Post-Neoliberal Regional Integration in Latin America: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA)

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This chapter presents a reappraisal of the works of Gramsci and Foucault in the context of capitalist globalization and its aftermath. It discusses the implications of regional integration for contemporary struggles for economic, political and the cultural power. The chapter offers an account of neoliberalism and the resurgence of the Left in Latin America, followed by an exploration of regional integration efforts in Latin America, with specific emphasis on post-neoliberal forms of regional cooperation and the case of ALBA. The ALBA initiative has already made inroads into strengthening counter-hegemonic regional integration at the level of political institutions, economic practices, and symbolic/discursive relations. The nation-state remains the basic unit of decision-making today, both in the eyes of the ruling elites and their opponents. Latin American societies have the potential to pioneer non-elitist forms of regional integration, quite unlike the hegemonic European Union model, which has suffered from elitism and lack of democratic control at every level of supranational expansion and deepening.