Ondas e Marés no Cone Sul : o Mercosul em meio à ascensão de um novo tipo de regionalismo

Abstract

South American regionalism has been through many transformations in the past thirty years. At the center of this phenomenon, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) emerges as an important and energizing institution for the regional practices in the Southern Cone, including important regional economies, such as Brazil and Argentina. It’s interesting to observe Mercosur through its resilience and adaptability to different steps of regionalism, going back to its original conception aligned to free trade, running through a stage with social and autonomous politics until, at last, the contemporaneity, which challenges the bloc in political and economic terms. With the help of the conceptual framework about “Liquid Regionalism”, it is observed the characteristics of a new regional conjecture, defined by short lasting and flexible arrangements. The following paper intends to investigate the implications of new regional political movements and how they reflected on Mercosur’s activities, for that, it is supported by a robust literature review that will understand the historical and institutional sense of the bloc. From that, the paper draws the characteristics that constitute the contemporary, as it is called, Mercosur’s profile.