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In 1995 the Peronist party held the Argentine presidency, a comfortable majority in both congressional chambers, and most provincial governorships and municipalities. In 2013 the political landscape looked exactly the same. However, between 2001 and 2002 the country arguably went through its most serious crisis ever, which led to massive popular uprisings, the early resignation of two presidents, and the largest debt default in international history. The political collapse did not, however, constitute a spontaneous or definite rupture with the past. Instead, the social revolt detonated in December 2001 was not only temporally and territorially limited but also politically nurtured and institutionally bounded. Conventional explanations have tended to overlook a crucial set of actors that was neither marching in the streets nor voting in the Congress. These actors were subnational power holders and they were Peronist, and their participation explains how the protest began, how the crisis unfolded, and how it was resolved. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Twenty years after its foundation, MERCOSUR has failed to meet its declared goals. Far from being a common market and not yet a customs union, it has neither deepened nor (legally) enlarged. All the other regionalist projects in Latin America fare even worse, although they have arguably fostered domestic democracy, economic reforms and more peaceful regional relations. This paper introduces a conceptual toolkit for comparing regional integration, and then applies it to explain the dispersed goals and declining performance of the Latin American experiences. The aim is to show how the strengthening of national sovereignty – as opposed to its pooling or delegation – is at the heart of most contemporary regionalist strategies.

Since last years, Latin America has been characterized for some sociopolitical changes. In this article, we defend that the continuities has been so relevant as the changes. To demonstrate it we will analyze three continuity elements: nationalism, populism and economic structure based on raw material exportations; and three change elements: democratization, political mobilization of ethnic identities and adoption of international insertion strategies even more distinct. Adapted from the source document.

The article addresses the lack of economic, political, and cultural unification in Latin America, analyzing its causes and results, and unfavorably comparing the situation to the kind of unification that has led to the strength of the EU. R. Young

Published under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. The article was downloaded under these CC 4.0 conditions from the publisher's past issue archive MUSE. ; It is commonplace to assert that the effective operation of Mercosur rests deeply on presidential diplomacy. Such a mechanism is understood as the usual resort to direct negotiations between the national presidents every time a crucial decision needs to be made or a critical conflict has to be solved. This paper argues that presidential diplomacy, understood as political, summit diplomacy –as opposed to bureaucratic, professional diplomacy— is not enough to account for Mercosur actual proceedings and results. Through the empirical analysis of three critical junctures of Mercosur history, a framework is thus advanced to show how long-neglected institutional incentives and constraints, defined by national executive format, have impacted upon the process of regional integration. ; Is partly based on author's EUI PhD thesis, 2003

In December 2001 the Argentine economy collapsed, bringing down the constitutionally elected government. The causes of the collapse are controversial: some argue that the main responsibility lies with the international financial institutions, which had supported a decade long policy of structural adjustment & economic concentration; others, instead, blame domestic factors such as fiscal deficit & rampant corruption. This article focuses on the latter arguments in order to highlight what changed & what remained since democracy was reinaugurated in 1983. The case made here is that enduring democracy is as much a novelty as economic decay is a secular trend, of which the 2001 crisis is but another, if deeper, manifestation. References. Adapted from the source document.