Regionalism and presidential ideology in the current wave of Latin American integration

Latin American regionalism is currently undergoing a profound crisis. Although the recent wave of regionalism of the early 21st century raised high expectations just a few years ago, it has suffered some important drawbacks since, as illustrated by the suspension of Venezuela from Mercosur in 2017 or the debacle of the Union of South American Nations in April 2018. Regional integration theories extrapolated from the European case struggle to account for the short cycles of integration dynamics in Latin America. Against this background, this article emphasizes two important aspects of Latin American regionalism that differentiate Latin America from other regions and explain some of the swift changes experienced over the last decades. First, because of the presidential nature of diplomacy in the region, integration relies more on the success of summits and joint declarations than on longer-term institutional diplomacy. Second, ideology is an essential factor of integration, as opposed to a vision of regionalism based primarily on material interests. Hence, the success and failure of regional integration are partly explained by the convergence of presidential ideologies among member states in a given organization. Based on an expert survey on the evolution of presidential ideology in 15 Latin American countries since the beginning of the 21st century and complemented by a structured discourse analysis, the article explores the importance of ideological coherence in the success – and lack thereof – of four regional organizations (the Pacific Alliance, Mercosur, the Andean Community and the Union of South American Nations). It also illustrates the salience of ideological arguments in presidential discourses on regional integration. These elements shed new light on the ideological factor in the current crisis of Latin American regionalism.