Regionalism, Development and the Post-Commodities Boom in South America

Ernesto Vivares

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9783319625508
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319625515
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is a critical and multidisciplinary IPE of the unequal structures of South American development and uneven insertions in the global order following the decline of the commodities boom.  The work explores the extent to which regional development issues are related to merely a decline of commodities´ prices and/or to the resilience of the historical structures within an unequal world order. Thus, the authors seek first to analytically explore the regional issues beyond the formal limitations of North American and Eurocentric approaches. Secondly, they empirically scrutinize the complex dimensions of regional inequality and global insertions. Aspects analysed include economic reprimarization, the impact of China, development finance, trade and regional value chains, knowledge and technology, regional and transnational organised crime, cities, economic integration and the Global South.

© The Author(s) 2018

Ernesto Vivares (ed.)Regionalism, Development and the Post-Commodities Boom in South AmericaInternational Political Economy Serieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62551-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. The IPE Puzzle of Regional Inequality, Instability, and the Global Insertion of South America

Ernesto Vivares¹

(1)

Department of International Studies, FLACSO Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador

Ernesto Vivares

End Abstract

This book is about the IPE of the unequal and the unstable structures of South American regional development and their uneven links with the global order after the decline of the commodities boom. The book explores the extent to which the South American development concerns are related to the decline of commodities and/or the historical political structures of unequal development and international insertion . The specific aim of this collection is to open up regional research agenda through multidisciplinary and eclectic approaches to critical and empirical study of the region, beyond the limitations of North American and European approaches. As Söderbaum points out, “the problem is not … theory and practice per se [of North American and European approaches] but … a particular reading of [those] formal and state-centric models” (2000: 1). The assumption here is that the regionalisms of the Global South , cannot be studied and evaluated as variations of those models. Rather, South American regionalism requires that that we pay attention to its specificities, dilemmas, paradoxes, and contradictions of development as well as its unsteady structures of insertion in a dynamic world order . Second, this book contends that regionalism , regionalization , and region are not by themselves “benign” or “positive”, and that, instead, regionalism can be formal, informal, non-state, and even malignant regionalization such as is observed in many regions (Taylor 2005; Duffield 2001).

This book takes issue with the normative stance of approaches around unrevised assumptions of formal, actor-oriented, institutionalized politics, and neoclassical economic views. Instead, the work here aims to undertake a multidisciplinary, eclectic research endeavor, through the voices of mainly South American scholars who offer a critique of the mainstream stance on IPE of regionalism . It does not set out to undertake an exhaustive account of the issues of the region, but seeks rather to open up the regional research debate. Briefly, this collection develops theoretical and methodological approaches, and lays out a set of empirical studies of the South American region at this particular, complex, and challenging historical moment. It is about theory and research in the IPE of the Southern Cone of the Americas, and critical and eclectical reflection upon the unequal and uneven structures of regional development and global insertion, which have historically been defined. It also provides a set of empirical multidisciplinary studies, as each section focuses on a selected sample of some of the key structures of unequal and uneven South American development. The claim here is that the new South American regionalism is a central case towards understanding the LA IPE of regionalism and development in a changing world order . Accordingly, this book is not about the progressist features or successes of the Pink Tide or the rise of AP but upon their regional reconfiguration, development setbacks, and global insertions and in doing so, it is about the South American structures of unequal regional development within a complex world order .

This chapter serves as an introduction to the theories and methodological approaches that underpin the book. The first section sets out the analytical concepts that cut across the fields of IPE and regional studies about South America in order to respond to a central question. That is, if regional development in the South is defined by commodity prices cycles, which the region is failing to achieve convergence in prosperity as in industrialized countries, or if regional structures of development and international insertion have keep it from reaching wellbeing and growth. The section seeks to broaden and link IPE and regionalist interpretations in terms of formal, informal regional development, and international insertion . The second section sets the historical methodological lines of the LA IPE, its features and contributions to the central regional issues of inequality and international insertion with the world order , its central assumptions and premises of its varied perspectives. On the basis of this, the section deploys the concept of unequal structures of regional development and international insertion . These are understood as the contextual and historical developmental configurations (ideas, institutions, and material conditions) at the very basis of inequality, instability, and external insertion. The third section is based on the methodological notion of conceptual cages , which often bias research, or reduce it to rational reductionism. In total, the section identifies and discusses five conceptual cages . The final section analytically outlines the three most important IPEs in LA concerning the interpretation of South America as a region within a changing world order .

