A dialética entre o regionalismo e o capitalismo global: uma análise da trajetória do Mercosul Social

Abstract

Founded in 1991, Mercosur faced a deep crisis between 1998 and 2002. Starting in 2003, with the rise of leftist governments in South America, the regional bloc underwent a relaunch, incorporating social issues into an agenda previously dominated by trade matters. This period, known as the "Social and Productive Mercosur," came to an end in 2015, when political changes in the region altered the context that had enabled this new phase. This dissertation analyzes the achievements, limitations, and contradictions of Mercosur’s social agenda between 2003 and 2015, situating the regional phenomenon within the broader historical transformations of global capitalism. The theoretical-conceptual framework guiding this analysis is based on dialectical transnational historical materialism, which consists of the appropriation of the Marxist method by neo-Gramscian approaches in International Political Economy and International Relations, particularly the Amsterdam School and Critical Globalization Studies. With a qualitative and exploratory profile, the research focuses on the relationship between global and regional levels of analysis, drawing on official Mercosur documents and specialized literature on the bloc’s “social turn,” which are examined from the perspective of dialectical transnational historical materialism. The study concludes that the “new” Mercosur remained largely constrained by the neoliberal pattern of accumulation and the interests of transnational capital, achieving only modest social gains, insufficient to reverse the structurally disintegrative contradictory logic underlying the bloc’s trajectory. The research findings highlight the relevance of a structural investigation like the one conducted for the formulation of alternatives in Latin American regionalism. Furthermore, the research contributes to expanding the use of Marxist perspectives in studies on regional processes.