could not change low levels of regionalization. Intra-
regional trade flows are still below 20 percent of total trade, compared to
more than 50 percent of intra-regional trade in Asia.
Inter-regionalism after Brexit

The crisis of regionalism in Europe and Latin America has not
fundamentally changed the focus on “pure inter-regionalism,” which
according to Hänggi denotes relations between two integrated blocs of
countries.40 As a result of the partial “Europeanization” of Latin American
integration during the Cold War period and—in the cases of the
Caribbean and Central America—by the creation of supranational
institutions and ambitious common markets, pure inter-regionalism still
dominates the official EU policy towards Latin America, regardless of the
increasing heterogenization of Latin American regionalism. So far,
CARICOM and SICA are the only schemes that have signed bloc-to-bloc
free trade (plus political dialogue and cooperation) agreements with the
EU, in accordance with pure inter-regionalism. Additional examples are
the ongoing EU-MERCOSUR negotiations or the two summits (2013
and 2015) between the EU and CELAC.
Although the EU’s perception of Latin America changed from
a developmental partner to the Southern space of a broader Atlantic area, the
regional focus on CELAC and other (sub-)regional organizations in the EU
Global Strategy of 2016 remains unaltered. The Global Strategy envisages
cooperative regional orders following its traditional doctrine of regionalism
and inter-regionalism.41 However, 20 years of complicated EU-MERCOSUR
free trade negotiations and the cancellation of the summit between EU and
CELAC in 2017 and 2018 showed that this formula offers more obstacles than
solutions. The difficulties in reaching an agreement in the EU-MERCOSUR
negotiations, or the lack of a common agenda for EU-CELAC summits (as
evidenced by the ongoing debate on Venezuela that impeded the third
Summit with the EU to be held in 2017), illustrate the high level of
fragmentation within Latin America. Given this fragmentation, constant
redefinition, and broad range of goals and functions of Latin American
regionalism, there is no solid base to construct inter-regional relations in line
with the EU’s formula of pure inter-regionalism. Nevertheless, in their
discourse, both regions remain committed to inter-regionalism whose dynamics
depend on the evolution of regionalism and integration in Europe and Latin
America.
Europe’s and Latin America’s integration agendas began to diverge several
years ago, when Latin America adopted its own approaches, at a time when
China and other Asian countries started to replace the EU as Latin
America’s second trade partner. The increasing distance between Latin
America and the EU is the result of a declining Europe, the growing
influence of rising powers in the Global South (including Brazil, despite its
political crisis since 2016), and a post-Cold War context with a broader
margin for autonomous regional developments in the Global South. Brexit is
likely to have additional consequences for the format and the contents of
EU–LAC relations. The end of the British EU membership will tend to
weaken the forces of economic liberalism within the EU and might have
a negative impact on the finalization of the June 2019 EU-MERCOSUR
agreement and other still open trade liberalization processes with Latin
American and Caribbean partners. For example, Macron’s proposal to
182 Susanne Gratius
maintain a protectionist agricultural policy is a stumbling block in EU
relations with MERCOSUR.
At the same time, in day-to-day practice, bi-regional relations develop in
a framework of “principled pragmatism”42 that is starting to replace the
idealist value-based EU common foreign policy of the past, which was based
on democracy, human rights, peace, and development. Principled pragmatism
also characterizes the EU’s post-crisis integration process and Latin America’s
constantly changing regionalism. Bi-regional relations shift from “pure” to
“hybrid” inter-regionalism or to “trans-regionalism.” The increasing
bilateralization of cooperation between the EU and individual Latin
American states diverges from the idea of relations between two blocs of
countries. This trend is confirmed by strategic partnerships with Brazil (2007)
and Mexico (2009), the “Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement”
between Brussels and Cuba (2016), or free trade agreements with individual
countries (Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador), after failed attempts
to negotiate collective deals. Principled pragmatism based on an à la carte
menu—meaning bilateral or mini-lateral relations between the EU and
specific Latin American partners, depending on the issues to be discussed—
seems to be more viable, while idealistic inter-regionalism is in decline.
The possible repercussions of Brexit vary for these new forms of
cooperation. The United Kingdom might have to negotiate individual
agreements with those countries that have traditionally been important for
London, particularly the Anglophone Caribbean countries, but also the
regional powers of Brazil and Mexico. Juan Manuel Santos, then Colombian
president, qualified Brexit as “a headache” for his country. In Colombia, the
United Kingdom is the second foreign investor and an important trade
partner. Nevertheless, exports to the United Kingdom only accounted for
2.5 percent of total trade in 2016 in the case of Colombia, and 1.7 percent in
the case of Brazil, London’s second-most important economic partner in the
region. If a hard or a “no deal” Brexit occurs, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador,
Mexico, Peru, as well as SICA and CARICOM, might have to re-think
their free trade agreements with the EU and/or sign special bilateral
agreements with the United Kingdom. In turn, a soft Brexit would not have
a strong effect on economic relations between London and Latin America.
At the same time, the negative cycle of the EU—Eurozone crisis, refugee
crisis, Brexit—reduced the traditional North-South asymmetries between
Europe and Latin America. Today, the two regions share more problems
than they did in past decades. Both are facing the crisis of regionalism, the
rise of nationalism and populism, increasing levels of inequality, the global
challenge of climate change, as well as recent security threats related to
terrorism in Europe and drug trafficking in Latin America. Common
challenges and the advantage of a shared cultural heritage offer the
opportunity for structural change in the relations between the EU and Latin
America from North-South inter-regionalism to a pragmatic and flexible
bilateral and mini-lateral format addressing shared problems. It may be the
right moment to reactivate the global EU–LAC partnership, which was
announced in 1999 at the first inter-regional summit in Rio de Janeiro but
never put into practice.
A first argument for such a relaunch is the need to counterbalance Donald
Trump’s racist, nationalist, and protectionist domestic agenda with its
disastrous effects on US external relations and multilateral governance.
A second strong argument is the rise of China and Latin America’s drift
toward the Pacific. Although nationalism and protectionism are present in
Latin America and Europe, both regions stand for liberal ideas such as
a regional order based on inter-state cooperation and integration, liberal
democracy, and a market economy but, compared with the US, also for state
regulation, social justice, and global governance—a model that is under stress
due to US unilateralism, Russia’s reluctance to be a responsible partner in the
multilateral system, and China’s ambiguous role in between multilateralism
and multipolarity.
Conclusion
Both Latin American regionalism and the EU integration process suffered
a setback in the decade from 2008 to 2018. The EU has never before been
threatened by a similar financial crisis and a subsequent wave of
Euroscepticism channeled by populist parties from the right and left. Brexit
constitutes an important element of the EU crisis. How the United Kingdom
leaves—with an agreement on a long-term relationship still in 2020 or, if the
transition period is not extended, a “no deal” Brexit—might decide over
further fragmentation by opening the door for more exits or for deeper
integration by increasing internal cohesion and establishing a new leadership
or balance of power within the EU, enabling at least a number of countries
to create a more united core Europe. This option of concentric circles from
deeper to less integration remains a European particularity that permits
regionalism à la carte, allowing governments different levels of supranational
commitment. This model does not fit with decentralized and overlapping
Latin American regionalism, which also allows governments to opt in and out
from regional projects, but without the existence of a regional organization
that constitutes the core or center of integration beyond the changing
preferences of national governments. In any case, Brexit and the crisis of
European integration suggest that it is no longer possible to decide which of
the two paths is more successful. European integration has lost its model
character, while Latin American regionalism is no longer mimetic. This
horizontal perspective opens a window of opportunity for a more pragmatic
and equal dialogue over common challenges.
Although it is fragmented and currently without leadership, Latin
American regionalism will endure. While some regional projects will further
develop, others like UNASUR or CELAC will probably continue to decline.
The constant emergence of new Latin American initiatives for inter-state
184 Susanne Gratius
cooperation in the course of the past decades corroborates the importance of
political dialogue and economic integration as a formula for peace and
development. Although these goals are similar to the objectives of EU
integration, Latin American regionalism is constrained by the defense of
national sovereignty (against the pooling of sovereignty and delegation of
authority), a topic that is now also back on the European agenda. In neither
of the regions does the trend towards fragmentation mean disintegration;
instead, a regionalism à la carte seems to be the most likely option.
For the political dynamics of EU–LAC relations, the crisis of regionalism
on both sides of the Atlantic entailed a turn to bilateral and mini-lateral
pragmatism. Twenty years of cumbersome EU-MERCOSUR negotiations
and five years of irrelevant EU-CELAC Summits revealed the decline of the
old-fashioned model of pure inter-regionalism of bloc-to-bloc relations.
Notes
1 Susanne Gratius, “Europa-América Latina: Retos Regionales y Globales Compar-
tidos,” Nueva Sociedad 270 (2017): 119–131.
2 Stewart Patrick, “Trump and World Order: The Return of Self-help,” Foreign
Affairs 96, no. 2 (2017): 52–57.
3 Heiner Hänggi, “Interregionalism as a Multifaceted Phenomenon: In Search of
a Typology,” in Interregionalism and International Relations, ed. Heiner Hänggi, Ralf
Roloff and Jürgen Rüland (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 31–62.
4 Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of
Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016), 4–15.
5 Andres Malamud and Philippe Schmitter, The Experience of European Integration and
the Potential for Integration in South America, IBEI Working Paper 6 (Barcelona,
Spain: Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, 2007).
6 Börzel and Risse, “Introduction.”
7 Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum, “Theorising the Rise of Regionness,” New
Political Economy 5, no. 3 (2000): 457–473.
8 Detlef Nolte, Latin America’s New Regional Architecture: A Cooperative or Segmented
Regional Governance Complex? EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2014/89 (Florence,
Italy: European University Institute, 2014); Andrés Malamud and Gian Luca Gar-
dini, “Has Regionalism Peaked? The Latin American Quagmire and Its Lessons,”
The International Spectator 47, no. 1 (2012): 116–133.
9 Andrew Moravcsik, “Preferences and Power in the European Community:
A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach,” Journal of Common Market Studies 31,
no. 4 (1993): 473–524.
10 Andrés Malamud, “Presidentialist Decision Making in Latin American Foreign
Policy: Examples from Regional Integration Processes,” in Routledge Handbook of
Latin America in the World, ed. Jorge I. Domínguez and Ana Covarrubias
(New York: Routledge, 2015), 112–123.
11 See Chapter 11 by Detlef Nolte in this volume.
12 For definitions and debates on regional governance, see Fredrik Söderbaum,
“Old, New, and Comparative Regionalism: The History and Scholarly Devel-
opment of the Field,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed.
16–37.
13 See Chapter 9 by Detlef Nolte in this volume; and The Pacific Alliance, Observer
States 2020, https://alianzapacifico.net/paises-observadores/.
14 José Antonio Sanahuja, Post-liberal Regionalism in South America: The Case of
UNASUR, EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2012/05 (Florence, Italy: European
University Institute, 2012); Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, “The Rise of Post-
Hegemonic Regionalism in Latin America,” in The Rise of Post-hegemonic Regional-
ism: The Case of Latin America, ed. Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie (Dordrecht,
Netherlands: Springer, 2012), 1–16.
15 Susanne Gratius and José Manuel Puente, “¿Fin del Proyecto ALBA? Una Per-
spectiva Política y Económica,” Revista de Estudios Políticos 180 (2018): 229–252.
16 Gian Luca Gardini, “Towards Modular Regionalism: The Proliferation of Latin
American Cooperation,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 58, no. 1 (2015):
201–229.
17 Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1958); Philippe C. Schmitter, “Central American Integration: Spill-over, Spill-
around or Encapsulation?” Journal of Common Market Studies 9, no. 1 (1970): 1–48.
18 Gratius and Puente, “¿Fin del Proyecto ALBA? Una Perspectiva Política
y Económica.”
19 Patrick, “Trump and World Order: The Return of Self-help.”
20 Hans Kundnani, “Por qué Merkel Volverá a Ser Canciller,” El País, 17 Septem-
ber 2017; Manuel Castells, ed., Europe’s Crises (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018).
21 Initiative for Europe, Sorbonne Speech of Emmanuel Macron, 26 September 2017,
http://international.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2017/09/29/macron-sorbonne-
verbatim-europe-18583.html.
President of the European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger
Europe. A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, 2016,
https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/sites/globalstrategy/files/eugs_review_web.pdf.
23 The other four scenarios are: Do less but more efficient, Carrying on, Europe à la
Carte, and Deepening; see: European Commission, White Paper on the Future of
Europe: Reflections and Scenarios for the EU 27 by 2025, 2017, https://ec.europa.eu/
commission/future-europe/white-paper-future-europe/white-paper-future-europe-
five-scenarios_en.
24 Douglas Webber, European Disintegration? The Politics of Crisis in the European
Union (London: Macmillan/Red Globe Press, 2018).
25 Simon Tilford, “The British and Their Exceptionalism,” Insights, 3 May 2017
(London: Center for European Reform, 2017).
26 Rosa Balfour (Rapporteur), Europe’s Troublemakers: The Populist Challenge to For-
eign Policy (Brussels, Belgium: European Policy Center (EPC), 2016); Cas Mudde
and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, eds., Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat
or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
27 European Parliament, An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU 27.
Study for the IMCO Committee (Brussels, Belgium: Policy Department A: Eco-
nomic and Scientific Policy, 2017).
28 Joaquín Almunia, “Brexit: Panorama antes de la Batalla,” Pensamiento Iberoameri-
cano 3, no. 1 (2017): 92–100.
29 Tilford, “The British and their Exceptionalism.”
30 Kundnani, “Por qué Merkel Volverá a Ser Canciller.”
31 President Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union Address 2017 (European Commis-
sion Speech/17/3165), 13 September 2017, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_
SPEECH-17-3165_en.htm.
32 Initiative for Europe, Sorbonne Speech of Emmanuel Macron.
186 Susanne Gratius
33 Moravcsik, “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal
Intergovernmentalist Approach.”
34 See, for example, Nolte, Latin America’s New Regional Architecture: A Cooperative or
Segmented Regional Governance Complex?; and Gardini, “Towards Modular Region-
alism: The Proliferation of Latin American Cooperation.”
35 Gratius and Puente, “¿Fin del Proyecto ALBA? Una Perspectiva Política
y Económica.”
36 Roberto Russell and Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, “América Latina y su Gran Estrate-
gia: Entre la Aquiescencia y la Autonomía,” Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals
104 (December 2013): 157–180.
37 See Chapter 11 by Detlef Nolte in this volume.
38 Paula Astroza Suárez, “Los Imprevisibles Caminos del Brexit y sus Consecuencias
en América Latina,” Pensamiento Iberoamericano 3, no. 1 (2017): 101–120 (107).
39 European Commission, EU Trade in Goods with Latin American Countries (Brussels,
Belgium: Directorate-General for Trade, 2017).
40 Hänggi, “Interregionalism as a Multifaceted Phenomenon: In search of a Typology.”
The three types are pure inter-regionalism, hybrid inter-regionalism (a regional bloc
and a third country), and trans-regionalism (individual countries or other actors from
two different regions).
41 Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, “Inter- and Transregionalism,” in The Oxford Hand-
book of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 600–618.
President of the European Commission, Shared Vision, Common Action.
11 The EU crisis and the comparative
study of Latin American
regionalism
Detlef Nolte
While the Eurozone crisis and Brexit have had negative repercussions for the
EU and the perception of the EU as model to emulate,1 they might improve
the options for comparative regionalism by adding the study of regional
disintegration to the study of regional integration. This could open up new
perspectives for comparing European regionalism (and regional integration)
with the experiences of regionalism in other regions, especially in times of
crisis and fragmentation.
This chapter starts with a short overview of the interaction between EU
studies and the study of Latin American regionalism from the 1960s until the
current decade. It depicts how the application of EU-focused integration
theories to Latin America led into a blind alley and describes the
emancipation of the study of Latin American regionalism from EU-based
integration theories and concepts. I also denote the risks of Latin American
exceptionalism in the study of regionalism and argue in favor of a post-
revisionist and global approach. I then discuss the repercussions of the EU
crisis for the perception of the EU in Latin America and the study of Latin
American regionalism. I ask whether concepts developed for the study of the
multidimensional EU crisis might also be applied to the current crisis of some
regional organizations in Latin America. I present a definition for the analysis
of crises of regional projects and organizations. The general question that
I seek to answer is whether concepts and research tools developed for the
study of the EU can travel across the Atlantic. The answer is yes, but it
should be the right concepts and tools, and these usually have to be adapted
to the Latin American context.
Looking back: unrealistic expectations and estrangement
Dominance of European integration theory

In the 1960s Latin America was the only region outside of Europe to
commence major regional integration projects such as the Central American
Common Market, the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) or
the Andean Pact. Therefore, it is unsurprising that it was in this region that
188 Detlef Nolte
regional integration theories developed on the basis of the European
integration process were first applied to a non-European region.2 In the
introduction to the re-edition of Ernst B. Haas’ classic work Beyond the
Nation-state: Functionalism and International Organization, the authors described
the spill-over of European integration theory to Latin America. The story
starts with Philippe C. Schmitter’s arrival in Berkeley in 1961, where Ernst
Haas unexpectedly offered him a job as his research assistant.
This had nothing to do with Schmitter’s substantive qualifications (which

were nil), but with the fact that Haas had learned somewhere that
Schmitter spoke Spanish. Haas had the strange idea of trying to apply
neofunctionalism to the recently formed Central American Common
Market (CACM) and the Latin American Free Trade Area (LAFTA),
which Schmitter did not even know existed.3
Schmitter and Haas published some interesting and ground-breaking studies

on Latin American regional organizations, but in the end their neo-
functionalist approach did not fit into the Latin American context.4 Thus,
European integration theories remained restricted to one case (the N=1
problem), lacking other references for comparison. As a consequence of
a general downturn of regional cooperation in the Western Hemisphere in
the 1970s and 1980s, fewer studies on Latin American regionalism were
published (for example, on LAFTA and LAIA) and even fewer with
a comparative (or European integration theory-based) perspective; it was
basically a topic for a small group of “aficionados.” This neglect of Latin
American regionalism changed in the 1990s with a new surge of regional
projects in Latin America, which included the creation of the Southern Cone
Common Market (MERCOSUR) and the reanimation and reorientation of
the Andean Pact (now the Andean Community) and the CACM.
The 1990s were also a decade when European integration was advancing
both in scope and in depth. Western Europe was on the side of the winners
of the Cold War. The Maastricht Treaty constituted the European Union,
which soon expanded to Eastern Europe. And the EU was reaching out to
Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where it was perceived as a model to be
emulated—at least in part. Thus, it was no surprise that scholars started again
to compare Latin American regionalism with European integration. There
was initially a lot of optimism that organizations such as the MERCOSUR
or the Andean Community might follow the European path of deeper
integration with supranational institutions; more recently, a critical view
prevailed as European integration theories were confronted with a different
reality.
A major problem with applying the concepts, theories, and analytical tools
for the study of European regionalism to the analysis of Latin American
regionalism was that they had been developed to find answers for European
questions, such as why European governments decided to create supranational
The EU crisis and Latin American regionalism 189
institutions, why these institutions survived and were strengthened, and what
explains the exit from these institutions. They were later applied to other
puzzles and regional projects that had never aimed to emulate the European
model.
For a while, the study of Latin American regionalism was influenced by
what one might denominate a negative approach, with a focus on its
shortcomings (or its missing attributes). This approach started with
a preconceived notion of what regionalism should be, and normally came up
with a narrow model of European-style integration that includes strong
supranational institutions and the transfer of sovereignty. This kind of analysis
usually arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that regional experiences
outside of Europe do not constitute real (that is, European-style) integration.
A prototypical example is an article by Andrés Malamud and Philippe
Schmitter, which starts by stating that they understand integration in
European terms as a process in which national states voluntarily mingle,
merge, and mix with their neighbors in order to lose the factual attributes of
sovereignty, and “that they do so by creating common and permanent
institutions capable of making decisions binding on all members.”5 From this
perspective, the Latin American organizations they analyzed—the Andean
Community and MERCOSUR—had made little progress toward integration.
Those authors exhibited a strong bias against all kinds of regional cooperation
that does not resemble the European pattern. Consequently, Malamud and
Schmitter contested that there might be “a distinctive ‘Latin American’ (or,
for that matter, ‘Asian’ or ‘African’) pattern of integration that may not
resemble the European ‘institutional’ one, but nevertheless is capable of
resolving regional problems, asserting regional cohesion and building regional
identity.”6
In another article following the same line of argumentation, Malamud and
Gardini deplored that
Latin American states continue to establish regional organizations because

their leaders know that sovereignty is not relinquished by signing papers.
Rather, regionalism is a foreign policy resource used to achieve other
ends such as international visibility, regional stability and regime
legitimacy.7
One might ask what is problematic in regard to these self-declared goals. The
only fault is that they do not correspond to a pre-established model. It could
be said that, ultimately, the focus on what Latin American regionalism is not
was an obstacle to identify what constitutes Latin American regionalism; and
it hindered the development of adequate tools for its analysis.
This intellectual blockade ended when scholars of Latin American
regionalism—in a kind of emancipation—took a more critical view of
transferring European concepts to the analysis of developments in their
region; and also when they started to develop a more independent approach,
190 Detlef Nolte
which led to a dissociation of research on Latin American institutions from
EU studies and the predominant (or hegemonic) theories of regional
integration.8 One might even perceive a kind of backlash against EU-focused
comparative studies and scholars with a euro-centric view of Latin American
regionalism.
Latin American approaches