Commodities Boom or Unequal Structures Development?

During the last decade, we witnessed promising claims about the rapid rise of the Global South , with South America and Africa leading, with unprecedented levels of growth and reduction of poverty (World Bank 2015). The new global and regional reconfigurations arrived with optimistic assertions concerning a post-hegemonic, post-neoliberal, and multipolar order thanks to BRICS /CIVETS/MINT/MIST/VISTA, emerging markets and regions (Shaw, Chap. 14 in this book). The two regions provide necessary comparative cases, showing similar flawed neoliberal narratives underscored by optimism of alternative development paradigms, within a world order dominated by neoliberal economics, institutionalized globalization , and liberal peace-war (ibid.). However, the new global divide was marked by normative and progressive assumptions, sustaining imprecise categories, bearing different political and normative interpretations upon the future, despite their real achievements. South America was at the forefront of experiments with alternatives to neoliberalism ; 56 million people came out of poverty , 20 million stepped out of extreme poverty, and an historical reduction in income inequality and democratic stability followed, where evident. However, with still nearly half of the population at risk of falling into poverty (UNDP 2014; Cord et al. 2014).

Even so, suddenly, several countries in the region have gone from very positive circumstances to critically dire situations, with the decline and collapse of progressive governments and what once were the stars of the global heterodox progressive change. Beyond the widely recognized changes, something had not changed as the historical structures of unequal development were still there, bouncing and shifting back and forth, between the realities of neoliberal and conservative orientations. Is the South American regional shift back to conservatism and neoliberalism just another chapter in the old tale of the chronic LA capitalism, driven by populist governments unable to follow the universal economic wisdom of the North? Are we seeing the impact of the End of the Commodities Boom? Or is it an undeniable part of its global regional transformation defined by a particular piece of the regional puzzle of development, unattached under different orientations of development, but with the same international insertions throughout history? To what extent are inequality and uneven regional structures responsible for these issues? Finally, how do we grasp these realities in the critical and eclectical IPEs of regions and development? The research presented here is open to the task of challenging new and old regional scholars; this section aims only to set out questions and general methodological lines of reflection and concepts to explore.

The beginning of the new century was full of regional development narratives, filled with diagnoses about a historical countries´ growth and convergence, all in favor of alternative policies, and claims that the South would eventually decouple from the North and drive its own growth (Nossel 2016). The rapid rise and new configuration of the Global South were undoubtedly evident, but these did not provide an idyllic alternative world, but one within all the contradictions of the historical framework of neoliberal globalization and the Western peacekeeping of the last decades. Market-led global economic stagnation, the Panama Papers, Britain’s exit from the EU (in the form of Brexit ), declining cities , refugees and mass exodus, famine, media environment destruction, Middle-East globalized national and religious wars, and the growth in global scale of organized crime are just some of the parts of unforeseen neoliberal global development. This historical global development is one in which we do not know yet if it can be understood as the end of the post-1945 world order , or a post-crisis and world disorder, triggered by the 2008 crisis (Kaletsky 2017). Evidently, countries that have somehow temporarily succeeded using market signals, state intervention, and international competition to take advantage of high commodity prices have joined transnational production networks (Estay, Chap. 3. in this book). While these are located in advanced economies, they do no...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. The IPE Puzzle of Regional Inequality, Instability, and the Global Insertion of South America
• 2. Is Latin America’s Rise of the Middle Classes Lasting or Temporary? Evidence from Ecuador
• 3. Past and Present of Latin American Regionalisms, in the Face of Economic Reprimarization
• 4. The Impact of China on South America Political and Economic Development
• 5. The Changing Problem of Regional Development Finance in Latin America
• 6. South America: Trade and Integration in the New Global Trade Network
• 7. Energy Integration in South America and Global Geopolitics
• 8. Productive Integration in South America and Its Insertion into GVCs: The Automotive Industry
• 9. The Regional Political Economy of Knowledge and Environment
• 10. Cities in the South American Development: Bogota, Lima, Quito, and Santiago in Regional Frame
• 11. Global and Regional Political Economy of Migration
• 12. Organized Crime, Security, and Regionalism: The Governance of TOC in LA
• 13. The South American Regionalisms: A Shift or the Return of Economic Integration?
• 14. Africa: Clues About the Tendencies of the Global South
• 15. Conclusions
• Backmatter