Interest Intermediation

Pluralism, in its many  ramifications,  represents  a  particularly broad  line  of  political  and  social  thought  as well as an approach to empirical analysis. The intellectual roots of the concept can be traced back over centuries. In modern political science,  the  term  has  been  mostly  associated with  analyses  of  the  influence  of  interest groups  over  executive  political  decision- making. As a paradigmatic theory and method, the approach was not fully elaborated until the mid  20th  century.  It  then  quickly  developed into a classic, often dominant approach to the study  of  politics  in  the  Western  world. The article approaches the concept and theory of pluralism from a historico-developmental perspective.

This work aims to explain how the Tupac Amaru, a neighborhood organization, established itself as a hegemonic organization in the informal popular sectors of the province of Jujuy, Argentina. We uphold that this consolidation was the result of both the alliance of this organization with the national government and a type of territorial organization that had been evolving since the nineties. We will show that contrary to common belief, the important amount of resources it gets from the State does not imply demobilization.

Group representatives negotiating either with government officials or with their counterparts from other groups find themselves in an intermediary position in which they represent their members to the outside world and the outside world towards their members. Confidentiality appears to be a necessary precondition for leadership interactions of that kind. This leads to the question how the logic of membership and the logic of influence adapt to situations in which confidentiality cannot be maintained. Building on the pair of logics the paper attempts to achieve a more generalized concept of interest intermediation. Comparing old-style corporatist arrangements negotiated behind closed doors with new forms of open round-table discussions and national summit meetings shows that governments and officially appointed experts gain whereas old-established interest associations lose influence. As a consequence the logics of interest intermediation change too. Interest associations face difficulties to commit their members and to enter into obligations as well as to keep control over policy arrangements. In response governments set up more consultation bodies that are expected to engage in a more open and direct manner with different communities and the broader public.

Este trabajo buscará explicar el modo en que la Organización Barrial Tupac Amaru se ha consolidado como organización hegemónica de los sectores po- pulares informales en la provincia de Jujuy. Sostendremos que esto se ha debido tanto a la consolidación de una alianza con el gobierno nacional y de una forma de organización territorial que ya se venía gestando desde los años 90. En este contexto, mostraremos que, contrariamente a lo que suele creerse, el hecho de recibir una importante cantidad de recursos estatales, no implica que la organización se tenga que desmovilizar.

Este trabajo se propone analizar la evolución del modo en que los intereses de los sectores populares informales –principalmente desocu- pados, amas de casa y trabajadores no re- gistrados– han sido intermediados en la provincia de Jujuy desde 1988 hasta el presente. Además, buscará explicar la consolidación de un modo de intermediación particular al que denominaremos jerárquico informal, y que se caracteriza por una organización hegemónica –la Tupac Amaru– capaz de alinear a otras organizaciones tras de sí, y de presionar al Estado aspirando con éxito a obtener un monopolio en la representación de estos sectores y una participación en la formulación e
implementación de la política pública. Soste- nemos que la consolidación de este modo de intermediación fue posible gracias al invo- lucramiento de los sindicatos estatales en la organización de los desocupados y a la posterior alianza que se entabló entre la Tupac Amaru y el kirchnerismo. Esta alianza se materializó en una serie de regulaciones informales del Estado que estarían en el origen de este modo de inter- mediación. A su vez, el liderazgo carismático de Milagro Sala es fundamental para comprender tanto la consolidación de esta organización como de todo un movimiento de informales en la provincia.

We now know that the (re)discovery of corporatism in the mid-1970s was ironic. At the very moment that academics started using the concept to analyze trends in advanced capitalist societies, the practice had already peaked and it continued to decline during the 1980s. Then, just as many observers had announced its demise, corporatism has risen again and now seems to be carrying its twin burdens of interest associability and policy-making to new heights during the 1990s. The primary “growth potential” for macro-corporatist architects in the future lies in the feverish efforts of national governments to adapt to EU directives, product and professional standards, verdicts of the ECJ and the convergence criteria for EMU. The boundaries, territorial and functional, of interest politics have shifted irrevocably which paradoxically implies a greater not a lesser reliance on previous structures of national intermediation -- provided they can be exploited to fulfill new tasks and still manage to reproduce the old loyalties. So, this article argues, the Corporatist Sisyphus is headed back up the hill, goaded as before by an architectonic national state. Moreover, he is just about on time. If previous speculation about a twenty to twenty-five year cycle was correct and if one traces their last downturn to the First Oil Shock of 1973, then corporatist practices should have bottomed out ca. 1985-8 and will be hitting their peak sometime after 1998-9 -- more or less at the very moment that monetary unification is (supposed) to occur!

The internationalization of markets and the Europeanization of politics both have a number of implications for business and their associations in most of the EU Member States. While the size of firms has always been a dividing line within specific associations, this division is now becoming accentuated. This has to do with the differential salience the two major logics of organized collective action possess for both types of firms and their associations in a world of increasing complexity. The hypothesis raised in this contribution is as follows. Large firms are primarily challenged from the part of the LOGIC OF MEMBERSHIP. The INTERNATIONALIZATION OF MARKETS entails significant restructuring among larger companies. This often materializes in form of M&A activity, buy-outs and take-over and, subsequently, membership losses. Since dues paid by large firms represent a major source of income for business associations, organizational tasks located at the membership side of associative a...

Las recientes transformaciones en el seno de la Unión Europea han estado ejerciendo una presión significativa en la función gestora de la Comisión Europea. Examinando su función de intermediación, este artículo se pregunta que clase de papel juega la Comisión en las interacciones políticas en Bruselas después del año 2000. Desarrollando un marco conceptual acerca de los papeles de intermediación en la política de la Unión, este artículo emplea una combinación de datos cualitativos y cuantitativos en un análisis empírico de dos casos extremos en los que la Comisión ha estado enredada en los últimos años. El artículo sostiene que los informes previos al "fallecimiento" de la Comisión fueron muy exagerados, porque ésta continua jugando un papel de liderazgo en la gestión de interacciones entre múltiples actores a distintos niveles de gobernación. Los resultados empíricos muestran que la Comisión es un resistente intermediario central en las redes sociales. Palabras clave: Comisión Europea, policy network, procedimiento de codecisión, método abierto de coordinación, Estrategia Europea de Empleo, organismos genéticamente modificados, intermediación de intereses.

Recent transformations in the European Union have been putting significant pressure on the management function of the European Commission. Examining its brokerage position in policy networks, this article asks what kind of role does the Commission have in the political interactions in Brussels after the year 2000. Developing a conceptual framework about brokerage roles in EU policy, the article uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data in an empirical analysis of two extreme cases where the Commission has been embattled the past years. The article argues that previous reports of the Commission’s demise are much exaggerated, because it continues playing a leading role in managing interaction between multiple actors at different levels of governance. The empirical results show that the Commission is a resilient central network broker.