From the summits to the plains: The crisis of Latin American Regionalism

Abstract

Paraphrasing the German poet Bertolt Brecht's 1949 poem "Wahrnehmung", it can be said that for Latin American regionalism, the fatigue of the summits has been left behind; it must now cope with the labors of the plains. The days when Latin American presidents socialized frequently at summit meetings are long gone. In the golden age of summitry, between 2004 and 2012, four Summits of the Americas, six Latin American summits, 29 South American summits (including the Southern Common Market-Mercosur), nine Andean summits, 18 Caribbean summits, 52 Central American summits, 18 Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) summits, and eight Ibero-American Summits were held, for a total of 144 summits in 9 years. It was the time when Chilean President Sebastián Piñera complained ironically that Latin America had so many summits it looked like a mountain range. Christopher Sabatini argued in Foreign Policy that, "the Western Hemisphere has a strong claim to the title of summit capital of the world," adding that, "if the number of summits were a measure of the quality of diplomacy, Latin America would be a utopia of harmony, cooperation, and understanding."