This collection of essays aims to contribute to our understanding of the process of regional integration currently underway in South America. Mercosur is a regional manifestation of a world-wide process of globalisation whose driving force is economic, but which is potentially much more than that. It involves a variety of political, social and cultural processes, some of them barely at an embryonic stage, though each advancing at its own rate of progress. Mercosur’s neo-liberal matrix, however, has led to the economic decision-making process being taken outside the realm of politics, thus leaving large sections of the population with no mechanism to influence the integration process so that it addresses their urgent needs and demands.

The Editors: Francisco Domínguez is Head of Latin American Studies and Spanish and Head of the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Middlesex University, London, UK. He has published on Cuba’s economic reform, economic integration in Latin America, and NAFTA. He has been visiting scholar at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Central and Los Andes Universities of Venezuela. Editor of Identity and Discursive Practices: Spain and Latin America (2000). Marcos Aurelio Guedes de Oliveira is Professor of International Politics at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and CNPq researcher in Brazil. He was Chair Simon Bolivar 2000 at the Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amerique latine at Sorbonne University, Paris III and Director of the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Middlesex University from 1999 to 2000. His latest book is Mercosul e Política published in 2001, Sao Paulo, Brazil.