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2010, Monthly Review
AI
This paper discusses the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), highlighting its role in fostering cooperative economic development among member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It explores the historical context of ALBA's formation in light of past cooperative efforts like the European Payments Union, assessing the challenges and opportunities presented by new trade agreements and the potential for a regional currency. The paper aims to frame ALBA as a necessary response to the limitations of existing international economic structures and emphasizes the importance of collective strategies for Third World development.
2008
The 7 summit of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), held on 26 January 2008 in Caracas, triggered much concern with its announcement of plans to create a military alliance between the organisation’s five member states. The proposal for integration was defined as ‘an effort to build the overall Latin American project, with a correlation of favourable political forces on the continent that will allow them to consolidate as a political and economic alternative’. Is this an accurate definition and is the ALBA actually an alternative integration project that is politically, economically and strategically viable, or is it simply a political counterproposal to the Free Trade Area of the Americas advocated by the US? ALBA’s discourse seems to have taken hold in the region, but its proposal for integration, including the military alliance, is not viable. Still, what ALBA has done in practice through mechanisms like Petrocaribe shows a viability and impact that are in fact much gr...
2009
ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America) is seen as an alternative integration model that has emerged from Latin America. To what extent is it possible to see ALBA as an alternative integration model?
This article outlines the regional and international context in which ALBA has emerged and is expanding before explaining the concept of unequal terms of trade which is central to ALBA’s conception. It examines the ideas and influences embedded in ALBA which distinguish it from previous regional trade blocs and generate its potential to transform the domestic production, distribution and development priorities of participating states, challenging the coercive power of international financial institutions (IFIs) and multinational corporations. The article also considers the threats and challenges the Alliance faces.
International Journal of Cuban Studies, 3(2/3): 98-115., 2011
The article employs an historical approach to cooperation and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in order to argue that, to date, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) is the only integration project under construction in Our America that not only actively integrates the entire LAC, but also is the most comprehensive, sophisticated and dynamic regionalism in the area. I draw on Frederik Söderbaum and Luk van Langenhove’s notion of ‘generations’ of regionalisms, identifying the import substitution influenced initiatives, the neoliberal ‘open regionalisms’, and the post-neoliberal and counter-imperialist projects launched over the past decade, especially the ALBA-TCP. By explicitly associating generations of regionalisms with particular political economic models, I emphasise politics and ideologies in the analysis, which are absent in Söderbaum and van Langenhove’s classification. The politics, institutionalisation and organisational structure of the ALBA-TCP as a third generation regionalism and counter-globalisation project are discussed.
2013
CELAC reflects cooperation needs in the region, the trend towards multi-polarity, development and the need to differentiate from the US; the region now has a single voice. The interference of external forces, territorial disputes and the existence of 3 different groups within the organization (Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico) question CELAC's future.
2009
The objective of this thesis is to analyze why the 2007-2008 negotiations of a bi-regional Association Agreement between the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and the European Union (EU) have failed and what the likely implications of this failure are. It investigates why the bloc-to-bloc agreement has not been concluded successfully, and why now the EU is negotiating a bilaterally agreement with each CAN member state. In other words, the thesis examines the promises and problems of a bi-regional association agreement as well as the future perspectives for EU-CAN relations. I argue that the negotiations have failed because the EU pushed too much the CAN in order to act under a single voice, and the member states of the CAN could not get along between themselves, due to internal division and different ideologies on: politics, economics and commerce. The research will develop the principals’ drivers that lead to the launch of the Association Agreement in 2007, therefore I will focus on the Relations that the EU has with Latin America, and in particular with CAN, with a historical description. The content and the evolution of the Association Agreement in the pillars of: political dialogue, cooperation and trade will be explained, and the context in which the negotiations took place. I will develop mainly the interest on the both sides to look for an Association Agreement and the reasons of the failure, developing on the trade aspect that was problematic due to some sensitive areas treated, where difficult to negotiate, especially: market access, services, investment and intellectual property. Therefore, the multilateralism system and its implications on the liberalization of WTO+ issues will be analyzed, comparing to the regionalism treatment and the bilateral approach of Preferential Trade Agreements The investigation will analyze the implications of the failure of the agreement and therefore study the current negotiations of the EU with Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, also the research will focus on the alternatives for regionalism in Latin America like the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americs) the and the South American Union of Nations, as new process of integration in the region.
