Liquid Regionalism in the Americas: An Analysis of Contemporary Regional Developments By Karina PasquarielloMariano, Regiane NitschBressan, and Bruno TheodoroLuciano, Cham: Springer Cham, 2025, 157 PP. €128.39, Hardcover; €39.99, Paperback

At the beginning of the 2000s, Regional Organizations (ROs) proliferated in the Americas, creating high expectations among scholars and policymakers. These initiatives no longer followed the European Union blueprint, and they rejected the liberal model promoted by the United States in the 1990s. Scholars argued that ROs had become more area-specific, adapting to the peculiarities of North and South American contexts. Two decades later, most of these projects have either dissolved or stalled. Liquid Regionalism in the Americas: An Analysis of Contemporary Regional Developments explores why ROs have stagnated. While the existing literature describes the present situation as a “crisis” driven by stress factors, the authors introduce the concept of Liquid Regionalism. They argue that structural characteristics of these organizations, such as flexibility and intergovernmentalism, hinder the deepening of cooperation, explaining the downtrend. While in the past the reference to an external model, such as “closed regionalism” regarding the European Economic Community model, obscured these traits, the current scenario lacks such paradigms, making the persistent structural features clearer. The book is the result of the work of three generations of researchers specialized in regionalism, with a focus on Latin America. More than a decade of collaboration culminated in an article, Liquid Regionalism: a typology for regionalism in the Americas (Mariano et al. 2021), which first introduced the concept. The constraints of a paper led the authors to expand their argument in a book. The longer space allows them to present their theory in depth and include an additional empirical section analyzing current ROs through the lens of Liquid Regionalism. The authors develop their argument in three steps. First, they contend that low institutionalization and intergovernmental decision-making are inherent features of regional projects in the Americas. Second, the absence of external reference models, such as “open regionalism” in the 1990s, reveals such structural characteristics. Third, this logic leads states to prioritize short-term objectives; thus, they do not aim to create resilient institutions that could sustain cooperation. The volume is organized into seven chapters. As the first and last are dedicated to Introduction and Conclusions, the core of the book lies in the five middle chapters. The second one, The Waves of Regionalism in the Americas, presents a historical overview to highlight the structural characteristics that have persisted over the years. The third chapter, Liquid Regionalism: A Conceptualization, defines liquidity, demonstrates its relevance, and presents a typology to categorize and compare different projects. Finally, the fourth, The Liquidity of Regional Consultation; the fifth, The Melting of Regional Cooperation; and the sixth chapter, The Resilience of Regional Integration, constitute the empirical section of the book in which contemporary initiatives are analyzed from the perspective of Liquid Regionalism. The book is organized around a set of questions, presented in the Introduction, that structure the arguments put forward by the authors. Due to space constraints, only the most relevant are presented here. The book's main contribution is the concept of liquidity as the defining feature of regionalism in the Americas. Drawing on the work of Bauman (2000), the authors employ the notion to capture states' constant refusal of deeper levels of institutionalization, which would limit national sovereignty. As in Bauman's liquid society, logics of individuality and immediateness prevail among social relations. In the context of regionalism, states maintain minimal commitment and emphasize short-term goals, which hinders any form of collective belonging and favors institutional proliferation. In this manner, the authors establish an interdisciplinary dialogue, offering a solid foundation to the concept of liquidity anchored to Bauman's broader sociological theory. The historical overview supports the above argument through an empirical analysis of precedent waves of regionalism in the Americas. The authors demonstrate how initial institutional design persisted in successive initiatives, which limited the deepening of cooperation. For example, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) were characterized by intergovernmentalism and limited institutional autonomy. These traits had important consequences. ROs depended on the political will of the governments in turn. If a member was dissatisfied with the performance, they could resist the implementation of common rules or withdraw from the organization. In the case of LAFTA, which aimed at creating a free-trade area between seven Latin American states, the rise of authoritarian governments with different priorities led to disinvestment in the project. The organization was dissolved in the 1970s to create the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA). Despite learning from the previous experience, it retained an intergovernmental structure, which inhibited establishing common rules and institutional vigor. Similar dynamics appear in later projects such as the Common Southern Market (Mercosur) or the Andean Pact, which developed a stronger institutionality but relied on the unstable logic of precedent experiences. The concept of liquidity represents an important contribution to the study of regionalism. As an analytical framework, it allows the book to move beyond the literature's focus on single case studies or waves. Instead, the authors adopt a comparative design with experiences from the entire continent, which allows them to engage in an exercise of theory building that avoids conceptual proliferation. In theory, such a method would also favor the application of the concept to other geographical areas, which is cited in the Conclusions as one possible research path. Still, it raises the question of whether liquidity is deeply rooted in the Americas' experience. The notion draws on empirical analysis and local