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Setting the Regional Agenda: A Critique of Posthegemonic Regionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2018

Mark Petersen  and
Carsten-Andreas Schulz
Mark Petersen*
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of history at the University of Dallas
Carsten-Andreas Schulz*
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of international relations at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
*
mpetersen@udallas.edu
caschulz@uc.cl
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Abstract

There is a growing scholarly consensus that Latin American regionalism has entered a new phase. For some observers, the increasing complexity of regional cooperation initiatives renders collective action ineffective. For others, the creation of new schemes signals a “posthegemonic” moment that has opened a space for collaboration on social issues. Both camps attribute this shift to the absence of the United States and the presence of left-leaning governments. By contrast, this study demonstrates that this agenda is not new, nor has the United States impeded similar initiatives in the past. In fact, the United States was instrumental in expanding regional cooperation on social issues in the early twentieth century. Instead, this article argues that agenda shifts are best explained by an evolving consensus about the role of the state. The “new agenda” is in line with historical attempts by governments to use regionalism to bolster their own domestic reforms.

Keywords

Posthegemonic regionalismLatin Americaagenda settingsocial policystate capacity
Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 102 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 University of Miami 

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