The reorientation of research on Latin American regionalism was related to
the proliferation of new and innovative regional organizations in the region
after 2000—the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA),
the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Pacific Alliance—
and the reorientation of existing ones such as MERCOSUR. Between 2000
and 2012, Latin America was the most dynamic region in regard to fresh
regional projects. At the same time, the EU lost its attractiveness in Latin
America, especially after the Eurozone crisis started in 2009.
In the process of emancipation from EU studies, scholars of Latin America
regionalism started to look for alternative analytical approaches and were
quite creative in coining new concepts and definitions, including, but not
limited to: post-liberal regionalism, anarchical regionalism, heterodox
regionalism, post-trade integration, development regionalism, positive
integration, strategic regionalism, multilateral regionalism, social regionalism,
productive regionalism, and regionalism à la carte.
The concept of post-hegemonic regionalism, coined by Pia Riggirozzi and
Diana Tussie,9 became the most cited and perhaps most adequate concept
with which to describe the new developments of Latin American regionalism
since the first decade of the new millennium and with which to outline the
changing mood of studies of Latin American regionalism. The concept
“captures the plurality of models which, so far, coexist in different regional
groups.”10 It signals the liberation of thinking and the emancipation from
eurocentrism in Latin American regionalism studies. Riggirozzi and Tussie
argued, in a Gramscian fashion, that by contesting the US-led established
model of open regionalism, agenda-setting capacities have been set free, and
trade-related forms of integration lost their centrality.11 Neoliberal approaches
to regional economic integration coexist with non-neoliberal blocs. The
result is a regional architecture that is characterized by hybrid practices
“arranging component pieces in ever new combinations underpinned by
increasingly intense regional relations.”12 This tendency has been
subsequently reinforced, which led to heterodox regionalism13 becoming an
even more appropriate concept with which to describe a constellation that
encompasses quite different regional projects.
Regardless of which concepts are used, there is a consensus about the
basic characteristics of Latin American regionalism. As Bianculli argued in
the Oxford Handbook on Comparative Regionalism, “Latin America has not
simply been a rule-taker but developed its own varieties of regionalism.”14
But what are the building blocks and how should one categorize Latin
American compared to other variants of regionalism? A cursory review of
the literature suggests that Latin American regionalism is characterized by
a strong defense of national sovereignty (both as a shield against
interferences from outside of the region, but also in regard to regional
partners) that combines the rejection of supranational institutions (weak
institutionalization) with a preference for intergovernmental mechanisms
with a key role for the presidents (inter-presidentialism), overlapping
regional organizations, and a process of sub-regionalization (different layers
within a region). Therefore, the pooling of sovereignty and the delegation
of authority15—central building blocks of European integration—are both
weak, declining, or non-existent in Latin American regionalism. Latin
American governments favor a regional pluralism that is constituted of
flexible and overlapping regional organizations, as this allows for cross-
institutional strategies and a variable geometry of regional integration/
cooperation. Before the current crisis of Latin American regionalism, this
resulted in a cooperative regional governance pattern16 characterized by
frequent intergovernmental interactions (presidents and ministers) and
sectoral bureaucratic networks contributing to policy coordination and
regional norm diffusion.
Based on these specific characteristics, the future research agenda on Latin
American regionalism should focus on “the analysis of what inter-
governmental, non-binding, regional organizations can do and what they
actually do.”17 Such an orientation differentiates research on Latin American
regionalism from EU studies, which emphasize supranational institutions, but
it does not preclude the use of analytical concepts and instruments from the
tool box of EU studies or reference to theories developed with a focus on
the EU.
European integration theory reaching its limits

The emancipation of scholarship on Latin American regionalism from EU
studies might be the beginning of a mature relationship between epistemic
communities working on the two regions. The EU is no longer the
“integration snob.”18 The Eurozone crisis and Brexit have undermined the
prestige of the EU as an example to be emulated in other regions, with
the result that there is “a growing criticism of Eurocentric approaches to
regionalism, not only among scholars, but also among leading policy
makers.”19 In an article entitled “No Brussels here,” published in
July 2016 after the Brexit referendum, The Economist quoted Chilean
Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz as saying that the lesson of Brexit is that
integration must be “flexible, concrete … and not bureaucratic,” and
concluded that
192 Detlef Nolte
Latin American governments do not want to cede sovereignty to
a supranational body. Unlike Europe neither history nor geography has
encouraged them to do so … If it is to happen at all, Latin American
integration will be very different from the EU.20
This skeptical view on European integration as a model for other regions is

not a specific feature of Latin America but shared in other regions.21
That the EU has lost appeal and is no longer perceived as a model for
regional integration is reflected in the downgrading of the construction
of supranational regional institutions (which has been at the core of the
controversy about regional integration versus regional cooperation). This
could reopen the debate on whether regional integration “must
encompass institutionalization.”22 The Inter-American Development
Bank’s Annual Report for 2017 concluded that, after more than a half-
century of integration, it has become clear that ambitious projects like
a customs union with supranational institutions should be avoided: “the
institutional architecture should be inter-governmental rather than
supranational in nature.”23 Ten or 15 years earlier, it would have been
difficult to find a similar statement by a regional development bank.
Thus, a broad consensus has emerged in the study of Latin American
regionalism (and other regionalisms) not to take the EU as the gold
standard for regional integration and cooperation because the focus on
Europe and European integration theories led into a blind alley. However,
there is now a risk that “too much focus on Europe … is in danger of
being replaced by too little,”24 which could lead to some kind of Latin
American exceptionalism or parochialism;25 that is, focusing the analysis
only on Latin America and explaining Latin American regionalism by the
specifics of Latin American history and a path dependency since the
nineteenth century.
There is no doubt that Latin American regionalism is different from that
of Europe. However, one could argue that Latin American regionalism has
much in common with other non-European regionalisms. For example,
Kahler’s description of the “Asian Way” of regionalism can be equally
applied to Latin America.26 Likewise, Acharya’s characterization of
regionalism in the non-Western world is also applicable to Latin
America.27 Therefore, Latin American exceptionalism is as partial as
a Eurocentric perspective on regionalism. Teló, Fawcett, and Ponjaert28
were the first to propose a post-revisionist approach that “neither imitates
nor rejects but amalgamates the idea of Europe as a model into a wider set
of experiences and influences.”29 This allows not only for an emancipation
from eurocentrism, but also for more inclusivity in the comparative study
of regionalism and for a closer examination of the regional-global nexus, as
well as for a more emancipated and inclusive view of theoretical
approaches.30
A mature relationship: bringing EU studies back to Latin America
De-eurocentering the dominant ontological and epistemological frames31 is
a promising strategy. However, what we need is not a Latin American or
a Southern perspective on regionalism, but a global perspective that places
“regions in the center of the scene, calling for the importance of
conceptualizing and investigating forms and functions of regionalism in an
attempt to bring non-European experiences into light.”32 However, a global
IR perspective on regionalism should also include the European experience
with regionalism. While researchers have, in the past, looked through EU
glasses to other regions, it may make sense and deepen our understanding of
regionalism to look through the glasses (or through the eyes) of other regions
at the EU and analyze it from a Latin American, African, or Asian
perspective. This approach could help improve our understanding of Europe,
but also of other world regions, and it might produce some fresh views of
the particularities and achievements of the EU. A good example of this kind
of approach is a recent comparative study of the Andean Community and the
EU focused on dispute settlements (enforcement and escape) in international
trade regimes.33
Based on a more mature relationship between scholars of European
integration and Latin American regionalism, one could ask again whether
concepts and theories developed with an EU focus can travel across the
Atlantic. The answer is that one has to look for the appropriate concepts and
to contextualize them,34 which may make it necessary to adapt them to
divergent regional settings. Some examples serve to illustrate this. Looking at
European experiences, Hofmann and Mérand argued in favor of differentiated
multilateral cooperation and coined the concept of “institutional elasticity,”
which can foster peaceful and stable interstate relations within a region and
minimize the risk of zero-sum politics.35 In their view, “outright bargaining
failures become less likely as member states have the flexibility to opt out of
certain institutionalized policy domains or they can push for their preferred
policy preferences in another institution.”36 Those authors referred to
a European-style variable geometry, where no state “feels forced to belong to
the entire club, and hence is more willing to invest in the policy areas that
are close to its interests.”37 Yet, this concept can also be applied to Latin
America. Sanahuja emphasized that the Constitutive Treaty of UNASUR
(Article 13) explicitly opens up the possibility of a variable geometry-type of
architecture in South America.38 Likewise, Heraldo Muñoz referred to
a “multispeed Europe”39 as an appropriate description of Latin American
regionalism, which is characterized by a pluralistic regional architecture with
overlapping regional organizations in regard to members and mandates. Such
concepts from EU studies have been quite useful for the analysis of
overlapping regionalism in Latin America.40
There is a new trend that one might describe as post-revisionist, as
a growing number of researchers on Latin American regionalism are
194 Detlef Nolte
exploring the toolbox of EU studies. Not all tools might fit or are
adjustable for the analysis of Latin American regionalism. It might be
difficult to transfer tools developed for the analysis of the level and scope of
European integration. More promising are governance approaches with
a focus on regulatory policy-making and trans-governmental networks. For
example, Perrotta studied the process of formulation, decision-making, and
implementation of regional policies of higher education quality assurance
(accreditation systems) in MERCOSUR and its diffusion in the domestic
legal and political systems. Perrotta employed tools that were originally
developed for the analysis of the Europeanization of policies, multi-level
governance, policy networks, and policy diffusion approaches, but also the
concept of regulatory regionalism developed in regard to Asian regionalism.41
Caichiolo adopted a liberal intergovernmental approach (à la Moravcsik) to
explain the institutional set-up of MERCOSUR.42 Dabène and Parthenay
quite successfully applied the concept of “differentiated integration” developed
by Leuffen, Rittberger, and Schimmelfennig43 to Central America.44
Critical integration theory45 could be another approach to help comparative
regionalism travel across the Atlantic—it has yet to embark—because it
studies regional integration not as a single coherent and unified project, but
as the outcome of competing hegemonic projects, which is also a feature of
Latin American regionalism. Power contestation around economic and
political interests is at the center of this approach. Critical integration theory
also focuses on economic and political ideas and actors at the domestic
level, which should attract more attention in comparative regionalism. From
a comparative perspective, it might be interesting to ask why Europe opted
for a model to integrate different and competing hegemonic regional
projects in one regional organization (the EU), while Latin American
regional projects have materialized as different (and sometimes competing)
regional organizations.
EU studies and Latin American regionalism in times of crisis

Critical integration theory constitutes a link to the debate about the crisis of
the EU because it puts a focus on the current crisis. After Brexit, the
comparative study of regionalism should expand towards a theoretical
exploration and analysis of processes of disintegration (which may happen in
regions with dense as well as with shallow institutions) and should include
both total and partial exits and elements of resilience in times of crisis. As
Ikenberry underlined, “crises expose fault lines, deep structures, and historical
trajectories.”46 The focus on disintegration entails taking a closer and
comparative look at stress factors, as well as structural and institutional
constraints for regionalism. However, a crisis might also expose the elements
of resilience which give continuity to regional projects during and after the
crisis.
The EU and its crises
Crises of regionalism may either boost or hinder further regional integration.
The process of European integration has repeatedly been confronted with
crises. One could even speak of a narrative of successful crisis management as
a constitutive element (or founding myth) for the construction of Europe, as
epitomized by Jean Monnet in his memoirs: “I have always believed that
Europe would be built through crisis, and that it would be the sum of their
solutions.”47 From a neo-functionalist perspective, crises have been the motor
of further integration steps. As Dosenrode stated,
In sum, crises have been fueling regional integration processes in Europe

and may eventually do the same in Africa (most likely on a sub-regional
level). Seemingly neo-functionalists are right when they say that regional
integration processes tend to lose momentum, if they are not ignited by
a constructive crisis occasionally.48
Lefkofridi and Schmitter recently reaffirmed:
Crises have been an integral part of the process of European integration

and, by and large, they have had positive effects. Collective reactions to
crises by national actors have led to an increase in the authority and/or
an expansion of the tasks of the institutions of the EU and its
predecessors.49
However, the current EU crisis might be different, and the way ahead for
Europe might be more burdensome.
One way in which the current EU crisis differs from past crises is that it is
multi-dimensional.50 Additionally, it is unusual in regard to its duration and it
produces high costs of inaction.51 Moreover, in contrast to earlier crises, it
has been accompanied by a high extent of mass mobilization. The first three
decades of European integration “were years of permissive consensus, of deals
cut by insulated elites.”52 This changed in the 1990s, when European elites
who favored deeper integration faced a “constraining dissensus” that has
become more accentuated since the beginning of the Eurozone crisis. “The
European Union is no longer insulated from domestic politics; domestic
politics is no longer insulated from Europe. The result is greater divergence
of politically relevant perceptions and a correspondingly constricted scope of
agreement.”53 In this regard, Latin America is still different, as regional
integration is not a major topic of domestic contestation. Surveys have shown
that the public is still supportive of more political and economic
integration.54 The conflict about UNASUR and the influence of Venezuela
within the organization was more about the instrumentalization of the
Venezuelan crisis for domestic politics than it was about the pros and cons of
more or less regional cooperation.
196 Detlef Nolte
However, there is also common ground for comparison, as some examples
might illustrate. The crisis of the EU and the possible solution again highlight
the importance of the role of regional leaders, especially in the case of weak
regional institutions; as Webber contended:
The plethora of regional and pluri- or minilateral trade agreements signed

across the world over the last decade or so cannot disguise the fact that most
regions in the world remain at best only very weakly politically integrated
and regional organizations therefore cannot be relied upon to institutionalize
and secure peaceful cooperation among their members. “Benevolent”
regional hegemons, of the kind that Germany long incarnated at least in an
attenuated fashion in the EU, are notable for their scarcity …55
Webber echoed one of the basic arguments of Mattli’s56 seminal work on the
role of regional hegemons: there might be also a shared regional leadership if
a benevolent hegemon is not at hand. However, it is true that a crisis of
regional leader(ship)s usually leads to a crisis of regional integration/
cooperation. This is corroborated by the current crisis of South American
regionalism, although it is debatable whether the lack of leadership is
a determinant factor in the EU crisis.
In an interesting article published before Brexit, Vollaard argued, based on
Bartolini’s57 approach to European integration, that
A polity is disintegrating when there is a weakening in boundary control

and system-building, a decreasing congruence of boundaries and increas-
ing permeability, as well as when there is diminishing enforcement of
behaviourly conformity and declining behavioural conformity and loyalty
to the polity and fellow actors.58
While Latin American integration schemes have the character of a polity to

a much lesser degree, some of the preceding reflections might be adapted to
the crisis of regionalism and disintegration in Latin America, which clearly
features declining behavioral conformity in regard to democracy protection
and decision making within regional organizations.
The EU and the crisis of Latin American regionalism

How does Brexit influence the comparative study of regionalism? Are there
lessons from Brexit that can be applied to Latin America? Some authors
would say “no” because Latin American integration schemes are so weak that
for governments that are uncomfortable with the course of regional
organizations there is no need for a “LatAmExit”:
The Brexit vote has also led many in Latin America to also wonder
about the pros and cons of regional integration. As the EU braces for
tough times ahead, some people in Latin America are breathing a sigh of
relief thinking that countries who have not embraced similar integration
initiatives will never have to suffer from a Brexit-like trauma.59
Yet, with some foresight, Comini and Frenkel reasoned that a “Sudamexit” is
conceivable.60 They contended that one of the consequences of Brexit (and
the election of Trump) is a tendency to reinforce sovereignty in international
politics (they termed it “resoberanización”), which also has an impact on the
dynamics of South American integration processes. In their view, the de-
legitimation of the communitarian European project may reinforce
shortsighted inclinations to make institutions of regional integration and
cooperation as flexible as possible. The final objective is to soften or directly
eliminate supposed normative and institutional constraints.
This tendency is visible in the current crisis of Latin American regionalism.
Since 2017, Latin American integration and cooperation projects have
become paralyzed. The Venezuelan crisis has led to conflicts within
numerous regional organizations. Several contested votes on Venezuela took
place in the Organization of American States (OAS) and in April 2017 the
Venezuelan government decided to leave the organization. When the
Venezuelan government tried to mobilize support within CELAC, other
governments did not attend the meetings of this organization. As collateral
damage of the conflicts between the Latin American governments, the 2017
CELAC-EU summit had to be cancelled. Still, in 2017 the majority of the
MERCOSUR countries suspended Venezuela’s membership, both due to the
insufficient adaptation of the MERCOSUR acquis communautaire and the
violation of the democracy clause. The Venezuelan crisis also affected
UNASUR. After the previous secretary-general’s mandate had ended in
January 2017, the member countries were unable to elect a new secretary-
general due to Venezuela’s rejection of the Argentinean candidate. On
20 April 2018 the foreign ministers of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Paraguay, and Peru suspended their participation in UNASUR and stopped
their payments to the budget of the organization, a move that might have
signaled the start of South American disintegration.61 Later, in August 2018,
the new Colombian government announced that it would leave UNASUR.
As further fallout of the Venezuelan migration crisis, the Ecuadorian
government announced that it would abandon ALBA. Thus, while Europe is
confronted with Brexit, South America has to confront Sudamexit. However,
as in Europe, it is not the first storm that regionalism has to weather in the
region. For example, nearly five decades ago, Wionczek wrote:
The Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), established in

1960 … has just publicly acknowledged its failure. The Central American
Common Market (CACM), which originated in a treaty signed in Tegu-
cigalpa, Honduras in 1958 and looked for a long time to be the most
successful common market in the whole underdeveloped world, now lies
198 Detlef Nolte
in a shambles as the result of the ludicrous armed conflict between two
of its five members—Honduras and El Salvador.62
While the risk of disintegration might open new perspectives for comparative
regionalism, it may be difficult to compare the European and Latin American
crises. There are fewer structural incentives for integration in Latin America
than in Europe. Regional projects are mostly driven by presidential agendas,
which increases the risk of disintegration or partial exits in times of political-
ideological differences between governments. There is a lack of supranational
institutions or a supranational bureaucracy in Latin America that might
otherwise give continuity to regional projects in difficult times and make
exits costlier. Transnational links and economic interdependence
(regionalization) are much weaker in Latin America (with low intra-regional
trade) than in Europe. Both factors lower the exit costs, and exits from
regional organizations might have fewer repercussions in Latin America.
Therefore, it will be necessary to adapt EU-related definitions of crisis of
integration to the Latin American context. Disintegration in Latin America
means a reduction of institutionalized cooperation.
Analyzing crises of regional integration

