The twenty-first century has witnessed a change of era in Latin American regional governance projects. Those projects seek—explicitly or implicitly—to reduce the influence of countries north of the Rio Grande in political, economic and social processes and outcomes in the region.
With these regional policy initiatives has come a new academic focus on diplomacy and regional integration. In a field loaded with studies and analyses that focus on U.S. hegemony and U.S. foreign policy, often at the expense of understanding regional dynamics and inter-state relations, this new field of inquiry is a welcome—if a little overdue—development.
In fact regionalism can be seen as a problem or as a solution In Latin America, it depends on your point of view. Because it has resulted in a policy of regional integration into globalization through a more dynamic market economy with the aim of building closer ties with third parties, as well as defending Western democratic regimes. These initiatives have begun to converge with neoliberal policies that are quite visible in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia through privatizations of state-owned enterprises, economic deregulation and unilateral liberalization of foreign trade.
