The regionalisation of organised business interests in the Mercosur: an empirical case study and some theoretical observations.

The role played by and the evolution of organised business interests in the Mercosur is a neglected area of study inside and outside the Southern Cone region. Existing research focuses primarily on states as actors. As a consequence, one of the main findings is that organised business has gained in importance in relation to the evolution of the Mercosur and that its role is generally underestimated in the existing literature. In addition to literature in English, Spanish and Portuguese, the research draws on interviews with representatives from both the business community and academia in the Mercosur. The first part of the paper will give a short introduction to the theoretical framework used to analyse the role played by organised business interests. Comparative Political Economy (CPE) is applied to the study of domestic interest representation and how these interests have changed and adapted to internationalisation, regionalisation and globalisation over time. International Political Economy (IPE) approaches are applied to study the emerging regional level of interest representation and to take into account theories of regionalisation, regionalism and globalisation. The aim is not a merging of CPE and IPE, but rather the need to highlight the important contributions of both disciplines to the study of organised business interests. The second part of the paper will focus on the chemical industry as one example of how organised business has changed and adapted to international, regional and global changes. The chemical industry is generally overlooked, as most studies focus on the automobile industry. The chemical industry is important, because co-operation between national business chambers in this industrial sector started well before the politically driven integration process. Consequently, the evolution of interest representation in relation to the chemical industry in the Mercosur points to the increasing linkages between the domestic level of interest representation and the regional level. These linkages are supported by global changes, which affect the domestic and the regional level. CPE and IPE approaches are therefore central for a theoretical understanding of these new forms of interest representation and the many ways they interact with the various levels of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]