How can a crisis of regional integration be defined? Can concepts be
developed in regard to the EU crisis “travel” to Latin America, or do we
need a broader concept of crisis? The analysis of crisis of regional integration
combines a broader understanding of crises in international politics involving
several states with a more focused approach regarding crises of regional
organizations, which may put their survival at risk. Concerning the first issue,
John Ikenberry’s definition of an international crisis “as an extraordinary
moment when the existence and viability of the political order are called into
question” is quite useful. More specifically, he defined a crisis
as a situation in which one or more of four circumstances obtain: (1)

a fundamental disagreement breaks out over what at least one side
believes is a core interest; (2) a sharp break occurs in market and social
interdependence; (3) an institutional breakdown occurs regarding the
rules and norms of process; (4) and/or a breakdown occurs in a sense of
community.63
This definition fits the current crisis of South American regionalism with
UNASUR at its core.
Concerning the more focused approach of an organizational crisis, many
analyses64 have referred to the influential article by Hermann, who proposed
the following working definition: “An organizational crisis (1) threatens high-
priority values of the organization, (2) presents a restricted amount of time in
which a response can be made, and (3) is unexpected or unanticipated by the
65
organization.” This definition might be less suitable for the crisis of regional
organizations, especially in the case of Latin American regionalism, as it is not
clear whether the time restrictions and the unexpectedness are necessary
elements of a crisis. Some crises unfold gradually, and others may be
anticipated. A crisis has to be existential for an organization, but not
necessarily unexpected or demanding a swift response.
For Cook, who had a more specific focus on the EU, “an existential crisis
is marked by widespread belief that the EU’s very existence and/or core
characteristics are seriously under threat.”66 Alternatively, Schimmelfennig
defined a crisis in European integration as “a decision-making-situation with
a manifest threat and a perceived significant probability of disintegration,”
where disintegration refers to “a reduction in the existing level, scope, and
membership of integration.”67
In a similar vein, Webber discriminated between different types of
disintegration: horizontal, vertical, and sectoral.68 Horizontal disintegration
refers to the number of countries participating in regional projects. This
dimension can be applied to Latin American regionalism. It is more difficult
to adapt vertical disintegration to the Latin American context because this
dimension refers to the reduction of competences of supranational organs. In
accordance with the intergovernmental and inter-presidential character of
Latin American regional projects, it might be redesigned as diminishing
intergovernmental interactions and a weakening of administrative structures
and linkages. Sectoral disintegration refers to the number of issue/policy areas
covered by regional projects. This dimension might also be applied to Latin
American regionalism.
Based on the concept of differentiated integration, Webber introduced the
concept of differentiated disintegration, whereby “individual member states
leave the EU entirely, or withdraw, or are expelled from specific EU
institutions; or some issue areas are—de jure or de facto—renationalized and/
or the authority of supranational organs vis-à-vis national ones grows
weaker.”69 Due to the lack of supranational organs, the last part of the
concept is not fully applicable to Latin America. Nevertheless, the concept of
differentiated disintegration might be quite useful for the analysis of the Latin
American pluralistic regional architecture. Several regional organizations
overlap in regard to mandates and membership. This allows for differentiated
disintegration through partial exits upsetting only one organization, or the
reduction of cooperation in one sector. Other organizations might remain
unaffected or even take advantage of this constellation.
While Schimmelfennig’s and Webber’s conceptualizations of crisis were
developed for European (dis)integration,70 they might also be used to analyze
the crisis of intergovernmental regionalism in Latin America. Building on
Schimmelfennig and Ikenberry,71 a crisis of Latin American regionalism can
be defined as a decision-making situation with a manifest threat and
a perceived probability of a significant reduction in regional cooperation
within a given institutional framework. The decision-making situation is
200 Detlef Nolte
characterized by (1) a fundamental disagreement over what at least one of the
parties in conflict believes is a core interest; (2) an institutional breakdown
regarding the rules and norms of cooperation; (3) and a breakdown in the
sense of community. Disintegration refers to a reduction in the existing level,
scope, and membership of institutionalized cooperation.
Conclusion
A recent article asked what European Union (EU) scholars would study if the
EU were to break apart.72 A similarly interesting question is what Latin
American regionalism scholars would study after the fall of UNASUR,
CELAC, or ALBA. But the risks of disappearance of regional organizations
might be overstated. In their study about the effects of the Eurozone crisis
and the global financial crisis, Saurugger and Terpan concluded: “One of the
most important and overarching results of this study … is the incredible
resilience of regional integration that we witness in all the regions even in
times of financial and economic turmoil.”73
Yet the crisis of European and Latin American regionalism might open up
new perspectives for comparative research. Comparative regionalism and
a post-revisionist view on EU studies have broadened the perspectives for the
study of Latin American regionalism. Scholars of Latin American regionalism
are now more disposed to make use of the toolbox of EU studies, provided
that the tools are useful and adjustable to the Latin American context. The
same should be the case regarding the comparative study of the crisis of
regionalism on both sides of the Atlantic, although some basic differences
need to be considered. Specifically, the costs of exit might be lower in Latin
America and the plurality of regional organizations might make it easier to
reconfigure the regional architecture.
Nevertheless, some approaches and concepts developed to capture the EU
crisis can be used for analyzing the crisis of Latin American regionalism. In
both regions, one might distinguish between unidimensional and
multidimensional crises74 and discriminate between endogenous and
exogenous shocks leading to internal and external crisis.75 A comparative
analysis of regional crisis should differentiate between the causes, the
processes, and the results. As Ikenberry underlined, crises expose fault lines.76
Thus, as a starting point one might identify the stress factors and fault lines
for regionalism in different regions before analyzing and comparing the crises.
Furthermore, it makes sense to differentiate between the crisis factors (or
triggers of the crisis) and the framing of the crisis by governments (and other
actors), as “sense-making is one of the crucial processes that occur.”77 Cross
used the concept of an interpretative stage where it is determined “whether
or not an event will be seen as a crisis.”78 The interpretative framing of the
crisis conditions its solution. Regarding the results of crises, Ikenberry, in his
analysis of the crisis of the Atlantic order, differentiated between three types
of possible outcomes—breakdown, transformation, and adaption79—which
may also be conceived of as possible outcomes of crises of regional orders. In
the case of Latin America, we are witnessing a transformation of the regional
order.
These are some preliminary reflections about future research on crisis of
regional integration that should be promoted. In 1967, Ernst B. Haas argued
that “integration and disintegration as two rival social processes are
simultaneously at work.”80 Crises of integration are moments of crystallization
of these countervailing processes; they should be analyzed from a comparative
angle both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.
Notes
1 Elena Lazarou, “A Paradigm in Trouble? The Effects of the Euro Crisis on the
European Model for Regional Integration in South America,” in Regions and
Crisis: New Challenges for Contemporary Regionalism, ed. Lorenzo Fioramonti
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 180−199.
Organization 18, no. 4 (1964): 705−737.
3 Peter M. Haas, John G. Ruggie, Philippe C. Schmitter and Antje Wiener, “New
Introduction,” in Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation State: Functionalism and Inter-
national Organization (Colchester: ECPR Press, 2008), 1−16 (1−2).
4 Haas admitted that “the fundamental differences between West European and
Latin American economic and political situations limit the applicability of the
European model to LAFTA …” Ernst B. Haas, “The Uniting of Europe and the
Uniting of Latin America,” Journal of Common Market Studies 5, no. 4 (1967): 315−343
(316). Schmitter developed a new concept for the categorization of Central American
integration, “spill around,” which may still be useful for the analysis of current Latin
American regionalism. Phillipe Schmitter, “Central American Integration: Spill-Over,
Spill-Around or Encapsulation?” Journal of Common Market Studies 9, no. 1 (1970):
1−48 (39).
5 Andrés Malamud and Philippe C. Schmitter, “The Experience of European Inte-
gration and the Potential for Integration in South America,” in New Regionalism
and the European Union: Dialogues, Comparisons and New Research Directions, ed.
Alex Warleigh-Lack, Nick Robinson and Ben Rosamond (Abingdon: Routledge,
2011), 135−157 (143).
6 Ibid.
7 Andrés Malamud and Gian Luca Gardini, “Has Regionalism Peaked? The Latin
American Quagmire and Its Lessons,” The International Spectator: Italian Journal of
International Affairs 47, no. 1 (2012): 116–133 (130).
8 There is an autochthonous tradition of independent and original thinking about
Latin American integration; see José Briceño Ruiz, Las Teorías de la Integración
Regional: Más allá del Eurocentrismo (Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Cooperativa,
2018); Damián Paikin, Daniela Perrotta and Emanuel Porcelli, “Pensamiento Lati-
noamericano para la Integración,” Crítica y Emancipación 8, no. 15 (2016): 49−80;
Daniela Perrotta, “El Campo de Estudios de la Integración Regional y su Aporte
a las Relaciones Internacionales: una Mirada desde América Latina,” Relaciones
Internacionales 38 (June−September 2018): 9−39.
Latin America (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2012).
202 Detlef Nolte
10 José Briceño Ruiz and Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, “Post-Hegemonic Regional-
ism, UNASUR, and the Reconfiguration of Regional Cooperation in South
America,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 40, no. 1
(2015): 48−62 (6).
11 Riggirozzi and Tussie, The Rise of Post-hegemonic Regionalism in Latin America,
10−12.
12 Diana Tussie, “Latin America: Contrasting Motivations for Regional Projects,”
Review of International Studies 35, no. S1 (2009): 169–188 (186).
13 Alberto van Klaveren, “América Latina en un Nuevo Mundo,” Revista CIDOB
d’Afers Internacionals 100 (2012): 131−150.
14 Andrea Bianculli, “Latin America,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Region-
alism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016), 154−177 (166).
15 For the concept see Tobias Lenz and Gary Marks, “Regional Institutional Design:
Pooling and Delegation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed.
513−537.
16 Detlef Nolte, Latin America’s New Regional Architecture: A Cooperative or Segmented
Regional Governance Complex? EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2014/89 (Florence,
Italy: European University Institute, 2014).
17 Pia Riggirozzi, “Regional Integration and Welfare: Framing and Advocating Pro-
Poor Norms through Southern Regionalisms,” New Political Economy 22, no. 6
(2017): 661−675 (672).
18 As indicated by Philomena Murray, “Comparative Regional Integration in the
EU and East Asia: Moving Beyond Integration Snobbery,” International Politics 47,
no. 3/4 (2010): 308–323.
19 Lorenzo Fioramonti, “Conclusion: The Future of Regionalism,” in Regions and
Crisis: New Challenges for Contemporary Regionalism, ed. Lorenzo Fioramonti
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 220−230 (221).
20 “No Brussels Here. How Latin America May Prosper from a Different Kind of
Integration,” The Economist, 7 July 2016, www.economist.com/the-americas/
2016/07/07/no-brussels-here.
21 Laura Allison-Reumann and Philomena Murray, “The EU and ASEAN after
Brexit,” East Asia Forum, 3 January 2017, www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/01/03/
the-eu-and-asean-after-brexit/.
22 Murray, “Comparative Regional Integration in the EU and East Asia: Moving
Beyond Integration Snobbery,” 317.
23 Andrew Powell, ed., Routes to Growth in a New Trade World (Washington, DC:
Inter-American Development Bank, 2017).
24 Louise Fawcett, “Regionalism by Emulation: Considerations across Time and
Space,” in Interregionalism and the European Union: A Post-Revisionist Approach to
Europe’s Place in a Changing World, ed. Mario Telò, Louise Fawcett and Frederik
Ponjaert (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 33−49 (47).
25 Briceño Ruiz, Las Teorías de la Integración Regional: Más allá del Eurocentrismo.
26 Miles Kahler, The Rise of Emerging Asia: Regional Peace and Global Security, Work-
ing Paper WP 13–4 (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Eco-
nomics, 2013), 15.
27 Amitav Acharya, “Regionalism Beyond EU-Centrism,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 109−130 (117).
28 See Mario Telò, Louise Fawcett and Frederik Ponjaert, eds., Interregionalism and
the European Union: A Post-Revisionist Approach to Europe’s Place in a Changing
World (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015).
29 Fawcett, “Regionalism by Emulation: Considerations across Time and Space,” 48.
30 Telò, Fawcett, and Ponjaert, Interregionalism and the European Union, 355.
31 Ernesto Vivares and Michele Dolcetti-Marcolini, “Two Regionalisms, two Latin
Americas or Beyond Latin America? Contributions from a Critical and Decolonial
IPE,” Third World Quarterly 37, no. 5 (2016): 866−882.
32 Melisa Deciancio, “International Relations from the South: A Regional Research
Agenda for Global IR,” International Studies Review 18, no. 1 (2016):
106–119 (107).
33 William Phelan, “Enforcement and Escape in the Andean Community: Why the
Andean Community of Nations is Not a Replica of the European Union,” Journal
of Common Market Studies 53, no. 4 (2015): 840–856.
34 Briceño Ruiz, Las Teorías de la Integración Regional: Más allá del Eurocentrismo.
35 Stephanie Hofmann and Frédéric Mérand, “Regional Organizations à la Carte:
The Effects of Institutional Elasticity,” in International Relations Theory and Regional
Transformation, ed. T.V. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
133–157.
36 Ibid., 134–135.
37 Ibid., 137.
38 José Antonio Sanahuja, “La Construcción de una Región: Suramérica y el
regionalismo Posliberal,” in Una Región en Construcción: Unasur y la Integración
en América del Sur, ed. Manuel Cienfuegos and José Antonio Sanahuja (Barce-
lona, Spain: Fundación CIDOB, 2010), 87−137 (110).
39 “El Concepto de la Unión Europea de las ‘Velocidades Diferenciadas’”; see Her-
aldo Muñoz, “Convergencia en la Diversidad: La Nueva Política Latinoamericana
de Chile,” El País, 12 March 2014, http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/03/12/opin
ion/1394642773_153377.html.
Area Studies Review 16, no. 4 (2013): 370–389; Brigitte Weiffen, “Institutional
Overlap and Responses to Political Crisis in South America,” in Power Dynamics
and Regional Security in Latin America, ed. Marcial A.G. Suarez, Rafael Duarte
Villa and Brigitte Weiffen (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 173−199; Detlef
Nolte, “Costs and Benefits of Overlapping Regional Organizations in Latin
America: The Case of OAS and UNASUR,” Latin American Politics and Society
60, no. 1 (2018): 128−153.
41 Daniela Perrotta, “The Diffusion of Quality Assurance Policies in Mercosur,”
Revista Diálogos sobre Educación 8, no. 14 (2017): 1−19.
42 Carlos Ricardo Caichiolo, “The Mercosur and Theories of Regional Integra-
tion,” Contexto Internacional 39, no. 1 (2017): 117−134.
43 Dirk Leuffen, Berthold Rittberger and Frank Schimmelfennig, Differentiated Inte-
gration: Explaining Variation in the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013).
44 Olivier Dabène and Kervin Parthenay, “Regionalism in Central America. An ‘all-
in’ Strategy,” in Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in the Americas: Toward a Pacific-Atlantic
Divide? ed. José Briceño Ruiz and Isidro Morales (London and New York: Rou-
tledge 2017), 159−173.
45 Simon Bulmer and Jonathan Joseph, “European Integration in Crisis? Of Supra-
national Integration, Hegemonic Projects and Domestic Politics,” European Journal
of International Relations 22, no. 4 (2016): 725−748.
46 G. John Ikenberry, “Explaining Crisis and Change in Transatlantic Relations: An
Introduction,” in The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order, ed.
Jeffrey Anderson, G. John Ikenberry and Thomas Risse (Ithaca, NY and London:
Cornell University Press, 2008), 1−27 (4).
204 Detlef Nolte
47 Jean Monnet, Memoirs, first published in 1978 (London: Third Millennium Pub-
lishing, 2015), 417.
48 Søren Dosenrode, “Crisis and Regional Integration: A Federalist and Neo-
Functionalist Perspective,” in Regions and Crises: New Challenges for Contemporary
Regionalisms, ed. Lorenzo Fioramonti (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 13−30 (28).
49 Zoe Lefkofridi and Philippe Schmitter, “Transcending or Descending? European
Integration in Times of Crisis,” European Political Science Review 7, no. 1 (2015):
3–22 (4).
50 Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson, “A Multi-dimensional
Crisis,” in The European Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and
William E. Paterson (London: Palgrave, 2017), 1−15 (10).
51 Douglas Webber, “Can the EU Survive?” in The European Union in Crisis, ed.
Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson (London: Palgrave,
2017), 336−359.
52 Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Inte-
gration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus,” British Journal of
Political Science 39, no. 1 (2009): 1–23 (5).
53 Ibid., 14.
54 Ana Inés Basco, La Tecno-integración de América Latina: Instituciones, Comercio Expo-
nencial y Equidad en la Era de los Algoritmos, Nota Técnica IDB-TN-1340 (Buenos
Aires, Argentina: INTAL, 2017).
55 Douglas Webber, “How Likely Is It That the European Union will Disintegrate?
A Critical Analysis of Competing Theoretical Perspectives,” European Journal of
International Relations 20, no. 2 (2014): 341−365 (360).
56 Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
57 Stefano Bartolini, Restructuring Europe: Centre Formation, System Building, and Polit-
ical Structuring between the Nation State and the European Union (Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
58 Hans Vollaard, “Explaining European Disintegration,” Journal of Common Market
Studies 52, no. 5 (2014): 1142−1159 (1149).
59 Patrico Navia, “The Impossibility of a ‘LatAmExit’,” Buenos Aires Herald,
28 June 2016, www.buenosairesherald.com/article/216960/the-impossibility-of-
a-%E2%80%98latamexit%E2%80%99.
60 Nicolás Comini and Alejandro Frenkel, “Unasur. De Proyecto Refundacional al
Fantasma del Sudamexit,” in Anuario de la Integración Regional de América Latina
y el Caribe 2017 (Buenos Aires, Argentina: CRIES, 2017), 192−193.
61 Victor Manuel Mijares and Detlef Nolte, “Regionalismo Posthegemónico en
Crisis ¿Por qué la Unasur se desintegra?” Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica 18, no. 3
(2018): 105−112.
62 See Miguel S. Wionczek, “The Rise and the Decline of Latin American Eco-
nomic Integration,” Journal of Common Market Studies 9, no. 1 (1970): 49−66 (49).
63 Ikenberry, “Explaining Crisis and Change in Transatlantic Relations,” 12.
64 For example, Sabine Saurugger and Fabien Terpan, eds., Crisis and Institutional
Change in Regional Integration (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).
65 Charles F. Hermann, “Some Consequences of Crisis which Limit the Viability of
Organizations,” Administrative Science Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1963): 61−82 (64).
66 Mai’a Davis Cross, The Politics of Crisis in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2017), 24.
67 Frank Schimmelfennig, “Theorising Crisis in European Integration,” in The Euro-
pean Union in Crisis, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson
(London: Palgrave, 2017), 316−335 (316).
68 Webber, “Can the EU Survive?”
69 Ibid., 356.
70 Schimmelfennig, “Theorising Crisis in European Integration”; and Webber, “Can
the EU Survive?”
71 Schimmelfennig, “Theorising Crisis in European Integration”; and Ikenberry,
“Explaining Crisis and Change.”
72 Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter, “Studying Europe after the Fall: Four
Thoughts on Post-EU Studies,” Journal of European Public Policy 25, no. 3 (2018):
465–474.
73 Saurugger and Terpan, Crisis and Institutional Change in Regional Integration, 222.
74 Dinan, Nugent, and Paterson, “A Multi-dimensional Crisis.”
75 Desmond Dinan, “Crisis in EU History,” in The European Union in Crisis, ed.
Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson (London: Palgrave,
2017), 16−32.
76 Ikenberry, “Explaining Crisis and Change.”
77 Saurugger and Terpan, Crisis and Institutional Change in Regional Integration, 3−4.
78 Cross, The Politics of Crisis in Europe, 25.
79 Ikenberry, “Explaining Crisis and Change.”
80 Haas, “The Uniting of Europe and the Uniting of Latin America,” 315.
Part V
Africa and Asia

