Trade and Productive Integration in ALBA-TCP – A systematic comparison with the corresponding agendas of COMECON and NAM

The Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) is a counter-hegemonic regional integration project which rejects neoliberal trade. It aspires to establish solidary, complementary and cooperative trade relations and to promote the productive integration between the member countries, inter alia through the creation of Grand National Enterprises (GNEs). Some inspirations for the regional trade and production agenda have been examined in detail, but the impact of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) and of the Collective Self-Reliance (CSR) approach of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has not been researched systematically. On the basis of Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), this article provides a comparison of ALBA-TCP documents on trade and productive integration with the corresponding counterparts of COMECON and NAM. The analysis demonstrates that ALBA-TCP does not represent a mere copy of either of the approaches, but has probably drawn inspiration from both.