UNASUR: avances y limitaciones en la integración de América del Sur

Abstract

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was preceded as an integration initiative by the Andean Community (Comunidad Andina de Naciones-CAN) and the MERCOSUR (Mercado Comun del Sur). The former is currently in the process of dispersing, as a result of several attempts to adjust to the international economy by renouncing its founding principles; the latter, currently confronts internal di-sagreements, resulting from policies that have failed to provide answers to the instability created by the inequality of its economies. These two exhausted processes leave UNASUR a legacy of new expressions of old contradictions, which manifest themselves in the relations between the countries in the Alliance of the Pacific and those on the Atlantic coast. While these discrepancies and contradictions between govern-ments exist both in ideology and policy; governments have managed to maintain common development strategies and accumulation methods, related to raw material extraction and export. China has been able to take advantage of both the discrepancies and commonalities among governments to strengthen its presence in the region. The first section of this work will characterize the integration processes that existed in the region prior to the formation of UNASUR. The second section addresses the central objectives of the creation of UNASUR. Finally, the third section provides a reflection on other groupings that overlap with UNASUR, some of which find it difficult to survive in the climate of the current crisis, which can in turn end up benefiting both UNASUR as well as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).