From Free Market to Social Policies. Remapping Regulatory Cooperation and Regional Governance in Mercosur

Regional cooperation has been an enduring feature of Latin American politics for more than half a century. Whereas regional organizations vary, they all share a strong focus on the reduction of barriers to trade and market liberalization between member countries. With the turn of the century, regional initiatives moved beyond these traditional free trade issues to embrace cooperation in broader economic, political and social policy areas. How and to what extent have these initiatives promoted positive social regulation?

To address this question, this paper analyzes the case of MERCOSUR. More specifically, it examines the efforts to promote regulatory cooperation in MERCOSUR, mapping the varying policy instruments and strategies adopted since its creation in two social areas: health and higher education. MERCOSUR is an interesting case because of two reasons. First, the bloc was established in the 1990s, being its main objective market creation and trade liberalization, and only recently has placed a stronger emphasis on social regulation. Second, MERCOSUR, as it is the case of regional organizations in Latin America, lacks supranational institutional arrangements. Decision-making remains highly intergovernmental and states are key actors in these regional processes. In all, the paper will investigate and comparatively evaluate the policy instruments and mechanisms across time and over sub-fields. In so doing, it will assess the potential of regulatory regimes at the regional tier of governance in contexts in which states rely on limited regulatory capacities.