Abstract

MOHAMMEDDINOV, Mikhail. Geostrategic considerations of European and South American integration: testing the neorealist hypothesis. Polis [online]. 2006, vol.2, n.2, pp.113-133. ISSN 2594-0686.

This article examines the development of the EU and Mercosur as two regional counter-hegemonic projects. The study uses a neorealist framework and confirms the neorealist assumptions of regional integration being either a measure of adaptation to overwhelming hegemony or a measure of resistance against a contracting hegemony. However, it also points to important differences in the agenda of the US-EU and US-Mercosur relations and the differences in the character of integration in the two blocs that have been predetermined by the different nature of problems the two regions have in their relations with the superpower.

Keywords : Mercosur; European Union; integration; neorealism; counter-hegemony.