This article describes two of the most recent sub-regional integration efforts in South America, namely ALBA and UNASUR, including the factors that have contributed to their development. The analysis offered here pays special attention to the role played by the Venezuelan government, particularly during the administration of former president Hugo Chavez, both in political and economic terms toward the rise and growth of ALBA. This article also explains how the heavy dependence on Venezuela's support was also detrimental to ALBA for it has been negatively affected by the crisis currently faced by the Latin American country. In contrast to the case of ALBA, this article discusses the rise of UNASUR as a collective endeavor and the efforts of its members to create a regional framework that includes a novel proposal of a Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 2017
This article describes two of the most recent sub-regional integration efforts in South America, namely ALBA and UNASUR, including the factors that have contributed to their development. The analysis offered here pays special attention to the role played by the Venezuelan government, particularly during the administration of former president Hugo Chavez, both in political and economic terms toward the rise and growth of ALBA. This article also explains how the heavy dependence on Venezuela's support was also detrimental to ALBA for it has been negatively affected by the crisis currently faced by the Latin American country. In contrast to the case of ALBA, this article discusses the rise of UNASUR as a collective endeavor and the efforts of its members to create a regional framework that includes a novel proposal of a Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Latin America and the Caribbean have been victims of more than 500-years of colonialism and imperialism. A key component of both colonialism and imperialism has been the denial of and/or distortion of sovereignty throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Neoliberalism has been but the most recent frame within which to continue this project. The FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) was to have consolidated neoliberalism across the hemisphere, under U.S. hegemony. But the rise of massive social movements throughout the region, prevented the launch of the FTAA in 2005. This has not stopped the attempt to institutionalize neoliberalism. Both the U.S. and Canada have turned to bilateral deals as an alternative to the FTAA. However, we have also seen the creation of regional trade and investment associations independent of the United States and Canada. This paper will examine two of these – ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) and UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations) – and assess their impact as counter-hegemonic projects. The paper builds on earlier research published in New Political Science and forthcoming in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization.
Rome, IAI, December 2018, 18 p. (IAI Papers ; 18|20), ISBN 978-88-9368-087-5, 2018
South America's recent shift to the left-the so-called "pink wave" that at one point had three-quarters of Central and South America's population under left-wing parties-has brought about the emergence of a post-neoliberal development agenda, with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) as two main models of regional integration. This new pathway of regional cooperation has focused on social and political issues of the region rather than merely trade-the core of traditional regional agreements. Although ALBA and UNASUR reflect diverging geopolitical and domestic aspirations within the Latin American Left, resulting in projects with different scope and nature, they both have represented an attempt to create an alternative to the neoliberal paradigm. While ALBA and UNASUR have already revealed significant shortcomings, they nevertheless attest to Latin American countries having developed a new social and political regional awareness.
International Journal of Cuban Studies, Pluto Press, 2011
Without ideological commitments to the predominance of state property, central planning, free, universal welfare provision and internationalism, the Cuban Revolution could not have recovered from the economic crisis of the Special Period and limited the destructive potential of liberalisation. From the early 1990s, the island began to diversify its trade and economic structure, which resulted in the steady recovery of the economy. Cuba’s survival was a precondition for the alliance with Venezuela which was to lead to the establishment of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) in 2004. ALBA is inspired by the welfare-based development paradigm of Cuba socialista and in its role as a soft power through medical and educational internationalism. ALBA in turn has removed from Cuba the obligation to completely insert itself into the international capitalist economy. At present, the regional political and social implications of ALBA have greater significance than the economic impact. It is building a barrier to U.S. domination and European capital penetration, buttressing the most radical governments whilst offering other countries in the region concrete examples of the benefits of trade relations based on south-south cooperation and the potential for welfare-based development models.
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