Central America during COVID 19: New Opportunities for Cooperation and Regional Integration?

Abstract

The pandemic that emerged at the beginning of the year 2020 caused uncertainty in countries, governments, societies, and organizations, by placing them
in front of unknown and complex scenarios. It is imperative for the discipline of International Relations, closely linked to global political circumstances, to develop analyzes based on the identification of the most relevant facts, the behavior of the actors and their links, as well as the challenges and threats faced by states, regions, and societies, within the International System. Even when the consequences that the different crises -political, social, economic, migratory, and health- may have caused in the dynamics of global relations have not been conclusively determined, as well as the elements that allow determining changes or continuities in the International System, this article aims to provide some preliminary elements to identify some of the actions in which Central America, through the Integration System (SICA), initially faced the health crisis due to COVID 19, which posed different challenges to the member countries and to the functioning of the regional institutions. In conditions as complex as the current ones, it is pertinent to ask whether integration and cooperation turn out to be viable options to solve regional problems. The reflections shared in this article aim to contribute to the debate regarding the opportunities that Central American regional integration offers in the context of pandemics.