Does Administrative Corporatism Promote Trust and Deliberation?

In: Governance: an international journal of policy and administration, Band 15, Heft 4, S. 455-475

Abstract

How corporatist arrangements actually work has not been empirically demonstrated, despite the theoretical focus on interest intermediation. This article investigates whether corporatism affects trust and deliberation in state activities, using Swedish public administration as a case study. First, it is doubtful that corporatism directly promotes trust among citizens, but it very likely promotes trust within and between the represented organizations. Second, interest–group representation cannot be understood as a process of strict delivering of positions adopted in advance. Preferences are often transformed in discussions where other interests are involved. Furthermore, the case investigated here shows that the decision–making process within a corporatist arrangement resembles deliberation, rather than negotiations between "contesting interests."