Meta-organizations and the making of a neocolonialist global order

José Fernandes (), Mariana Baldi, Fernando Lopes and Héloïse Berkowitz ()
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José Fernandes: UFPA - Federal University of Para - Universidade Federal do Pará - UFPA [Belém, Brazil]
Mariana Baldi: UFRGS - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul [Porto Alegre – Brasil] = Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul [Porto Alegre – Brazil]
Fernando Lopes: UFRGS - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul [Porto Alegre – Brasil] = Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul [Porto Alegre – Brazil]
Héloïse Berkowitz: LEST - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Sociologie du Travail - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, AMU - Aix Marseille Université

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Abstract: This paper develops a neocolonialist perspective on meta-organizations and global order. We examine whether and how meta-organizations contribute to the creation and diffusion of a neocolonialist global order. We focus on the Mercosur, the EU, the EU–Mercosur free trade agreement and the many meta-organizations that have attempted to create decision premises around it. Borrowing from Latin American scholarship, we explore some of the mechanisms of social order creation at work and the strategic interplays between dominant and peripheral actors, including reprimarization and resourcification, strategies and counter-strategies such as lobbying, organizing ignorance, or meta-organizing in territories. We highlight how meta-organizations can drive either coloniality or resistance, and how meta-organizations can serve reinforcing or contesting structures of dominance. This research argues for re-examining meta-organization theory by developing perspectives from the margins of the Global Souths and fostering a pluriversal understanding of a just global order.

Keywords: Brazil; Mercosur; EU-Mercosur Agreement; Indigenous Peoples; Latin America; Meta-Organization; Neocolonialism; Global Order (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05625555v1
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Published in Héloïse Berkowitz; Sanne Bor; Nils Brunsson. A World of Meta-Organizations, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.148-170, 2026, 9781035342211. ⟨10.4337/9781035342228.00019⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05625555

DOI: 10.4337/9781035342228.00019

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