Regulatory governance regimes and interregionalism: exploring the dynamics of EU–Mercosur negotiations

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of interregionalism on regulatory governance. Specifically, it analyses an underexplored aspect of the negotiation process for an interregional agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Common Market of the South (Mercosur): to what extent and how has this given rise to particular forms of regulatory governance in Mercosur? The paper empirically explores the trade and cooperation agendas involved in trade facilitation and education, and argues that the long negotiation process between the EU and Mercosur has affected the ways in which different forms of regulatory governance are expressed. Still, these show variation across policy issues. Both the type of norm promoted and the capacity-building mechanisms envisaged create a particular ideational and material context, all of which affects the actor constellation and leads in turn to different regulatory governance regimes, yet within the same interregional negotiation process.