Mercosur has undergone numerous transformations, from a customs union to an organization promoting development and consulting civil society. Recently, there has been a backlash against such ‘politicization’, and an attempt to return Mercosur to its origins. At each of these phases, Mercosur was plagued by questions about its legitimacy and purpose, and its leaders reached out to different types of actors to legitimize it. This article argues that each phase of Mercosur's evolution represented the ascendancy of a constellation of social forces, which sought to shift the governance of particular issues beyond the national scope, to secure their interests. In this context, the different legitimation processes and changing actors involved in them represent different balances of forces within Mercosur. The article traces the evolution of Mercosur and its legitimation processes, identifying the social struggles behind them, and the different conceptions of legitimacy constructed and contested as part of this process.

中文翻译：

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南方共同市场的变化面孔：南美洲区域主义的合法性和规模政治

从关税同盟到促进发展和咨询民间社会的组织，南共市经历了无数次变革。最近，人们对这种“政治化”产生了强烈反对，并试图使南方共同市场重返其起源。在这些阶段的每个阶段，南方共同市场都对其合法性和目的提出疑问，而其领导人与不同类型的参与者进行了接触以使其合法化。本文认为，南共市发展的每个阶段都代表着一系列社会力量的崛起，这些力量试图将特定问题的治理转移到全国范围之外，以确保他们的利益。在这种情况下，参与其中的不同合法化过程和变化的参与者代表了南共市内部力量的不同平衡。