12 Regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa
Structural constraints and African
agency
Christof Hartmann
Attempts by African states to create stable mechanisms to coordinate the

promotion of economic development and the solution of potentially violent
conflicts have gone through different phases. Following political
independence, there was a strong inclination to build federations and to strive
for continental unity while economic integration was pursued at the regional
level. The 1970s and 1980s saw a period of crisis and stagnation. Since the
1990s, however, a variety of factors have contributed to a renewed political
investment in both economic and security cooperation at the continental and
regional levels. The changed post-Cold War international system provided
new opportunities and challenges and created more space for African agency.
New elites were able to take control of formerly moribund and dysfunctional
organizations and laid out ambitious and innovative projects for the
strengthening and deepening of regional and continental cooperation. While
many EU citizens seem to have lost trust in the European Union, African
citizens are quite supportive of the idea of regionalism on the African
continent, both with regard to the continental level (African Union) and to
the various regional organizations. According to survey data from
Afrobarometer, approximately 60 percent of Africans believe that regional
organizations are helpful to their countries, while only 12 percent think they
are not (Figure 12.1).
Not only do African elites and citizens continue to believe in regionalism
as a problem-solving mechanism, but the international community has also
strongly supported this process, especially the establishment of the African
Peace and Security Architecture. The trajectory of African regionalism has
thus been quite different from that of regionalism in Europe and Latin
America.
The chapter first retraces this development and discusses the re-emergence of
regionalism on the continent. African regionalism has been shaped by a set of
variables which are quite different from the European example. Also, in contrast
to what is frequently suggested in the literature, it has not followed in Europe’s
footsteps with regard to institutional design. The institutional development of
African regionalism remains shaped by a set of structural constraints that are quite
210 Christof Hartmann
don't know
does nothing
helps a lile bit
helps somewhat
helps a lot
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
AU regional organizaon
Figure 12.1 Popular support for regionalism in Africa: helpfulness of AU and regional
organizations.
Source: Author’s compilation based on Afrobarometer Round 6 – 2014/15.1
different from conditions in Europe. Despite the enthusiasm among policy-

makers and the reforms undertaken on the continent, the capacity of many
organizations to effectively address the manifold challenges of promoting
regional markets, sustainable development and human security on the continent
remains thus limited.
The second part of the chapter focuses on these structural constraints.
They include the continuing asymmetrical integration of African economies
into the international system, the occurrence of multiple overlaps in the
regional institutional architecture, and a lack of substantial participation by
non-state actors at both the national and regional levels. As it turns out, all of
these constraints are to some extent a result of historical path-dependencies
going back to colonization and the trajectories of postcolonial state-building.
The chapter concludes by pointing out the continued tension between the
limitations of regionalism and its varying practice and success across the
continent.
The re-emergence of African regionalism

The first attempts at “regional” cooperation on the African continent started
when African territories were still under colonial rule. Once the majority of
Regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa 211
African states became independent in the early 1960s, there was a great deal
of hope regarding both continental and regional cooperation.2 The initial
efforts at cooperation among nationalist elites were marked by the assertion
of an African identity against colonialism and marginalization, and against
a legacy of slavery, alienation, and continued domination in the form of
apartheid. Pan-Africanism proved to be a powerful idea and inspiration,
which promoted both the general idea of African unity as much as the
endeavors to create regional arrangements across the continent and to sustain
African independence via economic and military means.3
With the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963,
African leaders decided to accept the state system inherited from colonizers.
Given the small size of many of these territories, the demand for economic
cooperation and integration was obvious, but the OAU did not consider the
promotion of economic integration of African states to be its main mandate.
The main objectives of the OAU were political—namely, to fight against
apartheid and the remaining colonies and settler regimes in Southern Africa,
and, given the fragile borders among many states, to avoid violent conflict
among the OAU members. Functional cooperation seemed more appropriate
at the (sub-)regional level, and in all parts of Africa regional organizations,
the so-called Regional Economic Communities (RECs), were created with
the objective of promoting intraregional trade and of moving towards
common markets and monetary unions. The stagnation of economic
integration in the 1970s and 1980s reduced both political and academic
interest. Some organizations failed, such as the East African Community
(which collapsed in 1977), while others continued to formulate plans about
further economic cooperation and integration with member states, which,
however, ceased to commit themselves to implement these plans, and often
even stopped complying with basic membership requirements.
Since the early 1990s, substantial change in the nature and dynamics of
African regionalism has occurred. While many sub-regional organizations
have continued to face difficulties in achieving their economic agenda, several
of them have been relevant in addressing a growing number of security
threats: mainly the protracted violent conflicts caused by state decay in the
early 1990s, but also the proliferation of small arms and, more recently, the
fight against international terrorist networks. The Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) became a laboratory of innovative new
variants of regionalism, and a much-studied object when the first
humanitarian interventions were launched by regional troops in Liberia in
1990 and in Sierra Leone in 1997.4 African regional organizations renewed
their legal frameworks, and their political mandates for dealing with electoral
observation, corruption, the protection of democracy, and crisis prevention
became quite comprehensive.
Even more spectacularly, in 2002 the OAU was transformed into the
African Union (AU), and in the process African governments strengthened
the organization’s mandate for dealing with challenges to peace and security.
The AU was now directed by a commission and established a Peace and
Security Council with the responsibility to authorize sanctions and military
interventions in member states. The AU and its organs also became the
centerpiece of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA),
a complex set of agencies located at continental and (sub-)regional levels.
Finally, the tendency for the so-called RECs to become multidimensional
regional arrangements is now accompanied by a much stronger AU claim to
also have responsibility for economic development. The AU-led
transformation of the whole continent into the African Economic
Community, a continent-wide economic and monetary union, is to extend
over a period of six stages over 34 years from 1994 to 2028. In 2012, the
African Union started the process for a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA).
This agreement was formally launched in March 2018, with 44 out of the
now 55 member states having signed the treaty.
Drivers
Global as well as intra-African factors have contributed to this renewed
political investment in both economic and security cooperation over the last
30 years. The dynamics of African regionalism that we have observed since
the 1990s are related to the changing patterns of the continent’s insertion
into the international system. With the end of Cold War and in the absence
of global power politics on the continent, Africans ultimately had more space
to take decisions and to find “African solutions to African problems.” The
end of the Cold War and the phasing out of massive financial support to
many African armies also revealed the fragility of a number of states, as well
as their relative lack of domestic legitimacy and an effective state monopoly
on violence. With the exception of South Africa, where the end of apartheid
raised many expectations about a peace dividend, African states across the
continent were confronted with new security and political challenges, which
required responses beyond the level of individual states.
The early 1990s also represented a watershed in the political trajectory of
African regimes. This moment in time triggered a major transformation of
domestic political structures, few of which still resemble what they were 30
years ago. Most regimes initiated substantial political reforms, and while only
a minority managed to consolidate democratic institutions, in many others
autocratic leaders who had ruled their countries for decades (and also had
their share of responsibility for the rather dysfunctional state of regionalism)
were voted out of office. Political leaders representing generational change
and equipped with the legitimacy of electoral mandates claimed a new role
for Africa and African agency, and voiced the concept of an “African
Renaissance” with concomitant continental political institutions. The
changed nature of domestic politics was certainly a precondition for the
rejuvenation of regionalism on the continent, but the creation of the African
Union strongly reflected the powerful tradition of Pan-Africanism, which was
reinvented by networks of African intellectuals and practitioners. Some of
these personalities, such as former Malian president Alpha Konaré, who
became chairperson of the AU Commission, or the late Margaret Vogt,
a Nigerian diplomat-scholar who held a number of important functions
within both AU and the United Nations (UN), managed to occupy key
positions in the bureaucracies of African and UN organizations during the
1990s and were highly instrumental in securing the commitment of African
elites to stronger forms of regional cooperation and integration.
The differing fate of political and economic reforms also increased the
heterogeneity of state and regime trajectories across the continent, with
countries ranging from established democracies and middle-income
economies such as Ghana or Namibia to collapsed states such as the Central
African Republic or Somalia. This variety and the high number of states
(nearly 50) in sub-Saharan Africa explains why the 1990s also saw the
renaissance of sub-regional arrangements in some parts of Africa, particularly
in West and Southern Africa. At the same time, regionalism remains
particularly weak where autocratic regimes continue to dominate, as in
Central Africa and the Horn of Africa.5
Finally, not only did African elites reclaim regionalism as a political project,
the international community also continued to believe in regionalism as
a problem-solving mechanism. The United Nations, the EU, and many
bilateral donor agencies increased capacity-building funding for regional and
continental organizations, financed peacekeeping missions and other aspects
of the newly emerging African Peace and Security Architecture, and
supported the reform processes of many regional institutions.
Institutional design
There has been some debate about the extent to which African regionalism
has followed the EU model in relaunching regionalism on the continent.
With a focus on the Southern African Development Community (SADC),
authors such as Lenz or Buzdugan have claimed that the EU model of
regional integration indeed mattered, and that mechanisms such as emulation
and persuasion/socialization led to SADC’s institutional reforms and the
decision to introduce the common market objective. EU-style institutional
change was therefore triggered by the dependence of SADC’s budget on EU
support.6 In the AU, institutional innovations such as the introduction of the
AU Commission were widely perceived as copying the EU model.7 At
a more general level, the many difficulties of the economic integration
agenda in moving beyond free trade areas, despite all ambitions to realize
common markets and monetary unions, have been attributed to the flawed
assumption that models conceptually developed in the European context
could work in Africa.8
It is certainly true that on paper many RECs seemed to implement
a textbook agenda of economic market-driven integration. Yet, as discussed
in the next section, in some regions pre-existing customs or monetary unions
preceded regional trade liberalization. The logic and practice of economic
integration was thus quite different from both Balassa’s theory of economic
integration9 and the experience of the European Communities/Union. Many
regional organizations on the African continent were also quite active in
developing a multitude of additional activities, which went beyond trade
liberalization.
More importantly, both the institutional design and the mandates of the
AU and some RECs have developed in distinct ways that reflect the specific
contexts and challenges much more than the diffusion of any EU model.10
The reforms of both ECOWAS and AU included the introduction of Peace
and Security (or Mediation) Councils, which were instead inspired by the
workings of the UN Security Council. Just like it, the most supranational
element in the AU, the Peace and Security Council, has 15 members and the
right to decide on sanctions against member states, including military
intervention.11 African regionalism has tended to pool sovereignty most
strongly in the field of peace and security, which is arguably the opposite of
what has happened over the history of European integration.
Notwithstanding these innovative elements, and in stark contrast to the
EU, African regionalism remains much more intergovernmental and
sovereignty centered. Integration steps do not reflect incremental bottom-up
pressures or neo-functionalist reasoning about spillovers, but rather a visionary
grand design that is decided top-down in the hope that its ambitions will
inspire and shape current and future generations of citizens, economic agents,
and decision-makers. African regionalism is constructed as a two-layer system
with a division of tasks and competencies between the continental and the
(sub-)regional levels that creates numerous horizontal and vertical overlaps of
membership and mandate. There are no Copenhagen criteria that have to be
met to be admitted as a member, and all regional or continental organizations
start from the assumption of inclusive membership. However, African
regional organizations developed much earlier than the EU mechanisms to
sanction or suspend members who do not comply with policies or decisions
of the (sub-)regional or continental bodies. Finally, African regionalism is
certainly more driven by the idea of a collective African identity than by
economic benefits or functional cooperation.
In a nutshell, the differences between the EU and African regionalism are
much more important and relevant than the few similarities in institutional
design. The assumption that African regionalism could be vulnerable to post-
Brexit depression is therefore flawed in several respects.
Structural constraints
Economic regional integration seemed the obvious strategy in postcolonial
Africa. It would facilitate the development of physical infrastructure and
create larger markets, as many African economies were quite small and
a considerable number of them were also landlocked. Regional integration
was supposed to intensify competition among producers and provide a more
efficient allocation of resources through the realization of economies of scale,
and thus mobilize domestic investment and attract foreign investment. The
desired level of economic integration among African states was thus higher
than in most other world regions, and many regional organizations laid out
ambitious plans for regional trade liberalization and the creation of single
markets and monetary unions.
Yet, many expectations of regional trade liberalization have not
materialized in the African context. For most of the regional arrangements,
the main focus was on intraregional tariff reduction, which remained mostly
behind schedule. Non-tariff barriers were much less frequently addressed.12
Despite the ambitious plans for creating regional markets, intraregional trade
remained low—approximately 10 percent on average, independently of
whether one looks at the continental level or specific regional trade
agreements—and there is little evidence that regional integration contributed
to industrialization.
A number of theoretical explanations for these setbacks have been
advanced in the literature. One approach highlights the lack of commitment
among African elites to a more substantive economic integration agenda.
A shallower form of integration best served the interests of neo-patrimonial
ruling groups, which were mainly concerned with their survival in
government and expected to gain diplomatic recognition and access to rents
from participating in regional organizations.13 But a lack of ownership may
also have resulted from regionalism’s origins as a colonial project, especially
with regard to many regional economic communities.14 In a similar vein, one
could argue that the EU has—since the Yaoundé agreements in the 1950s—
pushed for the export of its economic regionalism model towards Africa, and
continues to do so with the European Partnership Agreements and the
related creation of customs unions in Africa’s different regions. I argue that
the setbacks of regionalism in Africa are attributable to three structural
constraints, which have their roots in the colonial past and the evolution of
postcolonial states on the continent.
Integration of African economies into the global system

The first alternative explanation identifies the structure of African economies
as a central obstacle to the realization of regionalism’s promises. Africa’s
integration into the world economy was shaped by colonialism. The role of
Africa’s economies was to provide raw materials for industrial production in
Europe, and colonizers certainly did not advance the construction of
developmental states on the continent.
Intraregional trade remains low today because agrarian goods and mineral
resources are processed outside Africa, as there is very little complementarity
in the existing export structure of many economies, and because African
states equally rely on imports produced outside of Africa. Industrial
transformation through economic regionalism, however, relies on the
existence of African exporters that would be competitive enough in
supplying the import needs of regional economies to substitute for extra-
regional sources, even with the protection of an external tariff. Such tariffs
are, however, probably less relevant barriers to stronger competitiveness than
the poor physical infrastructure and the array of non-tariff barriers such as
illegal road controls.15 Weak state capacity and the agrarian structure of many
African economies thus remain major structural barriers to any promotion of
deeper economic integration, the effective establishment of regional
markets,16 or the progressive integration into regional or global value chains.
The weak economic basis of many African states has also led to a situation
where, at least in some cases, state budgets are financed less through tax
collection than through official development assistance (ODA) inflows (as
budget aid) and import duties. African states resist further liberalization, not
only to protect domestic competitors, but also because of the potential loss of
income through a successive reduction of tariffs. It is thus not in the interest
of a number of African finance ministers to implement ambitious
liberalization schemes.17 Many African governments have difficulties paying
the annual fees for their membership in regional and continental
organizations. In recent years, donors contributed up to 70 percent of the
AU’s core budget and funded 97 percent of the AU’s programs.18 According
to some observers, states’ dependence on ODA has transformed regional
organizations into “regional development agencies” that mobilize
development funds from a variety of donor organizations.19 While
regionalism might have been quite effective in channeling additional funds to
Africa and promoting more functional cooperation among member states, this
has further strengthened the continent’s asymmetrical integration into global
trade and production.
The spaghetti bowl

Colonizers were also responsible for creating some particularly strong forms
of regional economic integration, which survived into postcolonial Africa. In
the 1970s, the OAU and the UN Economic Commission for Africa
promoted the division of the continent into different economic subregions
and the establishment of regional integration schemes with universal
membership of all states of these regions. This top-down logic of creating
regions remains characteristic of African regionalism today, as evidenced by
the two-layered structure of the African Peace and Security Architecture,
where continental institutions rest on (sub-)regional pillars—that is, eight
different regional organizations which together cover all AU member states.
Regional economic integration among the member states of these newly
emerging regional organizations was rendered difficult by the colonial legacy
of existing forms of deeper regional integration among selected member
states. While the “variable geometry” in the EU context is the result of
conscious policy choices of committed member states to move forward faster
than others, in the African context the deeper integration of some states
results from colonial legacies and thus preceded the introduction of weaker
integration schemes applicable to all member states.
The biggest challenges in this regard are the monetary unions in Southern,
West, and Central Africa, all of which are remnants of the colonial past. In
all cases, states historically delegated policy-making authority to the former
colonizer or, in the case of Southern Africa, the dominant power in the
region. In the Common Monetary Area (CMA) in Southern Africa, different
currencies continue to exist among member states, but at a pegged exchange
rate. The membership is roughly equivalent to that of the Southern African
Customs Union (SACU), with only Botswana having left the CMA in the
1970s to pursue its own monetary policy. South Africa continues to
dominate both CMA and SACU, which were created during the apartheid
period (the SACU in 1910).20 All CMA and SACU member states are also
members of the SADC, which has as one of its main objectives the
promotion of economic integration.
The CFA franc zone in Western and Central Africa goes back to the colonial
predecessors and comprises two distinct monetary unions, the Central African
Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and the West African
Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), but their link to the euro under
exactly the same conditions makes them appear as a single entity.21 The franc
zone, created by France at decolonization to maintain a monetary union with its
former colonies in Africa, has proven to be a major stumbling block for regional
cooperation in ECOWAS. Half of the ECOWAS member states have advanced
strongly in the harmonization of one specific policy area and even effectively
attributed supranational competencies to a regional central bank, which continues
to be strongly influenced by France and its treasury.22 The creation of a unified
West African monetary union has been impossible under such circumstances.
Overlaps of membership and mandates are even more challenging in East
and Southern Africa, where nearly all countries are members of two or three
different regional cooperation schemes.23 Some of this overlap is related to
postcolonial rivalries, but colonial legacies have also played a role. In East
Africa, the formation of the East African Community (EAC) in 1967 united
the three former British colonies of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and was
built on colonial predecessor arrangements. The countries of the more
unstable Horn of Africa that did not share a British colonial background were
left out, which compromised any project of building a more comprehensive
Eastern African community. The Southern African Development
Coordination Conference (SADCC) was created for both political and
economic reasons: to help reduce the frontline states’ economic reliance on
their South African neighbor and to channel external resources, both material
and symbolic, to support the anti-apartheid struggle.24 Eventually, in the
wake of Namibia’s accession to the organization in 1992, SADCC
transformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC),
an organization aimed at developing economic integration through trade
liberalization and functional cooperation. Some of its members, however, had
already formed a Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa
(PTA) in 1981, which subsequently transformed into the Common Market
for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in 1994. While some states that
are clearly not geographically part of East or Southern Africa (such as Egypt
or Libya) have become COMESA members, other East and Southern African
states are not participating in this cooperation scheme and prefer to work
through the EAC (revived in 2000) or SADC.
The emergence of competing region-building projects with multiple types
of overlap may have been unavoidable given the sheer size of the African
continent and its political and social heterogeneity. The previously established
paths of regionalism, which started during colonialism or apartheid rule,
were, however, difficult to overcome and are more relevant than the
competing ideological projects of region-building among the current
governments (as seems to be the case in Latin America). Even where the
influence of former colonial powers has clearly waned, many top-down
attempts to “rationalize” regionalism by reducing overlap have failed.25
Lack of meaningful non-state engagement

