Regional governance and legitimacy in South America: the meaning of UNASUR
Regional governance and legitimacy in South America: the meaning of UNASUR
This article examines new forms of politically sensitive governance defining regionalism in South America. It shows how contemporary South American regionalism bypasses the questions of trade and investment that dominated earlier schemes of regionalism in order to focus on shoring up democracy and managing the regional social deficit. The paper explores UNASUR’s actions in two policy areas: supporting the regional democratic norm and health policy. We argue that UNASUR is significant because it upholds democracy and promotes welfare policy. Yet, it is developing a hybrid form of output-focused legitimacy that rests on a combination of a commitment to welfare promotion for the poor and the pursuit of collective public goods, alongside a robust defence of quite minimal but uncontroversial standards of procedural democracy across the region. The analysis challenges the view that regionalism has failed in South America and identifies instead the emergence of a new sort of highly political regionalism. We call for UNASUR to be taken more seriously in the literature on comparative regionalism.
781-797
Riggirozzi, Pia
ed3be4f8-37e7-46a2-8242-f6495d727c22
Grugel, Jean
11807d62-c315-4527-a3dd-d5f135f2d307
15 July 2015
Riggirozzi, Pia
ed3be4f8-37e7-46a2-8242-f6495d727c22
Grugel, Jean
11807d62-c315-4527-a3dd-d5f135f2d307
Riggirozzi, Pia and Grugel, Jean
(2015)
Regional governance and legitimacy in South America: the meaning of UNASUR.
International Affairs, 91 (4), .
(doi:10.1111/1468-2346.12340).
Abstract
This article examines new forms of politically sensitive governance defining regionalism in South America. It shows how contemporary South American regionalism bypasses the questions of trade and investment that dominated earlier schemes of regionalism in order to focus on shoring up democracy and managing the regional social deficit. The paper explores UNASUR’s actions in two policy areas: supporting the regional democratic norm and health policy. We argue that UNASUR is significant because it upholds democracy and promotes welfare policy. Yet, it is developing a hybrid form of output-focused legitimacy that rests on a combination of a commitment to welfare promotion for the poor and the pursuit of collective public goods, alongside a robust defence of quite minimal but uncontroversial standards of procedural democracy across the region. The analysis challenges the view that regionalism has failed in South America and identifies instead the emergence of a new sort of highly political regionalism. We call for UNASUR to be taken more seriously in the literature on comparative regionalism.
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e-pub ahead of print date: 15 July 2015
Published date: 15 July 2015
Organisations:
Politics & International Relations
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Local EPrints ID: 376962
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/376962
ISSN: 0020-5850
PURE UUID: 5bd931f8-80f8-4101-a8a3-d74e48d7b3ab
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Date deposited: 18 May 2015 10:36
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:16
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Author:
Jean Grugel
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