The Pacific Alliance: a new sample of regionalism in Latin America

The Pacific Alliance was established as a model of deep integration between Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The question raised in this paper is which of the Latin American regionalism approaches is more proper for the theoretical characterization of the Pacific Alliance initiative. In this sense, the concepts of open regionalism and strategic regionalism are explained for the characterization of this initiative and their limits are highlighted from empirical evidence. The paper concludes that regionalism concepts which give greater emphasis to commercial dynamics are not enough to understand the current operation and performance of the Pacific Alliance. As such, a complementary analytical approach is introduced which responds to the long term global dynamics.