"Why have Latin American democracies proven unable to confront the structural inequalities that cripple their economies and stymie social mobility? Brian Palmer-Rubin contends that we may lay the blame on these countries' systems of interest representation, which exhibit "biased pluralism," a system in which the demands of organizations representing economic elites--especially large corporations--predominate. A more inclusive model of representation would not only require a more encompassing and empowered set of institutions to represent workers, but would also feature spaces for non-elite producers--such as farmers and small-business owners to ahve a say in sectoral economic policies. With analysis drawing on over 100 interviews, an original survey, and official government data, this book focuses on such organizations and develops an account of biased pluralism in developing countries typified by the centrality of patronage--discretionarily allocated state benefits. Rather than serving as conduits for demand-making about development models, political parties and interest organizations often broker state subsidies or social programs, augmenting the short-term income of beneficiaries but doing little to improve their long-term economic prospects. When organizations become diverted into patronage politics, the economic demands of the masses go unheard in the policies that most affect their lives, and along the way, their economic interests go unrepresented." - Back cover
Why have Latin American democracies proven unable to confront the structural inequalities that cripple their economies and stymie social mobility? Brian Palmer-Rubin contends that we may lay the blame on these countries' systems of interest representation, which exhibit "biased pluralism," a system in which the demands of organizations representing economic elites—especially large corporations—predominate. A more inclusive model of representation would not only require a more encompassing and empowered set of institutions to represent workers, but would also feature spaces for non-eliteproducers—such as farmers and small-business owners to have a say in sectoral economic policies.
With analysis drawing on over 100 interviews, an original survey, and official government data, this book focuses on such organizations and develops an account of biased pluralism in developing countries typified by the centrality of patronage—discretionarily allocated state benefits. Rather than serving as conduits for demand-making about development models, political parties and interest organizations often broker state subsidies or social programs, augmenting the short-term income of beneficiaries, but doing little to improve their long-term economic prospects. When organizations become diverted into patronage politics, the economic demands of the masses go unheard in the policies that most affect their lives, and along the way, their economic interests go unrepresented.
When do organizations broadly represent the interests of their economic sectors and when do they narrowly represent the interests of members? This article investigates how agricultural and small-business organizations in Mexico make demands for programmatic policies or patronage benefits. Contrary to explanations based on the class of members, I show that the source of organizational capacity shapes demand-making strategies. Organizations that generate selective benefits internally are able to engage in programmatic policies that shape sectoral competitiveness, whereas organizations that fail to solve membership challenges internally are vulnerable to the patronage trap, a self-reproducing cycle wherein they become specialized in demand making for discretionary private goods. I generate this argument through process tracing of two agricultural organizations in Mexico. Analysis of an original survey of economic interest organizations provides broader evidence that organizational capacity is a better predictor of policy demands than social class.
This study analyzes the participation of Mexican agricultural and small-business organizations in policymaking. Despite the recent focus in the literature on representation of individual citizens—either through party linkages or participatory institutions—the present focus is on the organizations that exist to represent collective interests of small-scale farmers and small-business owners. I analyze the factors that lead some of these organizations to lend voice to the sectors that they represent in the programmatic policies that shape sectoral competitiveness, others to focus their efforts on extracting distributive benefits from the state, and others to be excluded from policymaking processes entirely. While existing research stresses the effect of poverty on demand for patronage, I identify two factors—membership conditions and electoral competition—that can supersede class pressures, permitting organizations to evade clientelistic linkages with political parties and garner effective policy voice.First, the ability of organizations to independently recruit, retain and mobilize members frees organizations from pressure to enter into dependent linkages with political parties. While such linkages offer particularistic benefits that organization leaders can repurpose as selective benefits to spur member participation, they route organizations into the patronage trap, a self-reproducing cycle in which organizations become specialized for distributive demand making. These linkages convert leaders into electoral brokers and force organizations to forgo protest, lobbying, and other forms of political participation in favor of electoral mobilization, making them ill suited for programmatic demand making. I develop this argument using case studies of economic interest organizations in three Mexican states. Survey analysis of organizations in all Mexican states confirms that independent resource flows and the capacity to generate selective benefits—indicators of member recruitment capacity—are positively associated with organizations' breadth of mobilization strategies and ability to levy programmatic policy demands.Second, I show that the dynamics of electoral competition help explain the degree to which ruling politicians incorporate organizations into the programmatic and distributive policymaking arenas. In the presence of electoral competition, interest organizations can credibly threaten to support an opposition party if the ruling party fails to respond to their policy demands. Thus, electoral competition has two effects on organizational participation: First, it affords organizations leverage to pressure politicians for access to the exclusive programmatic policy arena, when state actors may otherwise prefer to limit organizational participation to the distributive arena. Second, competition incentivizes ruling politicians to incorporate organizations from their non-core constituencies (such as peasant organizations for a right-wing party or business organizations for a left-wing party) into policymaking. I build this theory through case studies of state governments under the control of three different political parties with different relationships to peasant and small-business organizations. I then test the argument in the distributive realm with an analysis of distribution data for state-level small-business subsidies across all 32 Mexican states, allowing me to exploit subnational variation in ruling parties and electoral competition.
While the presence of a strong civil society is recognized as desirable for democracies, an important question is what motivates citizens to join organizations. This article presents novel experimental evidence on the conditions under which citizens join interest organizations. We presented 1,400 citizens in two Mexican states with fliers promoting a new local interest organization. These fliers contain one of four randomly selected recruitment appeals. We find evidence that both brokerage of state patronage and demand-making for local public goods are effective recruitment appeals. The effect for patronage brokerage is especially pronounced among respondents with prior organizational contact, supporting our hypothesis of a "particularistic socialization" effect wherein organizational experience is associated with greater response to selective material benefits. Our findings suggest that under some conditions, rather than generating norms of other-regarding, interest organizations can reinforce members' individualistic tendencies.
