GUILLERMO A.

O'DONNELL

3
Corporatism and the Question
of the State
The central thesis of this chapter is that "corporatism" should be
understood as a set of structures which link society with the state.
'!berefore, any examination of the actual operation and social impacts
of corporatism must consider it with systematic reference to some of
the main characteristics of the state and society it helps to link. In the
final analysis, the study of corporatism is part of the broader problem
of interrelationships between state and society. This means that the
concept of corporatism is useful when it is limited to certain linking
structures between state and society. However, if the concept is
"stretched" to a global characterization of state or society, or to a
general and unchanging attribute of certain countries, or further still, if
it is postulated as an "altemative paradigm" to resolve the present crisis
in conceptualizations of Latin American politics and society, then I fear
it will become another contribution to the tower of Babel we are
lIlaking of the social sciences.! Even at the risk of making such a
COntribution of my own, I have felt it worthwhile to discuss the level of
&eneralityand the approach under which I think it most appropriate to
USe the concept of corporatism.
h.,.!ince the discussion will be somewhat complex, it may be useful to
"9;m at the end and briefly present the main arguments to be devel?Ped. Later I will formulate them more stringently and some of their
:tereonnections will appear, but for the moment they ean be synesized as follows:
~. !n spite of old ideological eontinuities, corporatism in Latin
enea, as an operating set of societal structures, is a relatively recent
nomenon. It arose alongside the urbanization and industrialization
esses started in the world economic crisis of the 1930s.
2. In its pattems of functioning and social impacts, Latin American
ratism display s crucial differences from the corporatism observed
Bome authors in the "developed" countries. Moreover, even within
47

48

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

Corporatism and the Question of the State

Latin America, changes have occurred that force us to distinguish

between past and present forms of corporatism. In particular, it will be
useful to distinguish here between the corporatism of the populist
periods and that arising with a new type of state, the "bureaucraticauthoritarian." At the same time, such a state is intimately related to
pattems of growth (which I will call profundizacion, "deepening") of a
type of late, dependent, uneven, but also extensively industrialized,
capitalismo Consequently, without forgetting that at a very abstract
level different cases may be considered as generic instances of corporatism, the present analysis will adopt a level of specificity that will enable
us to locate a certain type of corporatism as a function of the type of
state and socioeconomic structure in which corporatism is one of the
linking structures.
3. This work focuses upon corporatism in the bureaucratic-authoritarian state. This is "bifrontal" corporatism, in that it contains two
components which must be carefully differentiated. The first of these is
estatizante ("statizing"); it consists of the conquest and subordination
by the state of organizations of civil society. The other is privatista
("privatist"); it entails the opening of institutional areas of the state to
the representation of organized interests of civil society. Therefore, the
institutional setting in which corporatization appears differs greatly
from one case to the other. In the former it occurs by means of the
"statization" of organizations of civil society; in the latter, through the
partial "privatization" of a state's institutions. Bifrontal corporatization
(that is, statizing and privatist) tends to appear in situations of authoritarian domination. In contrast, the corporatism of political democracies
in the central capitalist countries (the United States and Western
Europe) is basically privatist.
4. Besides being bifrantal, corporatism is "segmentary." Its actual
functioning and social impacts differ systematically according to cleavages largely determined by social class. Statizing corporatization tends
to function effectively when crystallized in the statization of the class
organizations of the popular sector, especially the trade unions. Amonf
other things, this guarantees that the representation of interests of the
popular sector in the privatized state areas remains subject to restriCtions absent from other cases-such as those of the central capitalist
countries-where
class organizations have much greater autonomy froJIl
the state.
5. The bifrontal and segmentary character of this corporatism entai1s
that the main link established with the popular sector is one of contro1
This can be seen as a "penetration" of the state into one of its mos f
problematic boundaries with civil society. On the other hand, one f
the components of privatizing corporatism is the representation o

