About the Alternative Regionalisms project

26 September 2009
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Part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme, TNI’s Alternative Regionalisms project believes that socially just and environmentally sustainable alternatives to the current model of corporate-led globalisation will need to emerge at a regional level – in addition to the more usual civil society focus on local and national solutions. Working closely with social movements and coalitions of civil society organisations in the South and Europe, TNI combines network-building, research and policy advocacy to promote regional solutions to global economic, social and ecological crises.

Why Alternative Regionalisms?
We see the regions as privileged arenas to develop and implement alternatives that place people and the environment before profit. This holds particularly true in the current context of global crises, where the need to move forward with the process of de-globalisation becomes more urgent than ever.

Regionalism offers the potential for policy autonomy in the South. Through alternative regional integration processes, countries would be able to take advantage of the diversity of natural, productive, financial, scientific and intellectual resources that exist in the region, strengthening regional capacities and facilitating endogenous development strategies, promoting cooperation rather than competition between neighbour states.

Our objectives

TNI’s Alternative Regionalisms project aims to:

  • broaden the base of key social actors for political debate and action around the importance of reclaiming regional integration and advancing regional alternatives 
  • support networks identifying regional concerns and developing alternatives on specific themes relevant to each region and strategies of action 
  • support regional campaigns raising awareness of specific regional alternatives 
  • support efforts of regional networks to engage governments and regional bodies to adopt and promote people-centred regional alternatives

Recent publications from Alternative Regionalisms

Rethinking regionalisms in times of crises

The demand for people-centred regional alternatives has been at the core of people’s struggles in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. This reader pulls together perspectives of social movement activists, describing the restrictive regional spaces within which they work and propose regional alternatives.

Crisis and alternatives

In the long term we have to transcend capitalism as it cannot ensure a decent livelihood for all nor is it compatible with preserving necessary ecological balances. In the short-term we must start out with basic social democratic demands.

Occupy the left or ignore it?

Why the traditional Left needs to understand, be willing to be challenged, and fully embrace the Occupy and Indignado movements.

Financial Governance Beyond the Crisis

Dr. Pedro Paez talks about the creation of a new financial architecture in Latin America, based on principles of redistribution, environmental sustainability and social cohesion rather than market principles that dominated the old architecture.