The Union of South American Nations and the Latin American integration: Proposal for a new model of post-liberal regionalism

Abstract

The stagnation and failure of open Latin American regionalism is explained –among other reasons- because it mainly pointed to the reduction of the member states, preventing its consolidation. A model of gradual and flexible integration led to the consolidation of the South American States that fosters trust and is conducive to the resolution of the historical and common regional issues and is presented as a possible model for South American integration. From what we call in this paper “virtuous circle model”, we demonstrate how the events in the region since the creation of the Union of South American Nations in 2008, especially since internal crisis in Bolivia and the controversy generated by the presence of US military in Colombia, are favorable scenarios for the functional legitimacy of this new post-liberal integration attempt.