Transgovernmental Networks and Regional Integration in Europe and South America

Abstract

This research aims to understand the influence of sub-units of state bureaucracy (transgov-ernmental networks) dealing with foreign policy and defence issues to regional political inte-gration using the case-studies of the European Union, Mercosul, Andean Community and Unasul. Discovering the variables that influence integration in two different regions with dif-ferent characteristics, might offer a comprehensive view of how regional political integration begins and develops. Besides we also open the window of intra-regional comparision ex-plaining why in the Southern Cone political cooperation is much more advanced than between the Andean countries. With this in mind, this research aims to contribute to move the theoretical discussion on regional integration beyond the dichotomical divide between inter-governmentalism and supranationalism, offering a new perspective on how to understand the logic of integration in the very sensitive issue areas of Foreign Policy and Defence.

In this sense, this research ultimately aims to contribute to understand how political elites dealing with the issue areas of foreign policy and defence are replicated and socialized and their impact in the process of integration. This task will be fulfilled in this research by opening the black box of interest and identity formation, observing from where agent interests come from and the agents’ interaction with institutional structures. Through an emphasis on argu-ing/deliberation and appropriate behaviour driven by complex learning processes and social-ization, we argue that both agents have an impact in the institutionalization process and that institutions have deeper effects on the core properties of agents, thus affecting meanings, interests and identities.

It is possible to identify three main venues of research deriving from this dissertation. These research possibilities stem from the conclusion that regional integration processes are in fact influenced by the role played by transgovernmental networks. Thus, we observe that this research raises questions for the study of sovereignty, democracy/accountability, and re-gionalism.