ABSTRACT
At the outset, the risks of comparing MERCOSUR with the European Union (EU) need to be acknowledged. The advent of the so-called ‘new regionalism’ in political science and international relations deliberately plays down the idea of the EU providing a template for regional projects outside Europe. Instead of the legalism, elaborate institutional framework and distinctive supranational characteristics of the EU, ‘new regionalism’ posits a broader range of modalities, largely setting aside the neofunctional and neorealist theoretical canons of European integration. In particular, as the EU has become more preoccupied with questions concerning its own governance and popular legitimation of its institutions, the gap between itself and regional integration projects in the rest of the world has widened. Leaving the EU to one side, most other regional projects can claim an institutional structure that is still vestigial or non-existent; therefore, any concerns about ‘constitutionalising’ their systems of regional governance would be premature. Likewise, mass public opinion is only dimly aware of the existence of regional projects such as MERCOSUR, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the African Union (AU); therefore, problems of alienation, accountability and legitimacy simply have not (yet) arisen.
