Mercosul 20 anos: numero especial da Meridiano 47 - chamada para contribuicoes

Retransmito abaixo nota preparada pelo meu colega, amigo e editor da Revista Brasileira de Revista Internacional e da Meridiano 47, sobre número especial desta última sobre o Mercosul, que parece chegar perto da idade madura de 21 anos sem ter tido ainda a possibilidade de largar fraldas e mamadeiras... (estou brincando, por certo, mas não muito).
Pretendo contribuir, tanto porque escrevi dois trabalhos sobre o Mercosul no período recente, e ainda penso fazer mais um ou dois.
Haverá também um número especial sobre os dez anos do 11 de setembro, mas não tenho certeza de ter algo de inteligente para escrever a respeito. Sinto-me mais à vontade com o Mercosul.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Boletim Meridiano 47 will publish a special issue about the Mercosur in July 2011 and about 9/11 in September 2011.

Now completing two decades since its signing in March 1991, the objective of the Treaty of Assuncion was to construct MERCOSUL, the Portuguese-language acronym for a common market in South America's southern cone. Further, by January 1995 the MERCOSUL countries had instituted a customs union. MERCOSUL was thus the means by which the four countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) felt best enabled to position themselves in a new world economic order populated by such other large blocks as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. But by the end of the nineties neither Argentina nor Brazil appeared very interested in its further consolidation, each having in sight the potential alternative objective of joining an incipient ALCA, the Portuguese acronym for a free trade area of the Americas (FTAA in English). However, the intervening economic crises of the nineties in both Brazil and Argentina, and the sudden US disinterest as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, led the former to reorient themselves yet once again towards the consolidation of MERCOSUL.

From the perspective of these two decades of economic evolution, what have been and how should we understand its impacts on the Brazilian economy? How conclusively can it be said that MERCOSUL has reinforced a (or the) democratic paradigm in, and even beyond, the Southern Cone? What has been the relative importance of MERCOSUL in the context of negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
September 2011 marks a decade since the terrorist attack on the United States. Noteworthy to all was the fact that a superpower had suffered a uniquely large-scale assault, not in a conventional form and not from another country, but from a fundamentalist-terrorist organization located in and around the Middle East. Immediately thereafter the United States initiated military action against Afghanistan, and just over a year later against Iraq. On a parallel track, Europe suffered other terror attacks. In the context of a globalized world, the formally democratic and neoliberal West's new opponent would be not an ideology, such as during the Cold War, but terrorism, promoted not by identifiable countries or nations, but by nebulous extremist groups.
Through this prism and ten years on, what can be said to be the in-depth effects of these developments on international relations? How has 9/11 affected US foreign policy? To what extent have these events affected the dynamics of politics in the Middle East? How has terrorism itself undergone change and transformations? How best to understand the Brazilian posture and positioning in the face of this new international dynamic? What importance is retained by the UN Security Council as a main conduit for dealing with a new kind of international threat?
All submissions should be original and unpublished, must be in the range of 25,000 characters (including spaces and footnotes), must be written in English, Spanish or Portuguese including an abstract of less then 70 words [and 3 key-words in English]. Follow the Chicago System (author, date).
All contributions will be submitted to blind peer review.

Submissions should be sent to http://seer.bce.unb.br/index.php/MED/author/submit/1 up to 30th of June 2011 (Mercosur issue) and 31st of August 2011 (9/11 issue).