Energy Integration in South America and Global Geopolitics

Abstract

This work analyzes the dynamics of the reconfiguration of the geopolitical oil map in South America, in the context of the end of the golden commodities decade. For this purpose, we will identify the power relations and the conflicts generated, in and among, the different scales of spatial analysis: global, governmental, and regional; this analysis will show the limits of post-neoliberal energy integration, facing a crossroads today. The end of the progressive and post-neoliberal era, that characterized the South American politics and economy during the first decade of the twenty-first century, brought profound changes of how the regional area was perceived, and thus its regionalization processes. Oil and gas have played a fundamental role in the regional integration proposals since the past century. The energetic integration of the region has been a central part of the agenda of South American and LA integration since the 90s, occupying a central position in the proposal of hemispherical integration driven by the FTAA, as well as in the proposals of post-neoliberal integration in the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century.