Autonomy and Development. A challenge from realism to utopia within South American integration

This paper presents preliminary results of a research which intends to face the theoretical and analytical challenges concerning the dynamics and the trajectory of the integration model which has been promoted as a turning point in South American democracy in the XXI Century. A strategical attempt to insert the region within the global system, as well as an instrument for social development and political autonomy, South American integration still is an unfinished political attempt to overcome the obstacles of its historically peripheral place within world economy. On the one hand, this ongoing innovative process has been a renewal of interest in the study of institutional, developmental, geopolitical issues and the integration mechanics of governmental decision making, since it shapes a research subject of great multidisciplinary potential. Moreover, it might foster an advance in international political theory, inasmuch as it contributes to refine the world inter-state system concept by simultaneously approaching the possible degrees of regional autonomy and questioning the range of democracy renewal in contemporary societies. On the other hand, despite global capitalist crisis and changes in the political economic role of South American and Asian powers, the European Union remains overweighted as an analytical reference for the studies on the new integration experiences. This paper relies on the assumption that South American integration is a unique historical experience, with its own specific goals and values, one which requires further studies to account for its complex and multifaced nature. This paper aims to contribute to the advance of the theoretic-analytical integration framework in force by confronting and complementing it with the achievements and questions posed by the particular South American experience. The central objective is to analyze its new dynamics, precise role and potential range of transformation regarding global power; and to evaluate the regional ability to promote development and increase democracy. Its point of departure is the observation that the mainstream literature tends to underestimate the political nature of integration projects by overestimating the influence of economic factors, a kind of interpretation which brings back the old and complex subject of the theoretical relation between Politics and Economy.