Interests Representation and Distribution in Latin America & Non-Western Europe

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel addresses the issue of interest’s representation in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe from different perspectives. The four papers in the panel discuss from different methodological and regional perspectives the intertwined relationship between interests’ groups, political parties and policy-making. The panel attempt to bridge from a comparative perspective three emerging regions rarely pooled together that share a somehow successful but troubled democratization paths. The papers analyze how and when different distributive coalitions became dominant during the last two decades, how new participatory institutions affect interests’ representation and how relevant polices have affected/affect party-society relations and distributive outcomes. In this vein, Valdez’s paper explores coalitional politics among employers through an examination of employer preferences toward labor market reform in post-recession Iberia. Madariaga’s paper analyzes how the quest for establishing neoliberalism as a dominant economic policy regime implied altering both, the power resources of business and labor, and the capacity of different political actors to be represented in the Executive and Congress. The paper argues that the success that neoliberals had in creating support among business and the right, and blocking opposition from labor and the left, explains the resilience of neoliberalism, as well as subsequent patterns of democratic erosion. Maika’s paper, in turn, explores the diverse ways that nationally mandated participatory institutions structure interest intermediation through an analysis of Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. The paper focuses on which actors are behind the construction of national participatory institutions, which political projects are advanced through these institutions, and how do participatory institutions integrate societal interests into the policymaking process. The paper argues that the role of participatory institutions in interest intermediation stems from their origins in political projects of partisan mobilization, policy reform, or civil society containment. Finally, Bogliaccini’s paper explores, from a comparative standpoint and drawing on extensive fieldwork on Chile, Portugal and Uruguay, how coalitional dynamics between organized labor and left of center parties were shaped during the decades after democratization, tracking the institutional and agency-related causes for the formation of labor-inclusive coalitions versus labor-excluding ones. The panel, therefore, contributes to the understanding of representation dynamics and its’ distributive consequences, as well as balances of power between societal and political actors, in non-Western Europe and Latin America.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Neoliberalism and Democratic Erosion in Latin America and Eastern Europe - Aldo Madariaga, Universidad Mayor

• What Capital Wants: Business and Labor Market Reform in Portugal and Spain - Jimena Valdez, Cornell University

• Globalization, Polarized Workplace Politics & Electoral Linkages in France - Sara Watson, Ohio State University; Mark I. Vail, Tulane University

Chair

• Juan Ariel Bogliaccini Universidad Católica del Uruguay

Discussants

• Juan Pablo Luna Instituto de Ciencia Política, PUC-Chile

• Sara Watson Ohio State University