LAUSR

In the last decades, Regionalism has traditionally been linked and analysed from the perspective of European and East Asian experiences. Meanwhile, South American attempts at analysis were heavily influenced and generated by neoliberal thinking. Breaking with this tradition, Exploring the New South American Regionalism (NSAR), edited by Ernesto Vivares, accurately provides us with an insightful and multidimensional set of theoretical approaches, methodologies and topics to explain the new dynamics that development in this region is facing, within shifting orders at the regional, hemispheric and global level. Therefore, this work confirms the political economy of South America as a prolific ground of research and debate with an extensive literature. One clear achievement of NSAR is to demonstrate how the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) constitutes a post-neoliberal integration project generating a new regional identity. Indeed, another significant contribution is that NSAR itself is the outcome of both a variety of regionalisms and the process of regionalisation ‘with new social forces’ (p. 213). These forces concede a significant role to the state, and the latter sets the development strategy, both nationally and regionally. However, the state should pay more attention to the limits of regionalism in the case of internal political changes affecting ‘new regionalism-building’ foundations. In the past, collections of this sort have mainly opted for comparative or country case approaches. With this volume, by contrast, the editor essentially divides the book into three major sections. First, Vivares and his colleagues shed light on several theoretical approaches to the new regionalism-building process in South America. The second part demonstrates the roots of social and economic issues and policies affecting and changing the political economy of development in the region, from fostering income distribution and social incorporation to economic integration. Finally, the third part comprises a wider spectrum with bottom-up phenomena like drugs and intelligence gathering or collective challenges to shaping a regional security structure. This path through the contents allows the reader to take a crosscutting approach, making it easier to become immersed in the compilation. This volume is highly recommended for academics and students of International Relations, especially those whose research interest is focused on the understanding of regions, world orders and the changes taking place in South America. The articles are almost all well written and the ideas are clearly developed. Nevertheless, a few parts appear to have a more complex and abstract use of language. This is not a detrimental weakness, however. In conclusion, this volume represents a valuable contribution to the regionalism-building debate.