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Regionalism Under Stress: Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective
No full textRegionalism is under stress. The European Union has been challenged by the Eurozone crisis, refugee flows, terrorist attacks, Euroscepticism, and Brexit. In Latin America, regional cooperation has been stagnating.
Studying Europe and Latin America within a broader comparative perspective, this volume provides an analytical framework to assess stress factors facing regionalism. The contributors explore how economic and financial crises, security challenges, identity questions raised by immigration and refugee flows, the rise of populism, and shifting regional and global power dynamics have had an impact on regionalism; whether the EU crisis has had repercussions for regionalisms in other parts of the world; and to what extent the impact of stress factors is mediated by characteristics of the region that may provide elements of resilience.
Written by specialists from Europe and Latin America with a shared interest in the new field of comparative regionalism, this book will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars and policy specialists in regional integration, European politics, EU studies, Latin American studies, and international relations and international law more generally
Stress factors and their impact on regionalism
Full text linkThis chapter sets the stage for a comparative assessment of the crisis of regionalism in Europe, Latin America, and beyond. Taking the multidimensional crisis of the European Union as starting point, the first part of the chapter takes stock of and systematizes the stress factors that may affect regional integration and cooperation. The second part of the chapter explores the potential impact of stress factors on regionalism. Analogous to the first part, it reviews the debates about the EU’s potential disintegration and then moves on to present generalizable assumptions. I argue that stress factors do not automatically entail disintegration and fragmentation. Depending on pre-existing characteristics of the affected region, stress factors might be mitigated by elements of resilience that ensure the continuity of regionalism or may even strengthen it
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China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Curse or Blessing for Democracy in Eurasia?
Full text linkThis chapter sets the stage for the debates addressed in this volume’s special section on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its effects on democratization or autocratization processes in recipient countries and societies since its establishment in 2013. After providing a brief overview of the expansion of the BRI and Chinese influence in Eurasia, it subsequently reviews core assumptions and preliminary findings on the implications of the BRI for the political regime type in countries across Eurasia that receive BRI investments. Furthermore, it gives an outlook on the contributions to the special section and outlines questions for future research on the political effects of the BRI
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The Belt and Road Initiative and Autocracy Promotion as Elements of China’s Grand Strategy
Full text linkThis chapter analyses the role of autocracy promotion in China’s grand strategy and the role of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in this context. Both the BRI and autocracy promotion can be considered tools Beijing uses to undermine the liberal international order. China does not engage in obvious activities to export its political system. Rather, its efforts are aimed at preventing the spread of Western democracy in its immediate vicinity, with the aims of guaranteeing the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, and ultimately, undermining the liberal values at the heart of the current international order. The BRI has a dual role in realising China’s grand strategy: it expands Beijing’s power projection and strengthens autocracy in its sphere of influence
Institutional Overlap and Responses to Political Crises in South America
No full textThe current regional security architecture in South America is characterized by a proliferation of institutions. Most regional organizations have by now adopted mechanisms to respond to domestic political crises and unconstitutional changes of government. This chapter studies whether overlapping mandates and activities in the management of political crises are harmful or beneficial for regional cooperation. The first part theorizes the effects of overlap on member states’ strategies, regional organizations’ interaction patterns, and the policy outcome. The second part explores overlapping democracy clauses in South America and analyzes six episodes where OAS, MERCOSUR, and/or UNASUR have simultaneously taken action in defense of democracy. The results show that, in the face of power shifts and competitive inter-organizational dynamics, overlapping actions by regional organizations might jeopardize the norms they set out to protect
Introduction: Regionalism under stress
Full text linkRegionalism is under stress in Europe and Latin America. The European Union, while still coping with the Eurozone crisis, has been facing additional challenges, such as conflicts in its neighborhood, the massive influx of refugees, an increasing frequency of terrorist attacks, the electoral success of Eurosceptic parties, and the Brexit referendum. In Latin America, regional cooperation stagnates due to economic problems in major countries, a lack of regional leadership, and ideological conflicts which led to a standoff in important regional organizations. Our project studied current challenges and constraints facing regionalism in different parts of the world. In particular, it investigated stress factors and their interaction with characteristics of the region. This introduction defines central concepts, situates the book in the burgeoning field of research on comparative regionalism, presents the analytical framework, and offers an overview of the individual contributions
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Securitization and Democracy in Eurasia
Full text linkThis open-access book presents cutting-edge research on securitization and democratic development in the OSCE Region. Gathering contributions by practitioners and researchers from various disciplines, it presents case studies and highlights recent activities of proactive engagement in democratic institution-building and responding to security threats from the Balkans to Central Asia. The volume is divided into three parts, the first of which focuses on security-related matters, armed conflicts, minorities, and women’s safety, as well as the roles that civil society, foreign governments, social media, and external donors play in this area. These contributions illustrate how the OSCE’s informal approach to peace, security, and securitization as norm entrepreneur is closely linked to the level of democracy among its member states. The second part presents a special section on the political implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), assessing the impact of this infrastructural program on the levels of democracy and/or autocracy in Eurasia. The third part consists of short chapters outlining future research and debates. The book will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, security studies, and the human rights-politics nexus.
