The impact of regional integration on the foreign policy options of small and middle power states: The cases of Argentina, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay.

摘要

The study of small and middle states in regional organizations has almost exclusively focused on the economic aspects of membership for these types of countries. However, with the widening and deepening of integration in many parts of the world, especially in the European Union, small and middle states begin to benefit in other issue areas as well, under the proper conditions. Foreign policy is one of these issue areas, and this study attempts to demonstrate that active participation in all aspects of integration on the part of the small and middle power states, and highly developed institutions in systems of regional integration will facilitate increased capabilities with regard to the foreign policy options of these particular countries.; The foreign policies of Spain and Portugal, and Argentina and Uruguay were analyzed both before and after they became members of the European Union and Mercosur, respectively. Each of the country's foreign policies were evaluated on the following four criteria: members of the same regional organization, members of other systems of regional integration, countries of special interest, and large power countries to determine the level of success in positively changing their foreign policies since membership in their respective regional organizations.