Exploring the New South American Regionalism (NSAR).

Quiliconi, Cintia

Exploring the New South American Regionalism (NSAR). Edited by Ernesto Vivares. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

Ernesto Vivares and his collaborators offer a persuasive assessment of how a new type of regionalism has emerged in South America over the past decade. The book focuses on the new forms that regionalism is taking in the region, particularly under the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR); it also addresses how regionalism has become a channel to think about development. This type of analysis has recently consolidated a new body of literature that discusses how Latin American regionalism is shifting its patterns under a posthegemonic phase in which political and development issues are the cornerstones of these new experiences. (See Pia Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, eds., The Rise of Post-hegemonic Regionalism, Springer, 2012; Briceno Ruiz and Rivarola Puntigliano, eds., Resilience of Regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Development and Autonomy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Chapter 1, by Ernesto Vivares, is an excellent assessment of the theoretical perspectives on regionalism and their link to the development debate; Vivares identifies, in a systematic way, six different schools that have dominated this debate. The rest of the book engages the debate about specific issues addressing the particularities of the new South American regionalism (NSAR). The first chapters analyze the origins of UNASUR as a multidimensional, postneoliberal, institutionalized regionalism (chap. 2 by Carlos Espinosa) and the relationship between the United States and the NSAR in this new multipolar moment (chap. 3 by Francisco Carrion Mena). The investigation then turns to issues related to economic and social development, examining how Latin American countries have historically failed to secure market and social incorporation simultaneously (chap. 6 by Juliana Martinez Franzoni and Diego Sanchez-Ancochea) and evaluating the institutional and policy action of the UNASUR Health Council (chap. 7 by Maria Pfa Riggirozzi). The third part of the book examines security and defense dynamics in the NSAR, arguing that the national defense trends in the region highlight that UNASUR is a historical step in terms of regional defense integration due to its level of political coordination (chap. 10 by Maximiliano Montenegro). In a similar vein, Chapter 11 analyzes the shift from interstate conflicts toward the rise of democratic authority in the region. The chapter assesses the importance of the Security Defense Council in UNASUR as a forum that integrates military and nonmilitary mechanisms that have the potential to eventually carry out subregional field operations, if countries can overcome cooperation issues arising from internal security and defense problems (chap. 11 by Fredy Rivera Velez). Despite the authors' use of different perspectives and methods, the book is an original effort to highlight the main issues that are emerging in the NSAR that remained understudied in comparison to other regions. Reviewed by Cintia Quiliconi