Resumo

MORALES MANZUR, Juan Carlos  e  MORALES GARCIA, Lucrecia. Origin and Nature of the Bolivarian Alternative to America. Polis [online]. 2007, vol.3, n.1, pp.55-85. ISSN 2594-0686.

The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), is an original proposal of sub-continental integration, promoted by the government of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías, whose principles are orientated towards the social and economical reaffirmation of this region, confronting the Americas Free Trade Area (NAFTA). This paper work undertakes primarily the origin and nature of this integration initiative, its proposals, its magnitude and predominant objectives, tending to the elaboration of a counterproposal for the Caribbean and Latin-American integration, concluding on the mainly political and ideological character of it and its position facing the new political reality of the sub-continent, but also on the impossibility of this or any other initiative while the Latin American people can not consolidate the process, getting over their imbalances and building a civic conscience about the integration process.

Palavras-chave : economical integration; ALBA; Latin America; NAFTA; gobernability.