The history of African regionalism was marked for decades by
intergovernmental organizations characterized by consensus-based and informal
decision-making procedures. As nearly all African states had autocratic regimes
until the early 1990s and regionalism’s main function may have been to secure
domestic or international legitimacy, consensus was indeed the most efficient
decision-making rule.26 Heads of state who were unwilling to share power,
and who did not believe in the rule of law and the institutionalized resolution
of political conflicts within their polities, certainly also had difficulties formally
ceding sovereignty to supranational agencies or committing themselves to
majority-based decision-making. They tended instead to rely on themselves—
that is, summits of heads of states and presidents—to negotiate contested issues.
The political regimes in most postcolonial African states also hardly facilitated
the emergence of strong domestic private sectors as there was little
industrialization and a predominantly smallholder agrarian mode of production,
and trade was heavily regulated.
Over the past three decades, democratization has led to more substantial
political participation and has empowered parliaments and constitutional
courts in a number of regimes, especially in West and Southern Africa. In
a similar vein, regional courts and parliaments have been empowered and
rule-based decision-making within African regionalism has been strengthened,
in terms of both the security and the development dimensions. The
innovative 1999 ECOWAS military intervention mechanism (providing for
a Mediation and Security Council, which decides via a two-thirds majority of
its members on, among other things, humanitarian interventions and the use
of military force against member states) resulted from the interest of fragile
democracies in West Africa in “locking-in” their domestic democratic
development at the regional level.27 The ECOWAS Court of Justice was
assigned the mandate to rule on human rights violations through an
individual complaint procedure in 2005.28
Such progress remains uneven, at both the domestic and the regional level.
Even in the democratic and democratizing regimes, presidents often continue
to hold extraordinary de facto powers and formal veto players remain weak,
while governance is based on a combination of formal rules and informal
norms. Beyond elections, there is very little institutionalized political
participation, and although civil society and business associations are involved
in donor-induced programs, they typically lack the financial and institutional
autonomy to effectively shape public policies.
A liberal or market-driven agenda of regionalism, however, relies on private
sectors pushing for the increased integration of markets and on the successive
delegation of authority to supranational agencies, at least with regard to the
more advanced steps in the integration agenda. The deeper economic
integration becomes, the more intrusive the steps that are required from
member states. Many African governments have been unwilling to cede
sovereignty because there has been little demand from autonomous civil
societies or strong domestic private sectors with an interest in trade
liberalization. Most such political regimes have not allowed the emergence of
what Solingen has labeled “outward-oriented domestic coalitions.”29 Across
most of the continent there is thus still very little interplay between state elites
and domestic constituencies in constructing stronger degrees of “regionness”30
and more generally in developing a common regional identity or awareness.31
The negotiations over the European Partnership Agreements have seen
substantial participation by non-governmental actors and the private sector in
the negotiation process. Where such political space has increased, as in
Nigeria, interest groups (especially trade unions) have often lobbied against
further economic integration, but mainly because the agreements implied the
liberalization of imports from EU countries. However, Nigeria certainly has
a past record of protecting its market against West African countries as well,
and it was one of the few countries not to initially sign on to the African
Continental Free Trade Area in March 2018. In any case, as regional trade
liberalization has not significantly increased intraregional trade, and no direct
elections to regional parliaments are held, it is the free movement of people
(and the regional passports) which is the most visible sign of regional
integration for African citizens.32 While many West Africans continue to
appreciate the CFA franc, its existence is hardly perceived as a regional
integration achievement. There is a general lack of public debate about the
merits of (further) regional integration, and the positive assessment of regional
integration observed in surveys refers rather to the idea of African countries
joining forces than to any more specific evaluation of the pros and cons of
concrete institutional reforms or regional policies. Regional integration
appears to have remained a project of African elites.
Conclusion
In sum, African regionalism is shaped by the interplay of African agency and
lasting structural constraints. This tension became visible again when
Rwandan president Paul Kagame, in his function as AU chairperson,
presented a report on institutional reforms of the continental body in
January 2017.33 Kagame pointed to some of the structural constraints and
challenges (such as overlap and the poor commitment of member states) but
insisted on the capacity of African governments to implement the required
institutional reforms. Among these featured the commitment to raise
a 0.2 percent levy on eligible non-African imports to finance the operations
of the continental organizations (particularly in the field of peace and
security); a more formalized and institutionalized decision-making process
within the AU, including stronger rules about coordination between the AU
and the RECs; and sanctions against member states that do not comply with
basic organizational rules. Kagame’s report is indicative of the urgency with
which some African elites continue to push for further reforms and to
increase the capacity and resilience of regional and continental organizations.
The Kagame report could easily be interpreted as an indicator of crisis, as the
text is quite explicit about the deficiencies in the workings of both continental
and regional organizations and governments’ lack of will to comply with regional
standards or to implement joint policies at the domestic level. It should, however,
be seen instead as a rallying cry and as a reminder that the progress observed in
African regionalism throughout the last two decades is mainly due to the bold
decisions of African leaders who defied the structurally unfavorable environment
resulting from institutional legacies and poor economic development. There is
certainly a limit to such top-down institutional engineering, and the future
development of African regionalism will thus depend on further social and
political change within African states, and on more stable and effective modes of
state-society interaction at both the domestic and the regional levels.
Notes
1 Respondents were asked: “1) In your opinion, how much does the [regional organ-
ization for your region] do to help your country, or haven’t you heard enough to
say? 2) In your opinion, how much does the African Union do to help your coun-
try?” Data available for 36 countries. See Markus Olapade, Edem E. Selormey and
Horace Gninafon, Regional Integration for Africa: Could Stronger Public Support Turn
“Rhetoric into Reality?” Afrobarometer Dispatch no. 91 (2016), 15.
2 For a more detailed reconstruction of this historical process see Christof Hartmann,
“Sub-Saharan Africa,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja
A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 271–294.
3 Adekunle Ajala, Pan-Africanism: Evolution, Progress and Prospects (London:
St. Martin’s Press, 1973); Benedikt Franke, Security Cooperation in Africa: A Re-
Appraisal (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009); and Kwesi Kwah Prah, “The
Wish to Unite: The Historical and Political Context of the Pan-African Move-
ment,” in The Making of the African-Nation: Pan-Africanism and the African Renais-
sance, ed. Mammo Muchie (London: Adonis and Abbey, 2003), 13–39.
4 Katharina P. Coleman, International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of
International Legitimacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); David
J. Francis, The Politics of Economic Regionalism: Sierra Leone in ECOWAS (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2001); and Funmi Olonisakin, Reinventing Peacekeeping in Africa: Conceptual and
Legal Issues in ECOMOG Operations (The Hague, Netherlands: Kluwer Law, 2000).
5 Christof Hartmann, “Leverage and Linkage: How Regionalism Shapes Regime
Dynamics in Africa,” Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 10, no. s1
(2016): 79–98.
6 Tobias Lenz, “Spurred Emulation: The EU and Regional Integration in Mercosur
and SADC,” West European Politics 35, no. 1 (2012): 155–173; and Stephen
Robert Buzdugan, “Regionalism from without: External Involvement of the EU
in Regionalism in Southern Africa,” Review of International Political Economy 20,
no. 4 (2013): 917–946.
7 Corinne A. A. Packer and Donald Rukare, “The New African Union and Its
Constitutive Act,” American Journal of International Law 96, no. 2 (2002): 365–378.
8 Peter Draper, “Breaking Free from Europe: Why Africa Needs Another Model of
Regional Integration,” The International Spectator 47, no. 1 (2012): 67–82.
9 Bela Balassa, The Theory of Economic Integration (London: Allen Unwin, 1962).
10 For similar reasoning cf. Lorenzo Fioramonti and Frank Mattheis, “Is Africa
Really Following Europe? An Integrated Framework for Comparative Regional-
ism,” Journal of Common Market Studies 54, no. 3 (2016), 674–690.
11 Timothy Murithi, The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
12 Yongzheng Yang and Sanjeev Gupta, “Regional Trade Arrangements in Africa: Past
Performance and the Way Forward,” African Development Review 19, no. 3 (2007):
399–431.
13 Daniel C. Bach, “The Dilemmas of Regionalization,” in West Africa’s Security
Challenges, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (London: Lynne Rienner,
2004), 69–92; and Jeffrey Herbst, “Crafting Regional Cooperation in Africa,” in
Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspective, ed.
Amitav Acharya and Alastair Iain Johnston (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2007), 129–144.
14 John Ravenhill, “Regional Integration in Africa: Theory and Practice,” in Region-
Building in Africa: Neoliberalism, Sovereignty Boosting and Shadow Networks, ed. Daniel
H. Levine and Dawn Nagar (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 37–52.
15 Ravenhill, “Regional Integration in Africa: Theory and Practice,” 37–52.
16 Economic Commission for Africa, Assessing Regional Integration in Africa (Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia: Economic Commission for Africa, 2004); Kathleen J. Hancock,
“African Regionalism: The Complex Role of Regional Trade,” in Handbook of the
International Political Economy of Trade, ed. David A. Deese (Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar Publishing, 2014), 268–298; Percy S. Mistry, “Africa’s Record of Regional
Co-operation and Integration,” African Affairs 99, no. 397 (2000): 553–573; and
David Greenaway, Ademola Oyejide and Benno Ndulu, eds. Regional Integration and
Trade Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999).
17 In more extreme cases, while officially advocating further trade liberalization and
a discourse of regionalism, state elites might be interested in maintaining boundary dis-
parities in order to engage in illicit activities and smuggling networks. Daniel Bach has
coined this process “trans-state regionalization,” as state agents are involved in circum-
venting the official rules which regulate trans-border flows and use regionalism essen-
tially as a means for “resource capture”; see Daniel Bach, “The Global Politics of
Regionalism: Africa,” in Global Politics of Regionalism: Theory and Practice, ed. Marry Far-
rell, Björn Hettne and Luk Van Langenhove (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 171–186.
18 African Union, The Imperative to Strengthen Our Union: Report on the Proposed
Recommendations for the Institutional Reform of the African Union (Addis Ababa, Ethi-
opia: African Union, 2017).
19 Bach, “The Dilemmas of Regionalization.”
20 Kathleen J. Hancock, Regional Integration, Choosing Plutocracy (Basingstoke: Pal-
21 Helmut Asche and Jonne Brücher, “Myth and Reality of African Regional Inte-
gration,” Recht in Afrika 12, no. 2 (2009): 169–186; Economic Commission for
Africa, Assessing Regional Integration in Africa: Towards an African Continental Free
Trade Area (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Economic Commission for Africa, 2012).
22 Pierre Canac and Rogelio Garcia-Contreras, “Colonial Hangover: The Case of
the CFA,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 46, no. 1 (2011): 54–68. In the case
of the West African UEMOA, it is the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des Etats de
l’Afrique Occidentale) that determines monetary policies in all member states.
23 Economic Commission for Africa, Assessing Regional Integration in Africa.
24 Ulrike Lorenz and Scarlett Cornelissen, “Regional Organisation, Regional Arena:
The SADC in Southern Africa,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Regionalism,
ed. Timothy M. Shaw, J. Andrew Grant and Scarlett Cornelissen (Farnham: Ash-
gate, 2011), 241–254.
25 Christof Hartmann, “Overlapping Regionalism and Region-Building in Africa,”
in The Relevance of Regions in a Globalized World: Bridging the Social Sciences–
Humanities Gap, ed. Galia Press-Barnathan, Ruth Fine and Arie M. Kacowicz
(London: Routledge, 2019), 49–63.
26 Herbst, “Crafting Regional Cooperation in Africa,” 129–144; and Fredrik Söder-
baum, “Modes of Regional Governance in Africa: Neoliberalism, Sovereignty
Boosting and Shadow Networks,” Global Governance 10, no. 4 (2004): 419–436.
27 Christof Hartmann and Kai Striebinger, “Writing the Script? ECOWAS’ Inter-
vention Mechanism,” in Governance Transfer by Regional Organizations: Patching
Together a Global Script, ed. Tanja A. Börzel and Vera van Hüllen (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 68–83.
28 Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer and Jaqueline R. McAllister, “A New Inter-
national Human Rights Court for West Africa: The ECOWAS Community
Court of Justice,” American Journal of International Law 107 (2013): 737–779.
29 Etel Solingen, “The Genesis, Design and Effects of Regional Institutions: Lessons
from East Asia and the Middle East,” International Studies Quarterly 52, no. 2 (2008):
261–294.
30 Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum, “Theorising the Rise of Regionness,” New
Political Economy 5, no. 3 (2000): 457–473.
31 Andrew Hurrell, “Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective,” in Regionalism in
World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order, ed. Andrew Hurrell
and Louise Fawcett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 37–73.
32 Olapade, Selormey and Gninafon, Regional Integration for Africa: Could Stronger
Public Support Turn “Rhetoric into Reality”?
33 African Union, The Imperative to Strengthen Our Union: Report on the Proposed
Recommendations for the Institutional Reform of the African Union (Addis Ababa, Ethi-
opia: African Union, 2017).
13 Regionalism in distress
Is ASEAN coping with global crises
and power shifts?
Maria-Gabriela Manea
This chapter explores the effects that the global crisis of regionalism and
power shifts have had on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). Since ASEAN was established, in 1967, regionalism has been
a central tool for managing peaceful regional relations in post-colonial
Southeast Asia. ASEAN’s credo has been to ensure the “resilience, autonomy,
and centrality” of the region. Regional resilience was ASEAN’s response to
domestic and interstate conflicts that undermined nation-state building in
Southeast Asia. Regional autonomy captured the commonly perceived threat
from big power competition. ASEAN’s centrality derived from its self-
conception as the main driving force behind the development of a rule-based
institutional architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. Despite major
transformations since the end of the Cold War, these objectives remain valid.
Through initiatives like ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Plus
Three (APT), and East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN has laid down a web of
norm-based institutional networks in the Asia-Pacific that have locked in the
main regional and global actors. While most chapters in this volume indicate
that regionalism appears to be in crisis, ASEAN has actually revitalized
regionalism since 2007.
However, the path toward stronger cooperation via the ASEAN
Community (AC) is being challenged from both within and outside the
region. I argue that ASEAN has generally been slow in reacting to
global and intra-regional pressures and changes. ASEAN’s successful
economic regionalism since 2007 is a delayed answer to the lessons of
the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98. Hence, the regional boosting may
be short-lived unless ASEAN masters the new challenges in its global
and intra-regional environments. The first part of this chapter proposes
explanatory approaches that account for ASEAN’s development.
The second part reviews ASEAN’s institutional and policy innovations
since 2007 and also addresses their limitations. The third part discusses
current challenges to the ASEAN Community that might lead to a crisis
of regionalism in ASEAN. The chapter ends with concluding remarks on
ASEAN’s future.
224 Maria-Gabriela Manea
Theoretical approaches to ASEAN
Scholarship on regional integration distinguishes between systemic, extra-
regional factors (outside-in) and sub-systemic, intra-regional variables (inside-
out) that explain the emergence, the institutional design, and the evolution of
regionalism.1 At the systemic level, power-centered approaches highlight the
role of hegemons and the balance of power, while rationalist approaches
focus on the impact of economic globalization on regionalism. Constructivist
explanations mostly emphasize the ideational diffusion to account for why
regionalism might become an option for states. At the sub-systemic level,
different dimensions of regionalism can alternatively be explained by
rationalist variables such as the degree of intra-regional interdependence—
economic and/or security interdependence—and the level of transnational
interactions, as well as social constructivist assumptions about regional
identities and community-building. In different ways, liberalism and neo-
Gramscianism stress domestic or transnational processes of preference
formation, both material and ideational in nature, by domestic coalitions or
social forces in control of or contesting individual states and regional
cooperation.
An eclectic approach considering systemic and sub-systemic factors, as well
as power-centered, rationalist, and constructivist explanations, is necessary in
order to account for the development of ASEAN. Therefore, in this chapter
I emphasize two explanatory mechanisms: (1) balance of power and
hegemonic politics in the Asia-Pacific, and (2) regional convergence of
domestic coalitions.2 While the triggers of ASEAN’s reforms are systemic,
their effects become manifest through the filter of domestic politics, which
shapes the direction of regional politics. At the same time, the diffusion of
regionalism3 as a subsidiary explanatory mechanism accounts for the adoption
of new policies and institutional templates as part of ASEAN’s strategy to
cope with a changing environment.
Although the process leading to the ASEAN Community by 2025 formally
began with the ASEAN Charter in 2007 and its first round of
implementation achieved by 31 December 2015, the intra-regional
interactions unleashing this development started much earlier, with the Asian
financial crisis of 1997/98. This systemic shock affected the economies and
political systems of ASEAN’s founding members to varying extents. It
primarily revealed their complex connections with the global economy and
raised doubts about the soundness of their economic and political
governance. The legitimacy of their regimes, based on the economic
performance of the developmentalist state, suddenly started to erode.
Combined with previous waves of democratization and political contestation
(mostly in Thailand and the Philippines), the crisis unleashed substantial
domestic change in ASEAN’s core states, a highly volatile process that
continues today. The economic breakdown created new political opportunity
structures for a highly hybrid and fragmented political agency in Southeast
Regionalism in distress 225
Asia. Pro- and anti-democratic political elites, an activist and pro-reformist
urban middle class, the rural poor, and in some places a politically radicalizing
Islam have since competed for power or challenged power-holders in the
region. Another effect of domestic change on ASEAN has been the growth
of transregional networks of domestic civil society actors and epistemic
communities supportive of human rights, social welfare, good governance,
and democratic accountability. Thus, an alternative space of action has
emerged at the regional level, attempting to shape the debates about
ASEAN’s future development and challenging ASEAN norms. This
constitutes a clear departure from the old days of ASEAN when states alone
were in the driver’s seat.
Amid such domestic and regional reconfigurations and the cumbersome
economic recovery from the crisis, ASEAN member states began
reconsidering their approach to regionalism. The idea that a single market
and production base would increase intra-ASEAN trade, stimulate economic
growth, and potentially mitigate the negative effects of future external crises
has gradually gained traction. The economic competition with China and
other developing countries for foreign investment further supported the
argument that an economy of scale will help ASEAN member states to fare
better in the competition over foreign capital and be less vulnerable trading
partners in the global economy. While they wished to remain engaged in
“open” regionalism and did not give up their export-substitution growth
strategies due to the financial crisis, the ASEAN member states searched for
new ways to gain more control over their macroeconomic stability and
reinvent the idea of regional autonomy through the ASEAN Economic
Community (AEC).4 ASEAN also became an effective tool for managing
foreign economic relations. In such a context of relative cognitive openness,
political hybridization of domestic regimes, increased mobilization of activist
agency in the region and in search for new solutions, ASEAN began to
consider the EU as a model of inspiration in a similar way as Southeast Asian
states looked up to the developmentalist state model of Northeast Asia in the
1980s and the 1990s. The EU itself actively promoted regionalism in
ASEAN, seeking to shape ASEAN’s preferences through various policy tools.
But what has ASEAN achieved in practice?
ASEAN’s institutional reforms and their limitations

The ASEAN Charter (2007, in force since 2009) conferred ASEAN legal
personality, strengthened its actorness and formally launched the ASEAN
Community (AC), an ongoing process. Three communities, echoing the
EU’s three-pillar framework, were laid down to structure this process:
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC),5 ASEAN Politico-Security
Community (APSC),6 and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC).7
ASEAN initiated several institutional and policy innovations. At the
institutional level, the previously informal ASEAN Summit was elevated to
the status of main decision-making body of the organization, while the
ASEAN Coordinating Council was established to prepare the summits and to
implement the Summit’s decisions together with other ASEAN organs. At
the same time, the competencies of the ASEAN Secretary General (SG) were
strengthened. Together with the ASEAN Secretariat, the SG was empowered
to monitor compliance with ASEAN policy.8
To strengthen the regional decision-making and enforcement capacity of
ASEAN, a council was established for each of the ASEAN communities. The
ASEAN Communities’ councils cooperate closely with the newly established
Committee of Permanent Representatives, an institution similar to the EU’s
Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER). The Committee,
where ASEAN states are represented through their Ambassadors, is in
permanent contact with ASEAN National Secretariats and Sectoral Ministerial
Bodies, another institutional layer that allows ASEAN member states’
executives to be involved in the regional decision-making process. Although
the EU’s institutional architecture has undoubtedly inspired this new
institutional design, ASEAN states have not gone so far as to emulate the
EU’s supranational institutional mechanisms. Therefore, no regional dispute
settlement mechanisms were created; ASEAN preferred to rely on existing
international mechanisms as a last resort. The intergovernmental nature of
decision-making and the supremacy of the member states therein were clearly
retained. For instance, contested issues emerging in the Councils are
politically handled by the ASEAN Summit through consensus-building
among member states.
In sum, ASEAN has formalized some of its existing informal institutions
and practices, strengthened previous bodies, or invented new ones with
a coordinating mandate without giving up central features of its previous
modus operandi based on consensual decision-making and weak or no legal
and supranational base for rule-making and rule-enforcement. Despite the
new reform rhetoric, ASEAN continues to be weakly institutionalized and
displays similar collective action problems as before. ASEAN has not
overcome its previous executive dominance by allowing, for instance, for
a regional parliament or for civil society participation.9 The lack of provisions
on parliamentary oversight and civil society involvement in the Charter is
proof of the low interest of ASEAN member states in democratizing regional
governance. The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA), originally
formed in 1977, only plays a symbolic role as a legislative counterweight to
regional executive dominance, with no effective influence over ASEAN.
However, higher visibility was given to the external dimension of ASEAN
in line with the regional consensus that ASEAN’s external bargaining position
should be upgraded. Fifty-four ASEAN Committees in Third Countries and
International Organizations (ACTCs) established through Art. 43 of the
Charter are currently promoting the organization’s interests and identity
abroad, gathering external support for the realization of the ASEAN
Community Vision 2025.10 However, the member states are in control of
this policy field through the ASEAN dialogue coordinatorship, a rotating
scheme empowering each state for a period of three years to supervise
ASEAN’s foreign relations with one of its dialogue partners.
Beyond the reform of institutions and decision-making procedures, new
policies were attempted under the ASEAN Communities. At the symbolic
level, APSC plays the central role; in practice, however, most of the policy
achievements have been reached under AEC, which was launched in 2007,
two years prior to APSC and ASCC.
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)

