Interest Groups in the Decision-Making Process in Chile, 1990-2020. Who, Where and How Much?

Abstract

The importance and centrality of Interest Groups (IGs), defined as any organization of people who carry out actions to influence public decisions, is permanently highlighted and discussed at the level of public opinion. Although in the daily political debate, it is examined whether or not their action is a "potential threat" to the proper functioning of democracy, Political Science has assumed that IGs exist and are relevant in any democracy. Consequently, research has concentrated on studying the problem from an empirical perspective. In this "Foro de Debate, our objective is to address the problem by focusing on the case of Chile. First, unlike what happens in the case of European democracies and the United States, because in Chile and Latin America, we know very little about the characteristics of the system of interest representation, especially concerning how balanced participation is according to the type of interest. Second, and again in contrast to what happens in the case of advanced democracies, we also know very little about how IGs define their action strategies within the political system. Finally, knowing the case of Chile will help study this vital dimension of other democracies in Latin America. This work results from research funded by the Chilean program ANID/FONDECYT (Project 1200416).