https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2584-4053
![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In this article, we start from the assumption that the pharmaceutical industry accumulates material, instrumental, ideational and institutional power. Considering this, we expect that it would be very difficult for governments to reduce the rents of pharmaceutical companies in the long-term, even when the former are externally constrained to reduce their spending. We test our argument by carrying out a qualitative analysis of a paradigmatic case study, the Portuguese economic adjustment programme (2011–2014). We demonstrate that the conditionality associated with the international bailout was welcomed by Portuguese reformist ministers as an opportunity to decrease public pharmaceutical spending. However, the representatives of the industry took several initiatives to make sure that the decrease of its profits would be limited in scope and time. As a result, as soon as the bailout terminated, the industry was able to regain its rents.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Portuguese government and the centre-right opposition parties had signed two Memorandum of Understanding, one with the European Commission and another one with the International Monetary Fund. Both were very similar in content, but since the former was more detailed, it is this one that we refer to when we mention the MoU in this paper. Cf. (European Commission Citation2011), available at https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu_borrower/mou/2011-05-18-mou-portugal_en.pdf, last accessed on 5 January 2023.