Abstract

CLEMENTE, Darío. The integration of South America between the Brazil’s regional project and the insertion in the global market. A view from the IIRSA, 2003-2006. Ciclos hist. econ. soc. [online]. 2022, vol.33, n.59, pp.11-20.  Epub Dec 01, 2022. ISSN 1851-3735.  http://dx.doi.org/2.

Between 2003 and 2016, South America has gone through an integration cycle, marked by profound changes when compared with the open regionalism of the 1990s. This cycle has been defined by two central dynamics: the development of the regional project of Brazil and the evolution of a specific modality of insertion of the region in the global economy. At the crossroads between a geopolitical logic and a geoeconomic one, the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) emerges as a key integration process to be analyzed when tackling the recent past in South America. Through the reconstruction of the conception and subsequent deployment of the initiative, we show how IIRSA has promoted an integration scheme aimed at favoring the increase of South American exports to the Asian continent through the consolidation of development axes and at structuring regional production chains centered around the Brazilian market. We also analyze the role of IIRSA in the internationalization of Brazilian construction companies and its high socio-environmental impact, which has led to the silencing and depoliticization of the initiative by the governments of the region. Linking the uncertain future of IIRSA with the weakening of Brazil's leadership, on the one hand, and with the change in the international situation starting in 2016, on the other, we wonder if the emergence of new extra-regional actors in the financing of the initiative and the adaptation of IIRSA to the new modalities of subordinate insertion of South America in the global market can favor a shift in the regional integration process towards a renewed scheme of simple interconnection, dictated by the dependence on commercial relations with old and new buying markets.

Keywords : regional integration; South America; IIRSA; Brazil; international insertion.