The Contingency of Agenda Setting in the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)

A growing body of scholarly work on the Union of South America Nations (UNASUR) is emphasizing its “post-liberal” agenda, contrasting with previous trade-centered regional integration agreements (RIAs) in Latin America. Dissatisfaction with the outcomes of open regionalism and the turn to the left are among the main explanations referred to. Many research efforts inspired by classical theories look at UNASUR’s agenda as the product of a geo-strategic design or as the reflect of dominant interests. Few have tried to go beyond this rationale and contextualize the agenda-setting process. The last decade has been politically very turbulent in Latin America. This paper argues that a closer attention has to be paid to this context, which helps refine the “post-liberal” thesis. The contribution of this paper is twofold. Empirically, it provides evidence that trade is not absent from UNASUR’s perspectives and that even if the Left has introduced a modest paradigm shift that translates into new topics being put on UNASUR’s agenda, a series of context variables has also been instrumental in shaping that agenda. Theoretically, it suggests some inductive arguments regarding the importance of contingency at an early stage of agenda setting in a new RIA.