The first step towards the AEC was the 1992 ASEAN Free Trade Area
(AFTA), which aimed to create the ASEAN single market, which for a long
time seemed unattainable.11 ASEAN’s internal market, uniting 622 million
people into the third-largest market in the world after China and India, was
largely achieved by 31 December 2015, but the degree of implementation
highly varies across sectors. The AEC Blueprints—documents defining the
broad directions of the AEC—conceive economic integration along four
pillars.12
The first pillar expects ASEAN to operate as an integrated economy
through the institutionalization of a single market and production base with
free flow of goods, services, investment, capital, and skilled labor, as well as
the integration of priority sectors, such as food, agriculture, and forestry. The
most successful policy has been the elimination of tariffs. Far more
problematic is the elimination of non-tariff barriers, which has been
voluntary. Since improving compliance remains a problem for ASEAN,
the second AEC Blueprint13 strengthens monitoring practices, not only of
compliance, but also of outcomes of implementation, by undertaking regular
impact evaluations with the assistance of the ASEAN Community Statistical
System (ACSS). To support trade in the region, ASEAN has refined the rules
of origins within the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement and is undergoing
customs modernization and integration. Trade facilitation is at the core of
ASEAN’s strategy to market integration as laid down in the ASEAN Trade
Facilitation Framework adopted in 2016 by the ASEAN Economic Ministers,
planning to reduce transaction costs by 10 percent by 2020. This initiative
responds to the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement of 2013 (in force since
February 2017) showing ASEAN’s commitment to the global trade regime.
ASEAN’s liberalization of trade in services began in 1995, but it remained
incomplete until 2015.
The most cohesive progress is the integration of financial services and the
most far-reaching liberalization has occurred in air transportation. ASEAN’s
new member states—Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar (CLVM)—
have been more willing to liberalize services than the more reluctant older
members, namely Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.14 According to
the ASEAN Financial Integration Framework, ASEAN should become
a semi-integrated financial region by 2020. As the competition with China
and other emerging economies for FDI has been a rationale for ASEAN
economic reforms, the framework encourages capital formation in ASEAN
through the free movement of foreign investment. AEC seems indeed to
have convinced multinationals to invest in the region, with ASEAN
becoming the main destination of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the
developing world, ahead of China. Furthermore, the ASEAN Agreement on
Movement of Natural Persons, effective since June 2016, has established
transparent procedures for immigration formalities simplifying the movement
of people involved in trade in goods, services, and investment. A fairly liberal
investment regime in the manufacturing sector has also emerged,15 but more
domestic control is maintained in the agriculture and natural resource fields.
The second pillar of AEC focuses on connectivity projects in infrastructure
development, competition policy, consumer protection, intellectual property
rights, and e-commerce, while the third pillar promotes equitable
development, especially narrowing the disparities between the old and new
member states.16 The latter objective requires substantial investments,
estimated at US$60 billion annually until 2020, an amount exceeding
ASEAN’s capacity. But there is steady progress in this field supporting the
CLVM states. The EU also contributes financially to the Work Plan of the
Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI), the last of which, launched in 2016,
focuses on capacity-building in CLVM states.
The fourth pillar provides for ASEAN’s integration in the global economy,
which is also the second major rationale of AEC. Formal talks between the
EU and ASEAN on an interregional FTA have been replaced by bilateral
FTA negotiations as stepping stones to the future conclusion of an
interregional agreement. The negotiations with Vietnam have led to the
signature of a trade and investment protection agreement in June 2019.17
A trade agreement with Singapore entered into force in November 2019,
while an investment protection agreement is awaiting ratification by EU
member states.18 The ASEAN-Hong Kong, China FTA signed in
November 2017 became effective on 11 June 2019 after the ratification
procedure of the signatory states was completed.19 Apart from China, there
are ASEAN+1 FTAs with further East Asian and Pacific countries: Japan,
South Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand.20 These FTAs have been
the basis for the conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP) in November 2017 between ASEAN and the six trading
partners. RCEP is the central piece of ASEAN’s external economic relations,
a consistent step towards economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region.
Experts have argued that ASEAN would benefit more overall from
economic integration within APT or RCEP frameworks than from only
being in AEC.21 AEC may be a stepping stone towards future East Asian
regionalism, provided that the geopolitical and security tensions are resolved.
Despite being a work in progress, AEC has already been a success. However,
its sustainability and further integration depend on the political will of
ASEAN states to create stronger institutions to manage rising complexity.
Here is where the barriers of the regional convergence of domestic
preferences appear. Although the Asian financial crisis has also generated
debates about the need to give up or transform inhibitory norms to regional
integration inherent in the “ASEAN Way,” this has not happened, as proven
by the weak performance of APSC and ASCC.
ASEAN Politico-Security Community (APSC) and ASEAN Socio-Cultural

Community (ASCC)
While Singapore and Thailand under the leadership of Thaksin Shinawatra
have engineered AEC with the support of the Jakarta-based think tank
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA),
Indonesia’s diplomatic prestige project was APSC, and the Philippines
drafted the plans for ASCC. APSC is the framework for political and
security cooperation and integration in ASEAN, for the promotion of
good governance, democracy, and human rights, as well as for ASEAN’s
foreign relations. In turn, ASCC is meant to foster cooperation on social
welfare, social justice and rights, women and children’s rights, migrant
workers’ protection, environment, regional community, and cultural
exchange. ASCC’s aims also include forging an ASEAN identity and
narrowing the development gap.22
However, both communities are more symbolic acts than genuine
initiatives to enhance regionalism beyond the economic field. Acquiring
more capacity to deal with internal crisis, such as the latest Rohingya
humanitarian crisis, migrant workers, and other transnational issues would be
central for strengthening ASEAN’s cohesiveness and reduce external
vulnerability. However, the regional norms of non-interference, national
sovereignty, consensual decision, and non-confrontation have prevented
ASEAN from truly engaging with the political, social, and cultural roots of
their domestic instability. Jones revealed that ASEAN states sometimes
transgress such norms, but only when their regime survival is not seriously
threatened, but rather fostered by such norm infringement.23 AEC’s success
has been possible because it enhances the economic base of domestic
coalitions, consolidating their political power rather than undermining it. In
contrast, APSC and ASCC are kept weak because the majority of ASEAN
states sense their potential to challenge the legitimacy of their political power.
ASEAN states with pro-democratic domestic coalitions24 have supported
APSC and ASCC,25 but unlike AEC, the regional convergence of domestic
preferences in these fields is ambivalent.
Therefore, ASEAN’s celebrated acknowledgment of democracy, human
rights, good governance, and rule of law26 is largely rhetorical and only
appeasing domestic and Western audiences.27 The ASEAN Intergovernmental
Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) established in 2009 under APSC is
politically controlled and, for the time being, has limited potential to develop
effective regional human rights governance, as its mandate is only to
promote, but not to protect, human rights in the region.28 AICHR is
composed by governmental representatives, with only few of them enjoying
some degree of independence from their governments. These exceptions are
the representatives from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia,
countries that either enjoy a higher level of domestic freedom or have
National Human Rights Commissions (NHRCs) internationally recognized
as independent. Overall, the cooperation among these four NHRCs seems
more likely to bring about substantive results on human rights governance
than AICHR.
Inclusive regional security cooperation based on peaceful conflict
resolution has a long tradition in ASEAN. An important role is played by the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was established in 1994 as an
inclusive organization pursuing preventive diplomacy and involving
Northeast Asian powers and other dialogue partners, such as the United
States and, more recently, the EU. The ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting
(ADMM), created in 2006, is the main framework for regional cooperation
on confidence building and transparence on defense and military affairs.
While security cooperation is ongoing, there is no ASEAN security
integration as there are no initiatives of security policy coordination and
military joint activities. More dynamism exists in the field of non-traditional
security, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief. Like ARF, the ASEAN
Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMMP) includes all ASEAN dialogue
partners. In this enlarged framework, there are coordinating initiatives on
maritime security, counter-terrorism, disaster management, and peacekeeping
operations. Cooperation among some ASEAN countries occasionally occurs.
For instance, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore have jointly
created the Malacca Straits Patrol (MSP) to conduct sea and air surveillance.
Another modest example of defense cooperation is the creation of a database
system—the Information Sharing Center (ISC)—which provides information
on various aspects regarding sea piracy.29 Overall, the focus remains on
preventive defense diplomacy, which has had rather minimal success in
resolving the major security and geopolitical conflicts of East Asia, especially
pertaining to China-ASEAN security relations. ASEAN has been unable to
convince China to sign a binding code of conduct on the South China Sea,
and current Chinese military build-up in the region proves ASEAN’s
ineffectiveness.
Challenges to ASEAN’s regionalism
ASEAN amid balance of power and hegemonic politics

At the systemic level, the East Asian balance of power, in which the ASEAN
sub-system is embedded, has been strongly affected by the power contestation
between the United States and China over regional and global hegemony.
I argue that power volatility in the region has continued to intensify in recent
years, posing a major challenge to ASEAN’s regional project. ASEAN seems
to be less and less able and willing to defend its centrality, autonomy, and
resilience towards China.
During the Cold War, ASEAN’s regional security had been tied to the US
geopolitical interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Although the United States
entertained the idea of a US-led formal security alliance, the Southeast Asian
Treaty Organization (similar to NATO) was short-lived. However, almost all
founding members of ASEAN have either developed direct military ties or
indirect security guarantees with the US military since their independence, or
have at least tolerated the American military presence in the region without
seeking any formal affiliation. This can be explained by the anxiety of the
young Southeast Asian states about being infiltrated by a Chinese-led
communist expansion.
The end of the Cold War reduced the incentives for the United States to
keep the same level of engagement in the region and, at the same time,
brought China back to global and regional politics in a more constructive
role. ASEAN was compelled to adjust its external strategy to the new
environment. To counter a potential expansion of the Chinese sphere of
influence over the former Indochinese states, ASEAN invited the CLVM
autocracies to join ASEAN in the 1990s, without demanding any political
reforms, a move that attracted harsh criticism from its Western partners.
ASEAN also made substantial efforts to socialize China into international and
regional norms of peaceful diplomacy, while keeping the US military
engaged in Southeast Asia with the aim of discouraging any potential Chinese
aggression. ASEAN’s regional institution-building within ARF, APT, EAS,
and AEC served to present the organization as the driving force of
regionalism in East Asia and to bind China into an ASEAN-centered regional
order.
Another way of coping with big power rivalry has been to diversify
ASEAN’s states’ relations and building ties to Russia and India, as well as to
Australia and New Zealand. To secure external recognition for ASEAN
centrality, regional or other major powers like the United States, Russia,
Australia, and the EU have gradually been offered membership in the various
offspring institutions, making ASEAN the most successful convener of
diplomatic meetings in the Asia-Pacific. The new Indo-Pacific Vision put
forward by Indonesia has ASEAN as its nucleus and is an interesting strategy
that has sought to liberate ASEAN from an overly narrow regional
environment, increasingly held hostage to Sino-US rivalry, by including
other regional powers.
Nevertheless, the management of increased Chinese-US rivalry has become
the most challenging aspect of ASEAN external relations. China’s meteoric
rise in the past two decades, coupled with diminishing American hegemony
(accelerated by the 2008 wave of crises) have triggered a shift in US foreign
and security policy in Asia since 2010. Barack Obama’s policy of rebalancing
to Asia acknowledged its importance to the US global hegemony.
Concretely, the United States under Obama increased its military presence in
the direction of a more aggressive military posture towards China, and it
channeled financial and diplomatic resources from other regions towards Asia.
Finally, it designed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a macro-
framework for trade and economic relations linking Asia with Latin and
North America with the United States at its center in an attempt to reduce
the dependence on Chinese trade.30 The US initiatives have reinforced old
East Asian security dilemmas between China and the US allies in the Asia-
Pacific, placing ASEAN in a tricky position between the two contenders.
ASEAN’s way of handling this difficult power constellation has been
through “hedging,”31 a strategy that enables it to avoid balancing against or
bandwagoning with either the United States or China, as the benefits from
entertaining strong relations with both powers far outweigh the advantages of
choosing one side. Despite some domestic variation among the foreign policy
preferences of ASEAN states, most of them have chosen to combine
a cooperative attitude towards China to extract maximum economic benefit
with a countering attitude in the security field. They have done this by
resisting China’s growing military actions towards ASEAN states that are
party to the South China Sea conflict, and also by relying on the US defense
capacity deployed in the region within the American pivot to Asia.32
However, practicing such a sensitive balance of power has become
increasingly difficult in the past few years due to overt Chinese boldness and
the erratic changes in US foreign policy since the election of President
Donald Trump. Although hedging has served ASEAN well for two decades,
empirical evidence points to China’s successful strategy to undermine
ASEAN’s unity and subdue ASEAN states to its own economic and
geopolitical interests. China is ASEAN’s most important trading partner
(14.4 percent of ASEAN’s imports and 11.9 percent of its exports) and in the
top three of ASEAN individual countries’ trade partners (first for
Vietnam, second for Thailand, Laos, and Indonesia, and third for
Singapore).33 This has made it a lot more difficult for ASEAN states to
oppose China or convince it to agree to a binding code of conduct on the
South China Sea. In contrast to its ability in the 1990s to oppose the EU or
the United States on issues such as human rights or Myanmar’s contested
accession, ASEAN now seems unable to manifest its independence towards
China. Through the development of its own regional and global initiatives—
such as the One Belt, One Road/Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative—
China is about to re-shape economic regionalism in the Asia-Pacific on its
own terms, overriding ASEAN-led initiatives. One example of the Chinese
subversive approach towards ASEAN is the exertion of influence over
Cambodia to prevent ASEAN from formulating a common statement on the
ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in favor of the Philippines
regarding its conflict with China in the South China Sea. The control over
just one ASEAN member empowers China to block any collective position
that hurts its interests or prestige, as long as ASEAN is not willing to reform
its consensual decision-making procedure.34
ASEAN-US relations under the Trump administration are also
undermining ASEAN regionalism and substantially weakening ASEAN’s
autonomy towards China. Trump’s rhetoric encourages the populist and
authoritarian trend affecting the domestic politics of ASEAN states and
reduces the external pressure for democracy and human rights in the region.
Otherwise, the attitudes of individual countries in Southeast Asia towards the
election of Trump are quite heterogeneous. Vietnam, a former enemy of the
United States, has opened up tremendously towards the United States since
2000. Vietnam wishes to increase US involvement in the Asia-Pacific to
counter Chinese dominance. It was one of the ASEAN countries that joined
the TPP, which Trump has since cancelled. An inward-looking United States
is not at all reassuring for Vietnam. Indonesia is also apprehensive about US
leadership. Despite rhetorical parallels between the Indonesian President Joko
Widodo and Trump, the sensibilities of the world’s largest Muslim country
have been alerted by Trump’s anti-Islamic (dis)course. Singapore is very
worried that an US isolationist foreign policy under Trump will destabilize
the defense strategy of the city state. An open conflict between the United
States and China would also have a negative impact on Singapore, which is
mainly populated by ethnic Chinese. Malaysia’s new (and former) Prime
Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who returned to power in the May 2018
elections, has often criticized Trump for his foreign policy, trade war, tough
stance against China, and his lack of commitment to previous US efforts in
Asia. The current populist or autocratic regimes in the Philippines, Thailand,
and Cambodia are less disturbed by the paradigm change in Washington,
instead seeing in it some political advantages.
Trump’s foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific and the US conflict with China
has the potential to deeply destabilize ASEAN. At the same time, it may also
mobilize political will for cooperation, as in the case of TPP. Despite the
withdrawal of the United States from the TPP, the remaining 11 countries
agreed in May 2017 to revive it. They all signed the revised agreement in
March 2018, and six of them have already ratified it.35 The renamed
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership has
been effective in these six states since 30 March 2018.
Regional convergence of domestic coalitions

