Free trade agreements and regional alliances: support from Latin American legislators

The creation of international organizations and the signature of free trade agreements have become common in Latin America. However, few studies have tackled the attitudes of political elites. This work aims to analyze the determinants of support by Latin American legislators for free trade agreements with the US and the EU, and for the Pacific Alliance and ALBA. Results show that ideology, pro-state/market positions, and trustworthiness vis-à-vis Chinese and Russian governments are the main predictors. This paper aims to analyze the causes of support in Latin American parliaments for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with the US and the EU, as well as for two regional alliances, the Pacific Alliance and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). To achieve this, we employ the Latin American Elites Database from the University of Salamanca (PELA-USAL), which gathers interviews with Latin American legislators on issues such as democracy, economy, political careers and, in recent years, international relations. This article extends to all Latin American countries where questions on the aforementioned FPIs have been made available: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela. This research can be seen as appropriate due to its special focus: legislators are themselves the who eventually must approve these FPIs in their respective legislative chambers. Understanding what legislators think and what drives their support can clearly help to identify the causes of success or failure of and regional alliances in Latin America, specifically at the elite legislative level.