Constructivism and Regional Integration Theories

This paper attempts to provide a critical approach to the issue of regional integration, one of the most important subjects over the last two decades and currently one of the leading debates that are taking place in the South. Although the importance of regional integration –given its correlation to the process of pacific change in international relations–, it seems that there is no satisfactory theoretical explanation about regionalism. First of all in this paper, I propose some conceptual differences in order to limit and clarify the regional integration field. Later, I try to present a summary revision of the theories of regional integration with the aim of simulating a dialogue among them and pointing out their respective criticisms of each other. From the classical theories such as neofunctionalism, transactionalism, neoliberal institutionalism and neorealism to more recently approaches such as new regionalism approach, structuralism and constructivism, I highlight their main postulates and contributions to this field of the discipline. Furthermore, the regional integration process in South America -mainly Mercosuris interconnected with the theoretical review in order to underline the shortcomings and silences of theories with respect to this issue. On this basis, we observe how traditional theories do not success in explaining events such as the rapprochement between Brazil and Argentina in 2002. Finally, I propose the use of a constructivist approach, promoting the ideas of “identity” and “culture”, in order to add in-depth understanding to the picture of the regional integration, especially in the Mercosur case.