Social and participatory Mercosur: a review of the normative and instances created

Abstract

In the early 2000s, the economic consequences of neoliberalism, associated with a “left-wing turn” in South American governments, allowed that social and political issues to gain prominence in Mercosur’s regional political agenda to the detriment of purely commercial issues, a theme that guided the awakening of the regional bloc. To incorporate new issues, such as social rights, human rights and social participation, numerous normative and instances were created. The aim of this article is to do a review of the main normative and created instances, with a special focus on the participatory issue. To achieve this goal, we resorted to literature review and documentary analysis. From the analysis, we can identify that Mercosur has taken a relatively short path in the implementation of participatory mechanisms for non-state actors, since numerous bodies and instances have institutionalized participatory mechanisms, despite criticism and needs for improvement.