ABSTRACT
The Pacific Alliance was born in 2011 as a market-oriented initiative in the specific context of “post-trade” regionalism. Costa Rica and Panama have both expressed their interest in joining the regional initiative since 2013. This chapter is focused on the contrasting motivations of these two countries towards regionalism in the Pacific Rim. It is argued that regionalism results from a combination of variables related to the international system and variables related to the domestic political economy. Indeed, the analysis of the cases of Panama and Costa Rica will be critical in order to understand the process of national preference formation in countries in the Pacific Rim.
