This report seeks to examine the regional cooperation of the MERCOSUR from a constructive perspective. The MERCOSUR members agreed on prohibiting Falkland ships from using their ports in the foreign ministerial meeting on December 10, 2011. The decisi...
This report seeks to examine the regional cooperation of the MERCOSUR from a constructive perspective. The MERCOSUR members agreed on prohibiting Falkland ships from using their ports in the foreign ministerial meeting on December 10, 2011. The decision can be viewed as an act of supporting the dominium of Argentina’s Malvinas in a proactive way by bearing the risk of diplomatic conflict with the UK. Such a behavior may not be fully explained by the realism and liberalism that argue individual states act only in line with its own interest.
This report, in this sense, seeks to analyze the collective action by the MERCOSUR members from a constructive perspective. Basically, this research agrees to the realism and liberalism that the MERCOSUR members seek their own interest separately. But as for the definition of ‘interest’, this research may take somewhat different approach. In the realism and liberalism, interest is something given. However, the research will regard the interest of MERCOSUR members as formed instead of something given. From the constructive viewpoint, interest refers to something “socially constructed” by interactions among actors. Wendt said the collective identity structured by intersubjectivity between actors re-produces itself as it interacts again with the structure. Therefore, in this research, we seek to adopt his constructive theory on the collective identity.
Wendt suggested interdependence, common fate, homogeneity, and self restraint as master variables to form collective identity. The research, in line with Wendt’s argument, makes the case that the 4 master variables helped cause the MERCOSUR member’s collective prohibition. The study found as follows: The interdependence of the MERCOSUR increased based on Argentina and Brazil’s leadership and expanded economic and human exchanges. Common fate of the region should be examined based on the understanding that the region had long been a colony. It became more like a counter hegemony against intervention from outside during the long colonial period. And this is viewed to support their awareness of common fate. The MERCOSUR homogeneity was analyzed to be “postneoliberalism” and “left of center” propensity based on the colonial history. Finally, as for self restraint, we noted that there has been no physical war between members of the MERCOSUR since its official embarkment in 1991 and they realized economic restraint between themselves through the Little Maastricht Treaty.
Consequentially, the MERCOSUR members have formed their collective identity through the 4 variables of interdependence, common fate, homogeneity and self restraint. And this research argues that these 4 factors interacted with the common market structure of the South America to re-produce collective identity. The MERCOSUR members’ agreement to forbid Falkland ships from using their ports, therefore, can be regarded as the outcome of such collective identity established and released through such variables.