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Structural Limitations of the Mercosur: An Analysis Based on the Brazilian Foreign Policy Positions
- The Latin Americanist
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Volume 56, Number 2, June 2012
- pp. 161-180
- 10.1353/tla.2012.a706554
- Article
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Abstract:
This article aims to analyze what we call the Mercosur model as presented in Brazilian foreign policy. Starting from the assumption that Brazil’s positions play a relevant role in defining important characteristics of the integration process, our hypothesis is that the pattern of Brazilian foreign behavior limits the amplitude of the integration, mainly the possibility of deepening the bloc. Brazilian positions are more adapted to the bloc’s enlargement. The Mercosur’s chronic institutional crisis seems to express the structural limits of this model, which is compatible with the constitutive elements of Brazilian foreign policy but insufficient to ground the deepening of integration.