Brazil and regional integration in South America: lessons from the EU's crisis

This paper introduces the idea of the EU as a 'model' of regional integration, linking it to the literature on Europe as a normative power. The second part discusses the influence of the EU model on regional cooperation and integration in South America. In particular, it focuses on the discursive use of the model in Brazilian foreign policy during the two tenures of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva as a dominant rhetoric for the promotion of regional integration, especially in the case of the Mercado Común del Sur(Common Market of the South, MERCOSUR) and the Unión de Naciones Suramerican...