ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some challenges of building a regional governance of social policy and relates them to the contemporary South American context. Regional social policies that have been instituted have been mainly confined to minimal social regulations and provision to facilitate economic regionalization and alleviate the worst of social disruption and inequality. The chapter focuses on the extent to which social policies in relation to health, social protection, labor, and education are manifest features of regionalist projects/formations. In South America, the struggle to surpass neoliberalist open regionalism has involved the definition of prominent social agendas, and to embed principles of human welfare and social protectionism in the new institutions set up. Regional formations are engaged with practical policy questions such as: how to forge an appropriately balanced relationship between trade and social standards and how to maintain levels of taxation and progressive tax structures in the face of international competition to attract and maintain inward capital investment.
