The Central American Common Market: From closed to open regionalism

The Central American Common Market (CACM), launched in 1960, was frequently held up as a model for other developing countries to follow. Its collapse in the 1980s led to a reconsideration of the role of regional integration in the development process. As a result the relaunch of the CACM in the 1990s is designed to complement the region's promotion of nontraditional exports to the rest of the world. This article charts the transition of the CACM from an instrument designed to foster import-substituting industrialization ("closed regionalism") to the open regionalism now favored throughout Latin America. While the rhetoric of integration has moved far beyond the reality, the new CACM is significantly different from its predecessor and has the potential to play a positive role in the region's development. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.