Over the last two decades, natural resource governance has become an increasingly important element of South American regionalism as commodities became a central driver for regional development strategies. Yet, due to socio-environmental impacts and dissatisfaction with decision-making processes, it is also frequently contested. This article focuses on one particularly prominent contestation with transboundary and regional repercussions, the case of the pulp mill conflict which escalated between Argentina and Uruguay in the 2000s. Using the concepts of regionness and politics of scale, it examines in which ways the pulp mill conflict affected regional cohesion and seeks to understand why it evolved in this way. This shows that the way national governments address socio-environmental conflicts is an important additional obstacle to regional cohesion which has received little attention in studies of South American regionalism so far.

在过去的二十年中，随着商品成为区域发展战略的主要驱动力，自然资源治理已成为南美区域主义的一个越来越重要的因素。然而，由于社会环境的影响以及对决策过程的不满，它也经常受到质疑。本文的重点是跨界和区域影响的特别突出的竞争，即2000年代阿根廷和乌拉圭之间纸浆厂冲突升级的案例。它使用区域性和规模政治的概念，考察了制浆厂冲突以何种方式影响了区域凝聚力，并试图了解其为何以这种方式发展。