Variations in Design, But Similar Effects: Social Participation in the Andean Community, Mercosur, and the Central American Integration System

This article provides a comparative study on the spaces for social participation in different Latin American regional organizations. Departing from an institutionalist approach, we review the structures, processes, and outcomes of civil society participation in regional governance in three representative regional projects—the Andean Community, The Southern Common Market, and the Central American Integration System. The objective of this article is to characterize the variation in the institutional designs of the channels for social participation in Latin American regional organizations, identifying their similarities and differences, patterns, and effects on regional governance and the roles played by civil society organizations in these regionalist processes. We reflect on the relevance of design variations, the reasons for such variation, and their effects on regional governance. We argue that despite some differences in institutional design, with the Central American Integration System developing a supranational logic of membership in contrast to the intergovernmental settings of the other two cases, social participation in the three cases is limited to agenda facilitation, and its effects on regional decision-making is residual.