This is the 2022 instalment in a series of books released by the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. The OSCE works to promote Minority Protection, Security, Democratic Development and Human Rights, guided by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and to enhance securitization and development policies in Eurasia, Europe, Central Asia and North America. Since being founded in 1993, the OSCE and its agencies and departments have attracted a wealth of academic research in various fields and disciplines, ranging from economic development and election monitoring to enhancing global principles of human rights and securitization
Re-Thinking Latin American Regional Security: The Impact of Power and Politic
No full textLatin American security is still viewed through a Cold War lens. Yet, the regional scenario has changed since then and is characterized by developments like the disengagement of the United States, the emergence of ‘regional powers’, the creation of ever more multilateral security institutions, and new interpretations of the concepts of regionalism and regional integration. We argue that we cannot understand the management of security challenges without accounting for regional and global power shifts and political dynamics. Therefore, the introductory chapter presents an analytical framework to assess the impact of global and regional power shifts on the regional governance of specific security challenges such as interstate disputes, internal political violence, terrorism, drug-trafficking, and illegal migration. It will also give an outlook on how the different contributions substantiate our argument
Power Dynamics and Regional Security in Latin America
No full textExplores the repercussions of world politics on Latin American regional security.
Studies the emergence of new and overlapping regional organizations.
Brings together contributions from Latin American, North American and European experts and introduces to an international audience several Latin American specialists whose work so far has mainly been published in Spanish or Portuguese
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Uma comparação entre as normas democráticas regionais na Europa e na América do Sul: Tipos e objetivos
Full text linkEm 1948, a Organização dos Estados Americanos adotou a democracia como uma norma comum e, em 1949, o Conselho da Europa se tornou a primeira organização a criar um mecanismo de suspensão dos Estados que se apresentassem comportamento não democrático. Desde o fim da Guerra Fria podemos observar uma proliferação na adoção formal de normas comuns relacionadas a valores democráticos juntamente com a criação de mecanismos institucionais para sua proteção e promoção, em um número crescente de organizações regionais (ORs) em todo o mundo. Este capítulo tem como objetivo identificar padrões e levantar questões sobre a força do compromisso das organizações regionais com a democracia, avaliando e comparando o estado atual das normas democráticas regionais na Europa e na América Latina. Para isso, apresentamos uma tipologia de normas democráticas regionais e mapeamos sua adoção por diferentes ORs na Europa e na América Latina. Em seguida focamos especialmente a União Europeia (UE) e o Mercado Comum do Sul (Mercosul) por serem organizações cujas normas democráticas evoluíram significativamente ao longo do tempo, explicando por que esses avanços ocorreram e analisando as principais semelhanças e diferenças entre elas.
In 1948, the Organization of American States endorsed democracy as a common norm, and in 1949, the Council of Europe became the first organization to provide for the possibility of suspending states that engage in undemocratic behavior. Since the end of the Cold War, a growing number of regional organizations (ROs) around the world have followed these pioneers in formally embracing democracy as a common norm and adopting institutionalized mechanisms to promote and protect it. This chapter assesses and compares the current state of regional democratic norms in Europe and Latin America, focusing particularly on South America. We present a typology of regional democratic norms and map their adoption by different ROs in Europe and Latin America with different objectives, with the aim of identifying patterns and raising questions about the strength of their commitment to democracy. We focus in particular on the European Union (EU) and the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) as organizations whose democratic norms have evolved significantly over time, explaining why these advances have taken place and analyzing the main similarities and differences between them
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