Post-hegemonic regionalism

The concept of post-hegemonic regionalism describes the scenario that characterised Latin American regionalism in the last two decades. It first builds from Amitav Acharya’s work where he envisages the end of United States hegemony and proposes conceptualising a world order of multiple competitions, a scenario that he calls multiplex world. To a large extent post-hegemonic regionalism grew at odds with US regional and hemispheric ambitions of market-led governance and in a context of weakened US hegemony in Latin America. With this in mind, post-hegemonic regionalism is both a theory-based concept and a strategy. This article fleshes out the features of post-hegemonic regionalism and places it in context. It analyses the theoretical purchase of the concept and how it manifested in Latin America. It also reviews the research agenda initiated and how the concept has branched out in the field of study leading to variegated controversies and debates