Paper short abstract:

A case study of how multi-level governance shapes extensive infrastructure networks, which in turn condition patterns of territorial development. The design of cross-border roadways and energy infrastructure in South America has responded to the imperative of world-market access since the 1990s.

Paper long abstract:

The territorial integration of South American countries beyond national boundaries constitutes a long-standing goal for the region. This case study assesses progress made since the unprecedented implementation of the decade-long IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure of South America) in the year 2000. The study shows that under the leadership of Brazil, the design of cross-border roadways and energy infrastructure since IIRSA has responded to the imperative of world-market access and bi-coastal surface integration privileging existing metropolitan cores and the connectivity of oceanic ports over the development and integration of hinterland regions. The IIRSA experience may have been predicated on a complex arrangement of public and private interests and geopolitical conjunctures that no longer hold ground, particularly amid the legitimacy crisis of the Brazilian state and its main corporate partners. Yet in this presentation I will argue that the neoliberal territorial design built into IIRSA is maintained in the current infrastructure plans laid out for the region by multiple endogenous and exogenous actors. The presentation will conclude with a broader reflection on the design and production of extensive territories of economic integration in the global South and the role that infrastructure networks play in these.