specificities, such as the concern for the preservation of national sovereignty. The next argument builds on the theoretical discussion outlined above. From the 2010s onward, a new wave, labeled Liquid Regionalism, has emerged in the Americas. Organizations in this phase display a clearer and stronger liquid logic, exemplified by the Lima Group and Prosur. Both were the result of ideological alliances that show little interest in deepening the cooperation agenda and have adopted thin institutional designs. The Lima Group was created by a new wave of right-wing governments in response to the Venezuelan democratic crisis. There was no interest in adopting solid institutions; rather, the organization worked as an “ad hoc mechanism for consultation” (p. 69). Prosur, born in a similar context, promoted a deeper cooperation agenda but relied on flexible solutions, such as working groups. Different from precedent waves that had an external model of reference, “contemporary regionalism in the Americas has failed to develop new regionalist paradigms because the continent is no longer interested in extra-regional models” (p. 4). This shift has allowed the structural characteristics to surface. Recent literature emphasizes the notion of “crisis,” focusing on external or internal factors. Instead, the authors reframe the debate to the structural constraints of contemporary projects. Thus, the current stagnation does not reflect a failure but expresses the liquid logic inherent to the Americas' case. Adopting this perspective has several advantages. First, it revises our expectations on what flexible and unstable ROs could realistically achieve, moving beyond normative assumptions on what they should accomplish. Nevertheless, liquidity should not be considered an “all-explanatory” concept. Scholars must still account for other factors in explaining the challenges of these organizations, but they must be analyzed within the framework of Liquid Regionalism. Second, it holds substantial explanatory potential since it illustrates why some projects persist while others stagnate or go through a process of dismantling over time. The third major contribution is the typology to classify ROs in the Americas. While all the organizations exhibit a liquid logic, they present different degrees thereof. For this purpose, the authors distinguish between integration, cooperation, and consultation. The key differences regard the levels of commitment, acceptance of sharing sovereignty, and institutionalization, with integration being the category with the highest levels and consultation, the lowest. The typology functions as a continuum; the projects evolve over time, and they could shift toward higher or lower levels of liquidity. The classification of contemporary initiatives shows that “consultation” and “cooperation,” the types with the lowest levels of commitment and institutionality, prevail and have been most affected by the wave of Liquid Regionalism, leading to stagnation or dissolution. By contrast, ROs identified as “integration” have shown greater degrees of resilience. The typology represents one of the least innovative aspects of the book since the types and their different characteristics have already been treated in previous literature. Still, it provides a compelling framework to understand the peculiarities of liquid arrangements and allows for a comparative perspective. Overall, the book presents a strong contribution to the debate on regionalism. Its findings provide the basis for reflections that can be translated to other continents. One of its main strengths lies in its comparative approach. It goes beyond a limited empirical focus that looks only to North or South America, seeking instead to find common patterns in the whole continent. Such an approach allows the authors to build solid concepts anchored to a rich empirical basis. One of the most interesting findings is the link between the intergovernmental structure and the ideologization of regional processes. Since states in the Americas resist the adoption of institutional designs that would limit their sovereignty, ROs depend on the political will of their members. Therefore, an ideological change in a government influences its foreign policy, making these organizations unstable and prone to collapse. By contrast, the most resilient cases were those with a high level of institutionalization and social participation as they could resist ideological shifts of their members. This situation would corroborate the neofunctional assumption about the role of institutions in fostering a sense of belonging and promoting collective action. Institutions create positive expectations, building trust among their participants and thus guaranteeing commitment in the process. Different from neofunctional theory, the authors do not emphasize the need for supranational institutions, which are absent in the case of the Americas; they rather propose a more general institutional framework “capable of containing the tendency toward flexibility, which introduces instability into the process” (p. 51). The framework relies on three aspects: purpose (short- or long-term objectives), incorporation of norms (mandatory or voluntary), and actors (mainly states or non-state actors also included). The book presents a fruitful discussion on the state of regionalism in the Americas. The focus on the structural characteristics encourages a broader reflection on the contemporary issues faced by ROs. As the authors point out, the recent Covid-19 pandemic posed significant challenges for these organizations, which cannot develop an effective response strategy without adequate institutional capacities. These issues, in turn, invite scholars and policymakers to revise their expectations on contemporary processes and, at the same time, reflect on possible future developments to form stronger and more resilient institutions. The book's core argument makes it essential reading for scholars interested in comparative regionalism, and the various topics covered also appeal to a wider audience; for example, students approaching the topic of regionalism in the Americas may find the systematic exposition of the different waves useful, and scholars of foreign policy may find appealing the impact of ideology on these projects.