Apart from the shifts in the geopolitical landscape of the Asia-Pacific that
negatively impact ASEAN’s regionalism, domestic power shifts as a result
of electoral cycles and political instability have a similar effect, as they
perpetuate a fragile convergence of domestic coalitions in ASEAN on
economic integration, particularly on political, security, and norm-related
issues.
In ASEAN’s largest country, influential Indonesian epistemic circles such as
the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) have repeatedly
voiced the need for Indonesia to disengage from ASEAN if its fellow states
prevent deeper political reforms. Indonesia has been a driver of integration
since 2002/03, when it forcefully reinvigorated its foreign policy and re-
entered regional politics after an inward-looking phase following the collapse
of Suharto’s regime in May 1998. Indonesian domestic politics were among
the most affected by the financial crisis. During this phase, Indonesia
underwent a process of democratic reforms that transformed the domestic
power configuration and its foreign policy preferences. The new Indonesia
essentially contributed to the drafting of the ASEAN Charter and the regional
reforms thereafter. But its frustration with the slow progress in ASEAN began
in the second term of President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono who, under the
influence of his advisers, devised a more proactive foreign policy than his
predecessors.
Due to its size, but also its democratic credentials,36 Indonesia has
increasingly gained more international prestige and attention from big
international players like the United States and the EU or in international
fora like G20 than from its neighbors. This development boosted Indonesia’s
self-esteem and it started to see itself as the normative power of Southeast
Asia, triggering anxiety among other ASEAN states, which mistrust
Indonesia’s barely veiled hegemonic intentions.37 ASEAN’s most
authoritarian states are worried that Indonesia could endanger their regimes’
survival. Most of these fears are exaggerated because Indonesia’s capacity to
effectively exert normative power is limited. Despite its strength, Indonesia
could not persuade ASEAN to genuinely democratize regional governance
and it was not able or willing to mobilize opposition against human rights
abuses in Myanmar (instead defending the country at the UN) or to criticize
the Hun Sen regime for its political repression in Cambodia or Thailand’s
military coups since 2006.38 Moreover, Indonesian initiatives in ASEAN have
mostly targeted politico-security and defense matters rather than economic
policy due to its relative economic weakness compared to Singapore,
Thailand, and Malaysia. Naturally, Indonesia cannot claim any strong
leadership in ASEAN as long as it lags behind economically. President Joko
Widodo, who has been in power since autumn 2014, has reversed the trend
toward regional hegemony, returning instead to an inward-looking approach,
prioritizing domestic over foreign policy goals. Regarding AEC and foreign
business in Indonesia, he has made his support dependent on the extent to
which they benefit the country’s national interests.
In general, the rise to power of new leaders in core ASEAN states since
2014 has diluted even more the fragile regional consensus about the pace and
purpose of regionalism. Populism has never been foreign to Southeast Asian
politics, but the simultaneous rise to power of populist leaders in key ASEAN
countries is now reshaping the preferences of powerful domestic coalitions
towards economic nationalism, authoritarianism, inward-looking foreign
policy, and an accommodating approach towards Chinese regional initiatives
to the detriment of ASEAN. The boom of populism, especially in those
ASEAN countries that have democratic but still weak political institutions,
can be traced back to the financial crisis of 1997/98.39 Despite the
Philippines’ greater resilience due to previous reforms by Fidel Ramos
administration, the movie actor Joseph Estrada won wide popular support in
1998, but due to corruption charges he was eventually forced out of office in
2001 by the second “people power” uprising in the country’s history. His
successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, also faced turbulent political conditions
and, after a failed military-backed popular attempt to overthrow her in 2006,
embraced a hardline, non-democratic style of rule that damaged the
Philippines’ democracy. ASEAN reforms were largely decided during her
presidency, while her successor Benigno Aquino III has been involved in the
implementation process since 2010.
However, in the 2016 elections the most controversial populist in
Southeast Asia acceded to power in the Philippines. The so-called “penal
populism”40 of President Rodrigo Duterte, former mayor of Davao City,
known for his tough stance against drug trafficking and corruption and his
anti-establishment rhetoric, earned him the label of “Trump of Asia.”
Like Widodo, he adopted an economic nationalist position and
emphasizes national sovereignty and independence as guiding principles of
his foreign policy. In Thailand, populism manifested itself in a delayed
form already in 2001, when Thaksin instituted his version of “business-”
or “pluto-populism”41 that ultimately led to street riots between his
supporters and the reformist middle class, paving the way for military
takeovers in 2006 and 2014.
These countries have experienced the resurgence of authoritarian politics
despite being enthusiastic supporters of ASEAN’s democratization. As the last
of these supporters, Indonesia is still considered a functioning democracy, but
even there the most recent elections (2014) took place under the aegis of
populism, dominated by a heightened contest between the “ultra-populism”
of Prabowo, a former military man and son-in-law of Suharto, and the
“technocratic populism” of Joko Widodo, former governor of Jakarta, rising
star of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and eventually
winner.42 Indonesia’s case is atypical because it has visibly improved
economically, as shown by the substantial increase in per capita income
between 2004 (US$1,281) and 2017 (US$3,846), an electoral turnout of
70 percent and a still vivid public support for democracy.43 This populist
trend can be explained by feelings of stagnation under Yudhoyono’s
presidency, the concentration of growth in a small elite allowing for the most
unequal distribution of wealth in Southeast Asia, and endemic corruption.
Since taking power, Widodo has pushed for executions for drug-related
crimes, has refused to apologize on behalf of the government for past human
rights abuses against the Indonesian Communist Party in the 1960s, and has
publicly rejected LGBT rights for being against Islam. At the same time, he
condemned the prosecution of Rohingya in Myanmar and supplied
humanitarian relief for their support in Bangladesh.
Of the ASEAN countries affected by the 1997 crisis, Malaysia was unique in
that then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad skillfully prevented political
change by suppressing opponents and curtailing freedoms. Achieving a faster
economic recovery from the crisis than Malaysia’s neighbors and cutting the
power of sultans in the political system helped to consolidate his position. He
finally turned over power to his chosen successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in
2003. Badawi and Najib Razak (since 2009), both members of UMNO, the
main party in the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional that dominated post-
independence Malaysian politics, led Malaysia during the years of ASEAN’s
economic integration supporting this process. Since the 2018 elections,
Malaysia has found itself in the middle of an interesting political experiment as,
for the first time, the country is governed by an alliance of former opposition
parties, Pakatan Harapan, joined by Mahathir, who unexpectedly re-entered
Malaysian politics in 2016 in a critical move against the traditional ruling
coalition and an attempt to reconcile with his previous deputy prime minister,
Anwar Ibrahim, his strongest contender in the power struggle in the aftermath
of the 1997 crisis. Anwar was the main victim of Mahathir’s authoritarian
politics in the late 1990s, being jailed until 2004 on fictive charges and banned
from political life until 2008. While Mahathir is now the prime minister due to
the 2018 electoral victory of Pakatan Harapan, there is an agreement to hand
over power to Anwar, the iconic leader of the democratic opposition in
Malaysia. Such a shift in the domestic governing coalition will not substantially
alter Malaysia’s support for ASEAN’s economic regionalism, but it might
positively affect its stance towards democratic governance and human rights.
In general, more commitment to ASEAN’s economic regionalism has
paradoxically come from countries in which democratic consolidation has not
made serious inroads. These include Singapore, Malaysia, and the CVLM states,
especially Vietnam, which together with Singapore are the only ASEAN
countries with economic access to Asia, Europe, and the Americas, through
various FTAs. However, this authoritarian group is averse to changing
ASEAN’s norms of non-interference and sovereignty or to democratizing
governance in ASEAN. In line with Singapore’s former leader Lee Kuan Yew,
they believe that the economic problems of Asia are not solved by more
democracy but by “good governance.”44 Southeast Asian populism has certainly
disrupted democratic consolidation in the region, but it is also about to undo
ASEAN’s economic progress—paradoxically, much more than the autocratic
pragmatists of the region with their outward-oriented economic policy
preferences.
Conclusion
This chapter has investigated the extent to which the global crisis of
regionalism and power shifts on the global, regional, and domestic levels have
also stalemated regional integration in ASEAN. I have argued that, contrary
to the global pushback against regionalism and trends towards economic
protectionism, ASEAN has in fact experienced a revival of economic
regionalism in the past decade, a process that can be traced back to the
lessons learnt from the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98. Despite their difficult
recoveries, ASEAN states have not abandoned their export-oriented growth
strategies, a policy shift that they had gradually embarked upon in the 1980s
and 1990s, and have instead sought to develop a framework for intra-regional
economic integration that has, at the same time, intensified ASEAN’s ties to
the global economy, particularly within East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.
This path was enabled by the regional convergence of domestic preferences
over the practice of “open” regionalism in ASEAN.
The emergence of this regional consensus has been very gradual, taking
about a decade (1997−2007) to come to fruition through intra-regional
negotiation, socialization, and compromises. The success of ASEAN
economic regionalism, centered on AEC but also on a web of external trade
and economic relations involving either ASEAN entirely or individual states,
is generally explained through its flexible, open, and inclusive approach.
Observers of ASEAN often contrast this path with the EU’s exclusive,
inward-looking, and rigid regionalism, in which many see the roots of its
crisis, including Brexit. However, the practice of open regionalism has not
stimulated ASEAN’s regional integration in security, political, or institutional
senses, which is, at best, symbolic action towards external audiences and, at
worst, an overstatement. ASEAN’s normative and political foundations have
not substantially changed their communitarian, illiberal, and anti/counter-
democratic character of the 1990s despite semantic reformulations.
As a result of recent and ongoing power shifts on the domestic, global, and
regional levels, the factors that contributed to the advance of ASEAN
regionalism in the aftermath of the 1997/98 crisis have now become
unfavorable for the further development of regionalism. The first main
challenge to ASEAN’s regionalism stems from the lack of genuine regional
convergence over political and normative preferences that are now more
divergent throughout the region than in the 1990s. This creates frictions and
political instability, both within and between states. The fragile regional
consensus on “open” economic regionalism that has so far enabled ASEAN’s
progress is endangered by the rise of populism in core ASEAN countries. It is
very unlikely that the new populist leaders will continue to reform ASEAN.
Instead, they are likely to abandon it for inward-looking, protectionist
economic strategies, which traditionally have their followers in ASEAN’s
domestic arenas, except Singapore.45
The increasing economic (inter)dependence between ASEAN and East
Asia and Chinese assertiveness, especially through investment policy, might
become a constraint for states in the region to potentially embrace a Chinese-
led regional order rather than consolidating ASEAN. Thus, Chinese-US
rivalry and China’s rise pose the second main challenge to ASEAN’s future.
Hegemony has never been really benevolent in the Asia-Pacific, which is
why ASEAN was created in the 1960s. Obama’s pivot to Asia has had some
stabilizing effects on ASEAN, but it has also antagonized China; therefore,
Obama’s policy has been as detrimental to ASEAN as Trump’s isolationism
and protectionism, which has created a power vacuum that China is more
than willing to fill. China has no interest in fostering ASEAN’s regionalism.
Practicing a double strategy of coercion and inducement,46 China is set to
circumvent ASEAN by binding its member states into Chinese conditions
through bilateral agreements. ASEAN states are currently altering their
preferences towards accepting China’s economic rewards and practicing
self-censorship on critical issues such as the South China Sea, which is
a departure from the previous hedging approach.
ASEAN’s political will to assert its autonomy and centrality in the Asia-
Pacific has obviously diminished. For the time being, under the leadership of
populist politicians, ASEAN seems to be somewhat adrift in the face of
current hegemonic politics in the Asia-Pacific. However, for ASEAN to
thrive it must have a counter-response to great power politics, which will
otherwise ultimately harm the interests of its small and middle-size states. The
experience of economic rewards from AEC economic integration is perhaps
a strong enough incentive to stick with ASEAN. While predictions about its
future course are almost impossible, ASEAN has repeatedly proven it is able
to learn from and adapt to changing environments.
Notes
1 Frederik Söderbaum, “Theories of Regionalism,” in Routledge Handbook of Asian
Regionalism, ed. Mark Beeson and Richard Stubbs (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012),
11–22.
2 Etel Solingen and Joshua Malnight, “Globalization, Domestic Politics, and
Regionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, ed. Tanja
Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 64–86.
3 Thomas Risse, “The Diffusion of Regionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Com-
parative Regionalism, ed. Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2016), 87–108.
4 Mari Pangestu, “Southeast Asian Regional and International Economic Integra-
tion,” in International Relations in Southeast Asia: The Struggle for Autonomy, ed.
Donald Weatherbee (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005),
182–217.
5 See ASEAN, ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint (2008–2015) (Jakarta, Indo-
nesia: ASEAN Secretariat, 2008) and ASEAN, ASEAN Economic Community Blue-
print 2025 (Jakarta, Indonesia: ASEAN Secretariat, 2015).
6 See ASEAN, ASEAN Politico-Security Community Blueprint (Jakarta, Indonesia:
ASEAN Secretariat, 2009); and ASEAN, ASEAN Politico-Security Community Blue-
print 2025 (Jakarta, Indonesia: ASEAN Secretariat, 2016).
7 ASEAN, ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint 2009–2015 (Jakarta, Indo-
nesia: ASEAN Secretariat, 2009); and ASEAN, ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community
Blueprint 2025 (Jakarta, Indonesia: ASEAN Secretariat, 2016).
8 ASEAN Charter, Article 27.
9 Stefan Rother, “Democratizing ASEAN through ‘Alternative Regionalism’? The
ASEAN Civil Society Conference and the ASEAN Youth Forum,” ASIEN 136
(2015): 98–119.
10 ASEAN, ASEAN Politico-Security Community Blueprint 2025, Section C.2.2.
11 For a thorough analysis of the AEC see Jörn Dosch, Die ASEAN Wirtschaftsge-
meinschaft: Überblick über Wissenschaft und Praxis (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos,
2016).
12 ASEAN, ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint (2008–2015).
13 ASEAN, ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025.
14 Ponciano Intal Jr., “Building the ASEAN Economic Community: Progression
and Progress,” in ASEAN and Member States: Transformation and Integration,
ASEAN@50, Vol. 3, ed. Ponciano Intal Jr. and Lurong Chen (Manila, Philip-
pines: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia—ERIA, 2017),
34–61 (44–46).
15 Ibid., 54.
16 Ibid., 55.
17 See https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/eu-vietnam-agreement/.
18 See https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/eu-singapore-agreement/.
19 See https://asean.org/asean-hong-kong-china-free-trade-agreement-enters-force/.
20 ASEAN Economic Integration Brief, 1 June 2017.
21 Intal, “Building the ASEAN Economic Community: Progression and Pro-
gress,” 61.
22 ASEAN, ASEAN Politico-Security Community Blueprint; and ASEAN, ASEAN
Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint 2009–2015.
23 Lee Jones, ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia (Basingstoke: Pal-
24 Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand prior to the military coup in 2006.
25 Meli Caballero-Anthony, “The Role of Epistemic Communities in Building an
Inclusive ASEAN Political and Security Community: The Case of ASEAN-ISIS,”
in Inclusive Political Participation and Representation: The Role of Regional Organiza-
tions, ed. Raul Cordenillo and Karin Gardes (Stockholm, Sweden: International
IDEA, 2014), 59–78; and Alan Collins, “Building a People-oriented Community
in Southeast Asia: Lessons from ASEAN’s Engagement with Civil Society,” in
Civil Society and World Regions: How Citizens Are Reshaping Regional Governance in
Times of Crisis, ed. Lorenzo Fioramonti (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015),
91–106.
26 ASEAN Charter, Preamble.
27 ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights, 2012.
28 Mathew Davies, “The ASEAN Synthesis: Human Rights, Non-Intervention, and
the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration,” Georgetown Journal of International
Affairs 14, no. 2 (2013): 51–58.
29 Clara Portela, ASEAN: Integration, Internal Dynamics and External Relations, Brief-
ing Paper (Brussels, Belgium: European Commission, 2012), 7.
30 William T. Tow, “US-Southeast Asia Relations in the Age of the Rebalance,” in
Southeast Asian Affairs 2016, ed. Malcolm Cook and Daljit Singh (Singapore:
ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2016), 35–53.
31 Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “How Do Weaker States Hedge? Unpacking ASEAN
States’ Alignment Behavior towards China,” Journal of Contemporary China 25, no.
100 (2016): 500–514.
32 Tow, “US-Southeast Asia Relations in the Age of the Rebalance.”
33 Portela, ASEAN: Integration, Internal Dynamics and External Relations, 11.
34 Le Huong Thu, “China’s Dual Strategy of Coercion and Inducement towards
ASEAN,” The Pacific Review 32, no. 1 (2018): 20–36.
35 Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Singapore.
36 Daniel Novotny and Clara Portela, eds., EU-ASEAN Relations in the 21st Century:
Strategic Partnership in the Making (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 1–4.
37 Jürgen Rüland, The Indonesian Way: ASEAN, Europeanization, and Foreign Policy
Debates in a New Democracy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017).
38 Ibid.
39 Julio Teehankee, “The Political Aftermath of the 1997 Crisis: From Asian Values
to Asian Governance?” Paper presented at the International Conference “Ten
Years after the Asian Crisis: Assessing the Economic and Political Landscape in
Southeast Asia,” 20 April 2007, Siem Reap, Cambodia, held by the Cambodian
Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).
40 Nicole Curato, “Politics of Anxiety, Politics of Hope: Penal Populism and Duterte’s
Rise to Power,” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 35, no. 3 (2016): 91–109.
41 Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, “Thaksin’s Populism,” Journal of Contempor-
ary Asia 38, no. 1 (2008): 62–83.
42 Markus Mietzner, Reinventing Asian Populism: Jokowi’s Rise, Democracy, and Political
Contestation in Indonesia, Policy Studies 72 (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center,
2015).
43 Ibid., 55.
44 Teehankee, “The Political Aftermath of the 1997 Crisis: From Asian Values to
Asian Governance?”
45 Peter Drysdale, “ASEAN: The Experiment in Open Regionalism that Succeeded,”
in The ASEAN Economic Community Into 2025 and Beyond, ASEAN@50, Vol. 5, ed.
Rebecca Sta. Maria, Shujiro Urata and Ponciano Intal Jr. (Manila, Philippines: Eco-
nomic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia—ERIA, 2017), 64–86 (72).
46 Thu, “China’s Dual Strategy of Coercion and Inducement towards ASEAN.”
Index
Page numbers in bold refer to tables; those in italics refer to figures.
Abramovich, Victor 124 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian

