This project aims at attaching many of the models of cosmopolitan democracy to the real world historical processes. In the Mercosur region of Latin America, neoliberal globalization has led and will lead to a variety of critical political responses, some of which carry the seeds of cosmopolitan democracy. A dialectical development of political consciousness seems to have occurred in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. This development tackles directly the real conditions of people’s lives.

This project was funded by the Academy of Finland and Heikki Patomäki and Teivo Teivainen conducted a one-month field study in the Mercosur region of Latin America where they conducted in-depth interviews in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The results were first reported in Critical Responses to Globalization in the Mercosur Region, NIGD Working Paper 1/2000. Emergent Possibilities for Democratic Politics? in Spring 2000. They were later developed further and published as Heikki Patomäki and Teivo Teivainen: “Critical Responses to Neoliberal Globalization in the Mercosur Region. Roads to Cosmopolitan Democracy?”, Review of International Political Economy Vol 9. No 1, March 2002, pp. 37-71.