At the same time that Mercosul Parliament accomplished its fifth session, in Montevideo, American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein made a conference in Porto Alegre, 890 kilometers away from the Uruguayan capital, about Impass and Change in the XXI Century. To Wallerstein, a senior research scholar at Yale University, in the United States, Mercosul might claim a “more significant role” in a new multipolar world in the near future.

In an interview to Agência Senado, in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, the sociologist – who created the World-System theory – talks about his new book, European Universalism, and about what he calls a “semi-permanent impasse” between North and South.

Mercosul Parliament has just accomplished its fifth session, in Montevideo, in an attempt to deepen political regional integration. How do you see the potential of Mercosul?

I think Mercosul is a very important institution and has prospects of being even more important. In a world which tends to become more multipolar, Mercosul can become one of the poles of the system.

Mercosul has tried to move ahead a kind of South-South cooperation. Have you noticed any change in North-South relations over the last years?

Let’s take a very simple thing in which Brazil itself has been very involved., which is North-South relations within the frame of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In Cancun, in 2003, there was a very important meeting of the WTO in which Brazil led a group called G-20, which involved India, South Africa and China and negotiated basically with the United States and Western Europe. As I interpret what happenned, the G-20, led by Brazil, basically said ‘look, free trade might be a good idea, but a two way idea, and if we open our frontiers to you in x, y or z ways, you’ve got to open your frontiers to us in x, y or z ways’. The United States and Western Europe said they could not do that. They wanted G-20 countries to open their frontiers, but said they could not open their frontiers. And for a very simple reason: politically, internally, it was impossible. None of their governments would survive. So they said ‘sorry, we can’t do that’, in which point Brazil said, ‘sorry, we can’t do that’ either. So, to speak, there was an impasse, which I think is semi-permanent.

Brazil has been accused of having interrupted the Doha Round.

I think Doha is gone nowhere. The WTO is to now a meaningless framework. It won’t do anything important, basically we have a stanstill between North and South. They are both going to stand on their grounds, which are both relatively protectionist grounds. But protectionism is going to be a big theme in the next 10 to 20 years.

In your recent the book, European Universalism, you propose the creation of a true universal universalism. Could you define that?

European univerealism claims to be universalist. But I argue in the book it really is not. Is a way of justifying intervention on behalf of the strong against the weaker groups or countries. It is not trully universalist. I say there are multiple universalisms and we have to try to put them to speak to each other, in the hope that we can, within this dialogue, begin to create the basis of a universal universalism, which will not be monotone, but will be flexible.

Could we still talk about center and periphery, or are there many centers today, in a multipolar world?

There are many centers and there are many peripheries. Now, with the basic center-periphery divide, there is the North-South divide, which is in a sort of standstill. The South has become strong enough to say no to the North, but not strong enough to get the North to change its basic motive action. So, we are living in a very uncertain, very fluctuating period.

Some use, in Brazil, the examples of Korea and China to say that these countries, which were in the periphery before, are becoming richer and stronger. How does it fit into World-System analysis?

Within the framework of the capitalist world economy, of course countries can get richer. That has happenned all the time over the last four or five hundred years. But it happens when other countries get poorer. It is very important for the people of Brazil to remember that, in 1945, the tenth strongest country economically in the world was Argentina. And Argentina was much stronger than Italy and a donor to Italy in the post-second world war period. Now Argentina has gone down and Korea has gone up. One of the basic arguments of World-System analysis is that countries are not fixed in their positions, but the rough distribution of how many are strong and how many are weak is fixed. So, when somebody is moving up, other people are moving down. The idea that Korea is much stronger economically is absolutely true, but you have to ask who is weaker.

French President Sarkozy has just suggested that the G-8 might meet more frequently with countries as Brazil, South Africa and India. He also suggested he might accpet Brazil in the United Nations Security Council. Is there any chance of change in both situations?

Those are two separate questions. That G-8 might become G-13 or G-15 it is possible, because it is a mode of attempting to politically coopt Brazil, India and some other countries and link them politically more with the North than with the South. I don’t think it is at all possible for Brazil or any other country to become a permanent member of the Security Council, for a very simple reason: we have five permanent members who have veto power and one of them is bound to veto any particular new members. The US does not want certain countries, China does not want certain countries and so on.

So, in your opinion, there will be no reform?

In my opinion, there will be no reform. There might be some discussion about three kinds of countries, besides permanent members and rotating members. There might be a middle group that rotates itself without power of veto. It might happen. But I think it is a very secondary and symbolic issue. Brazil, Japan and Germany want to be at the Security Council because it is a kind of recognition of their importance for symbolic reasons. But the Security Council is not all that important. It really does not matter all that much in the real world. If I were Brazil, I would concentrate on other things.

Are you optimistic about the prospects of Mercosul and South American countries?

They are already stronger than they were even 10 years ago. We are moving into a period which will be much more multipolar and they will claim a more significant role. But we are in a period of transition in the whole world-system.

Towards what?

Ah, unkonwn! Unsure, unpredictable, but different.