Africa: overview 209–210, 220; colonial Nations): overview 223, 236–238;
legacy 216–218; drivers of regionalism ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)
212–213; identity politics 38; 225, 227–229; ASEAN Politico-
institutional design 213–214; Security Community (APSC) 225, 227,
integration into global system 215–216; 229–230; ASEAN Socio-Cultural
interdependence and regionalism 37; Community (ASCC) 225, 229–230;
non-state engagement 218–220; centrality 223, 238; challenges to
overlapping regionalisms 57–58; private regionalism 230–236; Charter 224, 225;
sector 218–219; re-emergence of “hedging” 232; identity politics 38;
regionalism 210–212; structural institutional reforms and limitations
constraints 214–220 225–226; interdependence and
African Economic Community 212 regionalism 36; theoretical approaches
African Union (AU): overview 211–212, 224–225
213–214; African Continental Free Asian financial crisis 224–225
Trade Area 219; African Peace and “Asian Way” 192
Security Architecture (APSA) 209, 212, Association of Southeast Asian Nations see
216; Peace and Security Council 214; ASEAN (Association of Southeast
see also Organization of African Unity Asian Nations)
(OAU)Albright, Madeleine 107–108 austerity measures 16–17, 73
ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and authority, delegation of 35–36, 191
Democrats for Europe) 84 autonomy: ASEAN 223, 238; foreign
Andean Community: overview policy 141–142; Latin America 155,
38–39, 56, 150, 174; Cartagena 175; regionalism as 179;
Agreement 140–141Andean Pact UNASUR 134
179, 187 Ayittey, George 38
Anwar Ibrahim 236
Arab Spring 17 Badawi, Abdullah Ahmad 236
Argentina 124–125 balance of power 224, 230–233
Article 7, Treaty of the European Union banking 16, 26, 70–71, 177–178
(TEU): overview 81–82; the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India,
Commission 81, 89–93; the Council China) 53
86–89; decision-making rules 82–83; bilateralism 135, 182
European Parliament 81–82, 83–86; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our
“preventive stage” 82–83, 87; Tavares America (ALBA) 38, 150, 174–175,
Report 84–85 179, 197
242 Index
Bolsonaro, Jair 121, 135 comparative regionalism 3–6, 34–36,
Bordón, José Octavio 133 41–42, 193–194, 195–200
Brazil: MERCOSUR and 121, 124–125; Comprehensive and Progressive
South Atlantic community 49–50; Agreement for Trans-Pacific
UNASUR 137–138 Partnership 155–156, 162, 233
Brexit: comparative regionalism and Concert of Europe 52
196–198; EU crisis and 98; identity Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) 212
politics 41; impact on EU as model 19; cooperation: integration or 2–3; Lisbon
impact on European Union 25–26, Treaty 101; pooling of sovereignty
176–178; impact on Latin American 35–36; regional organizations (ROs) 59
regionalism 179–180, 197–198; inter- coordination 2–3, 161
regionalism after 180–183; referendum “corrective stage” 82–83
73–74; security and defense 102–111 Council of the EU 83, 86–89, 90–91
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, Court of Justice of the European Union
South Africa) 24, 53 (CJEU) 88, 90, 93
crises 198–199
Cameron, David 73 crises of regionalism: analyzing 198–200;
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) contemporary EU 16–21, 25–26;
174–175, 179, 181 European Union 69–74, 175–178;
Central African Economic and Monetary integral to integration 195; research
Community (CEMAC) 217 4–6; shared problems 182–183; socio-
Central American Common Market cultural challenges 23; stagnation of
(CACM) 56, 179, 187–188, 197–198 regionalism 57; stress factors 15–16,
Centre for Strategic and International 21–25
Studies (CSIS) 234 crisis management 100–101
CFA franc zone 217, 219 critical integration theory 194
China: ASEAN states and 230, 237–238; cross-regionalism 53, 155–156, 157, 159
balance of power 230–233; climate customs unions 174–175
change 55–56; influence in Latin cybersecurity 103
America 48, 154–156, 180–183
citizens’ perspectives 68, 74–77, 209, 210 decarbonization coalition 55–56
civil society: ASEAN 226; lack of decentered globalism 47
participation from 173 decision-making: Africa 218; citizens’
climate change: overview 53–56; carbon perspective on regional 76–77; crises of
emissions 54–55; climate commitment 199–200; Latin America 154–155;
54; climate power 54; Kyoto Protocol Pacific Alliance 152; research 194;
54; Paris Climate Agreement 55 UNASUR 133; upward shift in EU
CLVM (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, 16–17
Myanmar) states 227–228, 231, 236 defense see security and defense
collective action 88 defensive regionalism 174–176
Common Market for Eastern and deglobalization 136
Southern Africa (COMESA) 218 demand and supply 28–29, 37–38
common markets 75, 120–122, 179 democracy: challenges to norms
Common Monetary Area (CMA) 217 24; impact of transition 29;
Common Security and Defense Policy: MERCOSUR 126
challenges after Brexit 98, 103–110; Denmark 107
EUNAVFOR 102; Lisbon Treaty “determinations” 83
provisions 99–102 development assistance 178, 216
community and community-building differentiated integration 194, 199
37–38, 39, 42, 67 disintegration: European Union 20,
Community of Latin American and 25–26, 72–74; horizontal, vertical,
Caribbean States (CELAC) 57, 150, sectoral 199; non-European regional
172, 174–175, 179, 181, 197 organizations 26–29; risks of 197–198
Index 243
dispute settlement 35, 226 cooperation (PESCO) 101, 102–103,
distance 51 106–107; Saint Malo Declaration
domestic coalitions 224, 229–231, 233–236 107–108
domestic effects of sanctions 91–92 European Union: Article 7 decision-
drugs trade 125, 140 making rules 82–83; citizens’
Duda, Andrzej 90 perspective 68, 74–77; climate change
Duterte, Rodrigo 235 55–56; Common Security and Defense
Policy 99–102; “constraining dissensus”
East African Community 211, 217 22; construction of 67, 68–69; Council
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of the EU 86–89; crises of regionalism
70–71 and 195–198; crisis diffusion 24–25;
economic challenges: African reforms end of the model 4, 16–21, 176,
212–213; citizens’ perspective 74–75; 178–180, 183, 191–192; “empty chair
prior research 4–5; recovery following crisis” 69; European Central Bank
72–73; stress factors 22–23 70–71; European Coal and Steel
Economic Community of West African Community (ECSC) 39; European
States (ECOWAS) 36, 58, 211, 217, Commission 70–71, 81, 89–93;
218–219 European Parliament 83–86; identity
economic integration: Africa 213–214, politics 39–41; infringement procedures
218–219; ASEAN 227–229; Pacific 89–90; inter-regionalism after Brexit
Alliance 152, 153 180–183; Latin American partnership
economic regionalism 237 183; Latin American regionalism
ECOWAS see Economic Community compared 171–180; as model 213, 225;
of West African States (ECOWAS) from normative to pragmatic
education 123 integration 176–178; “permissive
electoral cycles 140–141 consensus” 22, 40; rule of law crisis
elite identity 38–39, 211–212 81–82; stress factors 21–25, 68–74;
enhanced cooperation 101 towards disintegration? 25–30
EPP (European People’s Party) 84–85, 86 Euroscepticism 17, 20, 22, 40–41,
equitable development 228 73–74
ESDU (European Security and Defense Eurozone: citizens’ perspective 75; crisis
Union) 99, 106 16–17, 69–71; European Stability
Estrada, Joseph 235 Mechanism (ESM) 26; Single
EU studies: dominance of European Supervisory Mechanism 70–71;
theory 187–190; Latin American “Troika” 16–17
regionalism, crises and 194–200; post-
revisionist approach 193–194; shift Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Union) 84–86
away from 190–192 financial crises: citizens’ perspective
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) 38 75–76; Eurozone crisis 69–71; Malaysia
European integration model 178–180, 236; prior research 4–5; as stress
181, 187–190, 191–192, 213 factor 22
European Partnership Agreements 219–220 foreign investment 225, 228
European People’s Party (EPP) 84–85, 86 foreign policy: foreign policy of small
European Security and Defense Policy: states 58; Treaty of Lisbon 99–102;
European Cybersecurity Agency 103; UNASUR 138–139, 142–143
European Defense Agency 101; “fortress Europe” 40, 176, 178
European Defense Fund 104; European fragmentation 172–173, 174, 181
Defense Union 176; EUGS (“Global Free Trade Area of the Americas
Strategy for the EU’s Foreign and (FTAA) 120
Security Policy”) 99, 103–104, 176, free-trade agreements: Africa 212;
181; European Peace Facility 104; ASEAN 228, 236; Latin America and
European Security and Defense Union EU 181; Pacific Alliance 152, 157–158,
(ESDU) 99, 106; permanent structured 159; post-Brexit 182
244 Index
“G world” (G7, G8, G20) 52, 53 Japan 49
geography: constraints of 173; regional Juncker, Jean-Claude 90–91, 103–104, 178
orders and 49–51
Germany 109–111 Kaczynski, Jaroslaw 90
global economy, integration with Kagame, Paul 220
215–216, 228 Konaré, Alpha 213
“Global Strategy for the EU’s Foreign and
Security Policy” (EUGS) 99, 103–104, large powers: minilateralism and
176, 181 multilateralism 51–53; reducing
Greece debt crisis 16–17, 73 dependency on 156–157; regional
Guedes, Paulo 121, 150 leadership and 58–59; UNASUR
and 135
Haas, Ernst B. 37–38, 57, 188 Latin America: crises of regionalism and
hegemonic politics 47, 49, 224, 198–200; defensive regionalism
230–233 174–176; end of mimetic regionalism
Hollande, François 102, 109 178–180; European Union regionalism
Hooghe, Liesbet 35, 37–38 compared 171–180; identity politics
horizontal (dis)integration 26–29, 199 38–39; interdependence and
human rights 121–122, 124, 229–230, regionalism 36, 56–57; inter-
232–233, 235–236 regionalism after Brexit 180–183; stress
Hungary 81, 83–87, 91–92 factors 153–156
Latin American Free Trade Association
IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) 24, 53 (LAFTA) 187, 197–198
identity and identity politics: African Law and Justice (PiS) party 18, 84, 86,
regionalism 214; migration 72; Pacific 90, 92
Alliance 157, 160; regionalism and 6, leadership: Common Security and
29, 37–42; as stress factor 23 Defense Policy 108–109; comparative
Ikenberry, John 198 regionalism 196; European Union
Indonesia 234 177–178, 183; Latin America 155, 175;
institutions: ASEAN 225–230; citizens’ Pacific Alliance 159; regional
perspective 75–77; institutional organizations (ROs) 29; UNASUR
elasticity 193; Latin America 155; 137–138
MERCOSUR 123–124; reforms Lefkofridi, Zoe 195
following crises 69–74; supply and legal structure of European Union
demand 29 68–69
interdependence: Latin America 174–175; levels of coordination/collaboration 3,
levels of 173; regionalism and 35–37, 26, 67
41–42 Liberal group (ALDE) 84
intergovernmentalism: Africa 214; “Lima Group” 138, 161
defining 21; European Union 26, Lisbon Treaty 69, 99–102
77–78; integration and 140–141; Latin López Obrador, Andrés Manuel 161
America 154–155, 172, 173, 191,
199–200; Pacific Alliance 158 Macapagal-Arroyo, Gloria 235
international crisis 198 Macron, Emmanuel 41, 103, 109, 176,
inter-presidentialism 155, 160–161, 191 177–178
inter-regionalism: after Brexit 180–183; Mahathir Mohamad 236
changing balance of power 171; EU- Malamud, Andrés 137, 189
LAC partnership 183–184; pure inter- Malaysia 236
regionalism 180–181, 184 Marks, Gary 37–38
intraregional trade 215–216 Mearsheimer, John J. 49
Ireland 72–73 MERCOSUR (Southern Cone
Islamophobia 23 Common Market): overview 119–120;
Index 245
citizenship 122; common market Obama, Barack 54, 231–232, 238
120–122; Conference of the Home oceans and regional orders: overview
Secretaries 125; economic goals 49–51; Atlantic Ocean 49–50
174–175; European Union and 181; open regionalism 133, 138–139, 156,
health 123–124; interdependence and 157–158
regionalism 36; Latin American Orbán, Victor 18, 84–86
regionalism 56–57, 172; mimetic Organization of African Unity (OAU)
regionalism 179; protection of 38, 211
democracy 126; Protocol of Organization of American States (OAS)
Montevideo 126; Protocol of Ushuaia 161, 174, 197
126; Residence Agreement 122; organizational crisis 198–199
security and defense 124–126; social overlapping regionalism 57–58, 139,
policies and human rights 122–124; 153–154, 174, 183, 217–218
stress factors 126–127; Venezuela
197Merkel, Angela 109–110 Pacific Alliance (PA): overview 150–153;
migration: Arab Spring 17–18; ASEAN Business Council (Consejo Empresarial)
228; Common Security and Defense 153; impact of EU crises 179–180;
Policy 105; identity politics 40–41; Inter-Parliamentary Monitoring
MERCOSUR 121–122; rise of Commission of the Pacific Alliance
nationalism and 71–72; stress factors 23; (Comisión Interparlamentaria de
visa requirements 153 Seguimiento a la Alianza del Pacífico)
military: Brexit and 102–103; ECOWAS 152; Latin American regionalism
218–219; European power 106, 56–57, 174; members 151;
107–108; solidarity and aggression MERCOSUR and 121, 127–128;
100–101; war on drugs and 140 Latin American Integrated Market
minilateralism 51–56, 60, 155–156, 182 (MILA) 153; observers 151, 161–162;
MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, stress factors 156–162
Turkey) 24 Pan-Africanism 211, 212–213
mobility of goods/services 120–122, 157 Pan-American Health Organization
Mogherini, Federica 103, 104 (PAHO) 123
monetary unions: Africa 212, 217–218; partisan politics: activating Article 7, TEU
citizens’ perspective 75; Eurozone crisis 82, 84–86, 88; Latin America 155
16; Eurozone history 69–71; identity peace initiatives 37, 39, 100, 104–106,
politics 39 125, 211–212, 213, 214
Monnet, Jean 25, 195 Philippines 235
multidimensionality 138–139, 141, 212 PiS (Law and Justice Party) 18, 84, 86,
multilateralism 51–56, 59–60, 134–135, 90, 92
136, 138–139 Poland 81, 84, 85, 87, 90, 92
multipolarity 24, 48–51, 59–60, 153–154 political challenges: African reforms
Muñoz, Heraldo 191, 193 212–213; ASEAN states 234–236; in
European Union 195; instability and
nationalism: European Union 74; identity UNASUR 141–142; migration 71–72;
politics 40–41, 42; migration and 71–72 stress factors 23–24
neo-functionalism 21, 25, 175, 188 pooling of sovereignty 35–36, 56
Nigeria 219 populism: ASEAN states 234–235;
nontariff barriers 157–158, 215–216 European Union 18, 74; identity
North American Free Trade Agreement politics 40–41, 42; Lisbon Treaty and
(NAFTA): economic goals 174; 101–102; as stress factor 24
identity politics 41; interdependence Portugal 73
and regionalism 36; mimetic post-colonial states 38–39
regionalism 179 post-functionalism 21–22
North Atlantic Treaty Organization post-globalization 136
(NATO) 20, 49, 106, 107–108 post-hegemonic norms 138–139
246 Index
post-hegemonic regionalism 175, 190 rule of law crisis: overview 81–82; the
power shifts: ASEAN and 230–236; Commission 81, 89–93; the Council
decline of European Union 181–182; 86–89; decision-making rules 82–83;
emerging powers 24; European Union European Parliament 81–82, 83–86
183; post-Brexit 178; secondary powers Russia 17, 98
58; as stress factor 24
preferential trade agreements 154 S&D group see Progressive Alliance of
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Socialists and Democrats (S&D)
Democrats (S&D) 85 SACU (Southern African Customs
protectionism 135, 136, 219 Union) 58, 217
public attitudes: to European Union 67, SADC (Southern African Development
73, 74–77; to political integration 105 Community) 36, 58, 213, 217
public goods, rule of law as 88 SADCC (Southern African Development
Coordination Conference) 217
rally-round-the-flag effect 91–92 sanctions: domestic effects of 91–92; rule
Razak, Najib 236 of law crisis 83, 88
refugees 17–18, 23, 26, 40–41 Schäuble, Wolfgang 17, 73
regional architecture 3 Schengen Area “migration crisis” 17–18, 26
Regional Comprehensive Economic Schmitter, Philippe C. 57, 188, 189, 195
Partnership (RCEP) 228 scope of integration 2, 25, 26–27
Regional Economic Communities secondary powers: downgrading
(RECs) 211, 212, 213–214 regionalism 56–59; reducing
regional governance 3 dependency on large powers 156–157;
regional integration: analyzing crises UNASUR 137–138
198–200; cooperation or 2–3; defining sectoral (dis)integration 25, 199
172; delegation of authority 35–36; security and defense: African regionalism
European theory 187–190, 191–192; 214; African Union (AU) 211–212;
European Union 19, 177–178; ASEAN 230, 231–232; challenges after
MERCOSUR 119 Brexit 104–110; European Union
regional organizations (ROs): Africa 178; identity politics 39;
211–212; citizens’ perspective 209, interdependence and regionalism 37;
210; disintegration and resilience MERCOSUR 124–125; migration and
26–29; importance of 35; Latin 17–18; Pacific Alliance 160; provisions
America 174–175, 189; prior research of the Treaty of Lisbon 99–102; stress
5–6; regionalization and 59; factors 23, 29; turn towards 98–99,
Venezuelan crisis 197–198 102–104; UNASUR 139–140
regionalism: African 209–212; analytical separatist/secessionist movements
framework 6–7; comparative 3–6; 18–19, 23
concepts and research 2–3; current SICA (Central American Integration
challenges 1–2; defining 172; health of System) 179, 181
34–36; identity politics and 37–41; single markets 69, 215, 225, 227
interdependence and 35–36; Latin solidarity 100–101
American and European compared South American Council on the World
171–180; mimetic regionalism 171, Drug Problem (SACWDP) 140
178–180, 213–214; see also crises of South Asian Association of Cooperation
regionalism (SAARC) 36
regionalization 5–6, 59, 127, 154, 172 South Atlantic interdependence 49–50
regions: characteristics of 5–6, 29, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation
126–127; defining 2 Zone (ZOPACAS) 50
resilience: ASEAN 223; of EU institutions South China Sea conflict 230, 232
67–74, 77–78; non-European regional Southeast Asian Treaty Organization 231
organizations 27–29; regionalism and 6 Southern African Customs Union
Romania 84 (SACU) 58, 217
Index 247
Southern African Development Tsipras, Alexis 73
Community (SADC) 36, 58, 213, 217 Turkey 72
Southern African Development
Coordination Conference UEMOA see West African Economic and
(SADCC) 217 Monetary Union (UEMOA)
Southern Cone Common Market see Ukraine 17, 23, 26
MERCOSUR (Southern Cone UNASUR see Union of South American
Common Market) Nations (UNASUR)
sovereignty: boosting or pooling 57; unilateralism 135, 139
integration and 140–141; Latin Union of South American Nations
America 175, 191; post-Brexit 197; (UNASUR): overview 133–134,
UNASUR 133 144–145; domestic stress factors
Spain 73 140–143; identity politics 38; Latin
stock markets 153 American regionalism 56, 57, 172,
stress factors: overview 15–16; European 174–175; regional stress factors
Union 68–74; impact on regionalism 137–140; systemic stress factors
25–30; Latin America 153–156; 134–136; withdrawal of states 150
MERCOSUR 126–127; Pacific United Kingdom: Common Security and
Alliance 159–162; taxonomy of 21–25; Defense Policy 107–109;
UNASUR 134–144 exceptionalism 176, 177; power shifts
sub-regionalization 191, 216 182; see also Brexit
“Sudamexit” 197–198 United Nations: Climate Change
supranational integration 172, 175–176, Conference 53–56; as model 214
188–189, 191 United States: balance of power 230–233;
challenging 143; climate change 55–56;
Tajani, Antonio 85 identity politics 38, 41; Latin America
tariffs 20, 120–121, 136, 152, and 139–140, 155–156, 173, 179;
215–216, 227 UNASUR and 135
terrorism 18, 23, 75, 100, 105, 125; Paris United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
Terror attacks 102 (USMCA) 36
Thatcher, Margaret 104–105
theory: approaches to ASEAN 224–225; value chains 47–48, 56, 60, 121, 136
European theory 187–190, 191–192; Venezuela: impact on regional
lack of general 3; Latin American organizations 197–198; MERCOSUR
approaches 190–192 and 119, 124, 127–128; Pacific Alliance
trade: African regionalism 214–216; and 161
ASEAN 227, 228; geography and 47, vertical (dis)integration 26, 199
51; interdependence and regionalism veto powers 87, 140–141, 154–155
36–37; Latin America 56–57, 155, 173; Vogt, Margaret 213
MERCOSUR 120; Pacific Alliance
152, 154, 157, 160; trade wars 136; Waszczykowski, Witold 90
United Kingdom 182 Webber, Douglas 25–26, 196, 199
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Weber, Manfred 84, 85
Partnership (TTIP) 20 West African Economic and Monetary
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 58, 135, Union (UEMOA) 217
162, 232, 233 Widodo, Joko 234, 235
trans-regionalism 53, 182
Trump, Donald 19–20, 41, 98, 156,
232–233 Yudhoyono, Bambang Susilo 234, 235

(Routledge Global Institutions Series) Detlef Nolte, Brigitte Weiffen - Regionalism Under Stress - Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective-Routledge (2020)

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(Routledge Global Institutions Series) Detlef Nolte, Brigitte Weiffen - Regionalism Under Stress - Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective-Routledge (2020)

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Regionalism Under Stress

Edited by Thomas G. Weiss

About the series

Edited by Detlef Nolte and

ISBN: 978-1-138-33763-3 (hbk)

Introduction: regionalism under stress 1

1 Stress factors and their impact on regionalism 15

2 Regionalism under stress: a comparative perspective 34

3 Multipolarity is in, multilateralism out: rising minilateralism and the

4 Constructing integration: resilience and political innovation in the EU 67

5 Facing the rule of law crisis within the European Union 81

7 Mercosur between resilience and disintegration 119

8 UNASUR on the edge 133

9 The Paciﬁc Alliance: regionalism without stress? 150

10 EU–LAC relations after Brexit: regionalism and inter-regionalism

12 Regionalism in sub-Saharan Africa: structural constraints and African

13 Regionalism in distress: is ASEAN coping with global crises and power

In Europe and Latin America, regionalism is under stress. While the

Regionalism generally refers to “the formation of interstate associations or

Figure I.1 Analytical framework.

buttresses regionalism, whereas fault lines tend to be divisive. Second,

Outline of the volume

The EU in crisis: the end of a model?

A taxonomy of stress factors

The EU on a path toward disintegration?

Regional organizations between disintegration and resilience

the idea of resilience stresses resistance to, and/or capacity to recover

In their view, resilience is “a bit more than mere survival.” It is a dynamic

STRESS FACTORS REGION IMPACT

Socio-cultural challenges Supply:

Power shis Identy:

Figure 1.1 Impact of stress factors on regionalism.

Regionalism: alive and kicking

Explaining regionalism: between demand and supply15

High EU NAFTA East Asia

Figure 2.1 Interdependence and regionalism, 2010.

Regionalism and identity politics

Regionalism under stress: it’s identity, stupid!

The international order is shifting. Deepening geopolitical rivalries—

The emerging structure of world politics: centrifugal multipolarity

The strategy of larger powers: minilateralism rather than

Minilateralism is not new.37 The Concert of Europe, also known as the

The strategy of secondary powers: the downgrading of

Stress factors facing the EU and the resilience of its institutions

The Eurozone crisis

The migration crisis and the rise of nationalism

Trends toward disintegration

The EU from the citizens’ perspective

The emergence of populist governments with an agenda of illiberal

Decision-making rules in Article 7

Stage Situation Initiative Decision- Eﬀects

Source: Author’s elaboration.

The right of initiative of the EP is limited to the preventive stage, whilst

The European Parliament

Preference for infringement procedures

The scope of Article 7 is not conﬁned to areas covered by Union law.

In short, the Commission’s understanding of Article 7 TEU is that it is not

Commission anticipation of the eﬀects of its actions

Anticipation of support in the Council

a very broad majority of Member States supported the Commission’s role

Undesired domestic eﬀects of sanctioning strategies

The compliance dilemma

By the time British people voted in favor of Brexit in a historic referendum