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Articles

Agenda and Public Policy: Evidence From Chile

Pages 157-172 | Published online: 23 Oct 2015
 

ABSTRACT

Based on Kingdon’s model and the punctuated equilibrium theory, this article analyzes the process of four Chilean public policies from 1990 to 2013. Evidence was collected from 205 interviews, official documents, 3,905 press clippings, and academic literature. Grounded theory was employed to analyze interviews. The analysis shows a tacit alliance between power and expert knowledge, that presidential motivation seems to be a key factor for an idea to be included in government agenda, that Chile’s policy-making process is rather elitist, and that its characteristics coincide with the “inside access model of agenda building.”

Notes

1 The Latin American countries included in that study are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. According the study by Stein et al. (Citation2006), Chile has the overall highest value in the policy index and in the majority of its components as well.

2 Those coalitions are: the center-right Alianza por Chile (Alliance for Chile), which includes the Renovación Nacional (National Renovation Party) and the Unión Democratica Independiente (UDI) (Independiente Democratic Union), and the center left Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Agreement of Parties for Democracy) including the Christian Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, the Radical Social Democrat Party, and the Party for Democracy. In the 2013 presidential and parliamentary campaign, the Communist Party and the center-left Concertación formed a new coalition under the name of “Nueva Mayoría” (New Majority) and elected Michelle Bachelet as President and the majority of seats in Congress for the period 2014–2018.

3 A majority of two thirds of the votes in Congress is required to reject a presidential veto.

4 This work suggests that there are four salient characteristics in the Chilean policy process: a long-lived and legitimated party system, a very powerful presidency, the existence of veto players, and an honest and relatively efficient bureaucracy as a key mechanism for policy implementation. This latter characteristic is also stated in Aninat et al. (Citation2008).

5 The five presidencies are those of Patricio Aylwin (1990–1994), Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994–2000), Ricardo Lagos (2000–2006), Michelle Bachelet (2006–2010), and Sebastian Piñera (2010–2014).

6 For an explanation of the “grounded theory method,” see Valles (Citation2007).

7 The public agencies where the modernization began were the “Servicio de Impuestos Internos” (SII)—the Internal Revenue Service, the “Instituto de Normalización Previsional” (ISP)—the Social Security Institute, and the “Servicio de Registro Civil and Indentificación” (SRCeI)—the Civil Register and Identification Service. Heads of these agencies met monthly to talk about their experience. Later, the Head of the “Fondo Nacional de Salud” (FONASA)—the National Fund for Health Care—joined the group. By the time that President Aylwin called for the updating of public administration before Congress, the group had expanded to 10 Heads of public agencies who met regularly to share their views, experiences and lessons learned.

8 Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle is an Engineer with graduate studies on management in Italy. Later he became a high executive of an important Chilean company and a successful entrepreneur. His experience in managing large organizations is directly linked to his concern for the public management modernization as a necessary step to get an effective State that supports the process of becoming a developed nation.

9 President Frei Ruiz-Tagle took office on March 11, 1994, and his first presidential address before Congress was on May 21, 1994.

10 Those cases were “oversalaries” (sobresueldos), consisting of Ministers receiving an extra payment in cash in a closed envelope; “bribes,” involving five congressmen receiving illegal payments from an entrepreneur; “MOP—GATE,” “MOP—CIADE,” “MOP—IDECON,” consisting of payment for nondemonstrable works done by the Ministry of Public Works.

11 This party is the right-wing Union Democrata Independiente (UDI).

12 This is the basic idea of the reform, which was expressed in the Spanish acronym AUGE. Although four laws shaped the reform, AUGE Plan was considered its flagship.

13 Hernán Sandoval is a physician with background in public health and risk prevention, with extensive links within the president coalition and with ISAPREs, the private companies managing the pre-paid health-care plans.

14 The presidential commission was headed by the Minister of Health and integrated by the Ministers of Finance, Work and Social Security, General Secretariat of the Presidency, and an Executive Secretariat of seven members.

15 ISAPREs are pre-paid health insurance plans.

16 The corruption scandal cases were those of Chile Deportes, employment programs in Valparaiso Region and the Governor Office in Valparaiso Region (see Instituto Libertad, Citation2007).

17 The case started in 1998. Mr. Claude and others requested to the Central Bank Foreign Investment Committee information on the Rio Condor project, and the seriousness and eligibility of investor Forestal Trillium. The information was not provided by the Central Bank and Chilean Courts also denied access to that information. On October 10, 2003, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights accepted the submission of the appellants.

18 The proposal of Senators Larraín and Gazmuri proposed amendments to the Organic Law of the General Bases of State Administration, the Law on Administrative Procedures, and the Constitutional Congress Law in order to enforce the right to access to public information and restrict the causes for reserve or secret (see BCN Citation2008). Senator Larraín belongs to the right wing party “Unión Democrata Independiente” (UDI), and Senator Gazmuri is a member of the left wing Socialist Party.

19 According to the law, the Council for Transparency is integrated by four counselors and each one of them is to be its president for a term of 18 months.

20 “La Moneda” is Chile’s presidential palace, which is located in down town Santiago.

Additional information

Funding

This article is a product of an extensive research program which has included FONDECYT projects 1120546, 1080322 and the Inter-American Development Bank contract for developing the “Case Study on the Institutionalization and Strategic Management of the Access to Information and Active Transparency in Chile.”

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