Since WWII, there have been many efforts at creating a unified Latin American region through different regional trade integration attempts. The organizations that arose can be classified by their founding ideologies. The import substitution model of development, for example, postulated that economic development could only be achieved through a government-led process of internal industrialization and the development of regional markets. Until developed enough to compete internationally, infant industries would have to be protected from competition through regulation.
After the failure of the import substitution model, most Latin American countries abandoned it in the 1980s and replaced it with its complete opposite: the so-called Washington Consensus. MERCOSUR and the Andean Group were two such efforts, which failed to achieve promises made under the Washington Consensus’s free trade model. Structural problems and changing political tides left these organizations unable to achieve their goals of increasing regional free trade.
The election of populist leftwing presidents in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela at the beginning of the twenty-first century ushered in a new model of integration intended to increase economic development in an equitable fashion, the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (“ÄLBA”) and the South American Union (“UNASUR”). Despite their different ideologies and missions, both ALBA and UNASUR shared much with their predecessors.
The ideological basis for ALBA appears to have originated in a speech by Fidel Castro in 1997. He asserted that the neoliberal model of economic development and infrastructure was merely a confirmation of the economic exploitation and resulting inequalities within the lesser developed countries of Latin America. To quell this exploitation and inequality, the neoliberal system had to be replaced by a new order based on justice and peace, which required structural economic change from individual nations, based on mutual assistance and collaboration. ALBA sought the transformation of Latin American societies, making them more just, participative, and united through the enactment of various principles and a general framework. Over time, ALBA leadership attempted to refine their goals with little success. ALBA, like many Latin American integration organizations, sowed the seeds of its own decline by failing to create any real supranational institutions, which would have engendered an institutional framework and personality, and which would have implemented its agenda. It was, instead, an entity whose agenda and decisions depended on the presidents of its member states. ALBA, therefore, became a creature of presidential summitry where any action was dependent on leaders’ willingness to implement its decisions. A failure of the presidents to agree resulted in no action. PETROCARIBE, an agreement signed at a summit of Caribbean nations, further diluted ALBA’s goals.
Another effort was UNASUR. Modeled after the European Union, it sought to establish full economic, political, and monetary unity in South America. Several issues prevented UNASUR from achieving its goals, such as differing political agendas amongst member states and major structural issues, leading to UNASUR, like ALBA, ultimately failing. The structures of the various councils enacted by UNASUR and their lack of institutional framework made them ineffective.
The failures of both ALBA and UNASUR to achieve their goals or even survive underscores several important lessons for economic integration organizations. First, ALBA and UNASUR show that founding a regional integration organization based on a particular theory of economic development is not a good idea. The survival of such an organization depends on the successful application and implementation of the theory to realities on the ground. Second, placing all decision-making power in the hands of the presidents of member states, as in ALBA and UNASUR, is also not a recipe for success. The presidents have little time, in a once-a-year meeting, to do more than agree on “big picture” policies. Third, an integration organization must be able to highlight a track record of specific achievements. States will participate in the work of an international organization only if they see concrete benefits. Fourth, to achieve their goals, regional integration organizations must have an effective institutional structure where separate supranational institutions with clear areas of competence and authority work together to formulate the organizational agenda, implement its programs, and ensure its norms are complied with by member states. Lastly, disputes between the organization and a member state, or between member states, are likely to arise. To resolve them, the organization must have a functional dispute resolution and enforcement mechanism. Neither ALBA nor UNSAUR had such a dispute resolution or enforcement mechanism.
For all of these reasons, both ALBA and UNASUR were doomed to fail.
The full article in its original form can be found here.
Rafael Porrata-Doria, Jr. is a law professor at Temple University. His courses include Business Associations, Securities Regulation, International Commercial Transactions, Comparative Law, Contracts, Contract Remedies, Corporate Law, Law of the European Union, International Trade and Investment, Advanced Securities Regulation, and other courses in international and business law.