THE FUTURE OF ALBA AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION: AN INTRODUCTION

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/41945938
• Published date: 01 July 2011
• Date: 01 July 2011
• Pages: 95-97
• Author: Carlos Alzugaray Treto

THE FUTURE OF ALBA AND REGIONAL

INTEGRATION: AN INTRODUCTION

Carlos Alzugaray Treto

University of

Havana

In

the

present

international

context

in

the Western

Hemisphere,

the

Bolivarian

Alliance for the

Americas

(Alianza

Bolivariana

para

las

Américas)

or

ALBA,

for

its

initials

in

Spanish,

has

become a

very important

feature. No

matter

if

the

subject

is

regional integration,

social

development,

economic

growth, promotion

of

cultural

identities,

the establishment of new

financial structures or

geopolitical

strategies,

the area is

facing

a new

political

actor

which

has

enough power,

hard

and

soft,

and

capabilities

to

play

a substantial

role

as

a key

actor. This is

part

of

the new

maturity

that the

international

political economy

has

acquired

in

the

Americas.

ALBA

is a typical

region- building experiment

carried out

by 'region

builders',

the

progressive government

and political

forces

in

Latin

America and the

Caribbean,

around two main ideas:

creating

a regional integration

scheme

that

promotes

social

justice

together

with

economic

development;

and

creating

a

space

of

anti-hegemonic power projection

to

neutralise the US domination

of

the Western

Hemisphere.

If

one is

to measure

ALBA

as a regional

actor,

a useful instrument would

be

Bretherton

and

Vogler's

conditions for

consideration

in

their book The

European

Union as

a Global Actor:1

• A

commitment to shared values and

transcendent

principles.

• The

capacity

to

identify political priorities

and formulate coherent

actions.

• The

ability

to

negotiate efficiently

with other

actors

in

the international

system.

• The

availability

and

capacity

to use

political

instruments to achieve

its

objectives.

• Domestic

legitimacy

in

the decision

making process

and

in

the

definition of

priorities

related to

foreign policy.

Measured

by

these

standards,

ALBA has

come a long way

since its

founding

in

2004. Its

primary

and most

important

accomplishment

is the articulation of an

anti-hegemonic

and

counter-dependent regional

grouping

that has resisted US

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