49

interests vis-a-vis the state, especially of th d

.
1
.
e ommant classes and
sectors o f CIVl society, However, a degree of mutual
.
at this level and can be seen as complex inter
c~nt~ol also exsts
those sectors and classes, and the state. This muie~e rat;o~s between
an alliance subject to significant tensons: th
tUta con r? expresses
.
,
e
s
a e exerClses control
over t h e d ommant sectors by less direct and much 1
.
than those applied to the popular sector.
ess coercivs means
6. Corporatism is not a static phenomenon It h
fr
t
dI
. e anges om country
to coun ry, an a ong tima within countries The
. t.
above all, frorn the differences and changes th t se vana ions arise,
ti
hIt
o
o
m e ype of state which
corpora ism e ps o link with civil societ
And
.
"segmentary" attribute
ith
o
yo'
as suggested by its
,nel
er IS corporatIsm a horno
nomenon: Its impacts are not distributed
1 thr
geneous pheo
even y
oughout society
However, some of the hterature
stresses th
o
.
o
id 1 o
e corporatIst content of
vanous 1 eo ogies and legislation almost t th
o
toricostructural factors that will be used h:re ;h~xcl~lOn of the hiserror of postulating fundamentally unch
o
IS easily leads to the
acteristics for Latin Am o
an~mg and homogeneous charideologies can be traced a~r:~:t co;po~atI~m. The origins of those
though there the
as ar ac as the early Middle Ages
modern state ha; n~~n;;fOn?ed t~oa nonind~strial society in which th~
hierarchical view of
o tansen. mce that time, the continuation of a
of segments of civil :~~::/'
b~edd up.on the f~c~i?nal representation
existence of legislation b y an
eonYl?g class dvisions (or the formal
changing and no h
ased on this view) undoubtedly has facilitated
n omogeneous (segme t
) hi t .
eorporatism in Latin A'
n ary
IS oncal express ion s of
Cntinuities must
t
menca. But such ideological and legislative
enees in the effect?O pr~vent us from perceiving changes and differinstances of corporlaVt~mo es of functioning and the impact of concrete
.
ism.
It IS
time t
.
dealing. I will ~osP~~lfy }he content of the term with which we are
funetional n t ns~ er. corporatist" those structures through wheh
".
,on
erntonally
b d
'.
pnvate" interests b f
ase
organlzatlOns officially represent
their right of re;r ore ~h~.state, formally subject for their existence
te, and where such es~n a .IOnto authorization or acceptance by the
:ganizations, forbiddi;ght
~s reserv~d to the formal leaders of those
~ess to the state for t~e ~st :~c~~dmg other leg!timate channels of
"'o~~es both statizing and pri tI.stmembers. ThlS generic definition
nva
IS corporat' Iza tiIOn an d moreover
11_. s u S t o begn t diff
o
"'l1C:ag
o 1 erentIate corp
ti
fr
'
,
e between state and
.
2
ora ism om other pattems of
t~l approximation doess~~~e;y. H~wever, in itself, this first coners corporatism as
h ree us rom the level of analysis which
nee to Social and hi at p oe~omenon that can be studied without
IS onc contexto It is worth repeating , th ere-

:d

50

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

fore that this chapter is concerned with the particular type of corpor~tism that corresponds to the bureaucratic-autho~it~ian state. This
corporatism shares, of course, the generic charactenstlcs already mentioned. Rowever, at a more specific level, which will allow .us to
differentiate this variety of corporatism from those correspondmg to
other types of state, the one with which we are concerned her~ ~as two
additional characteristics: its bifrontal and segmentary condition, already mentioned, and its existence within a ramework of political an?
economic exclusion of the popular sector. On the basis of these attrbutes which do not pertain to its formal characteristics or to its
ideol~gical expressions, the corporatism of the bureau~ratic-a~thoritarian state can be differentiated not only from that assocated with the
constitutional democracies of the central capitalist countries, but also
from that existing under populism.
If it is convenient to consider corporatism as a set of \structures
linking state and society, we must look at both of these to disc.ernthe
coordinates that situate our subject analytically. The problem anses not
only from the enormous amount of material to be covered, but al~o
from difficulties in the conceptualization of the state. As a partial
solution to this problem, the next two sections will examine some
conceptual problems and will offer a basic survey of certain historiC?structural factors. Then, in the fourth and fifth sections, we can be.gm
rn
to examine the statizing and privatist components of the corporatls
that corresponds to the bureaucratic-authoritarian state, as well as the
factors that determine its segmentary character.
Some Theoretical Coordinates of Corporatism
The Chilean tragedy closed a decade, begun with the Brazilian coup
of 1964 that witnessed the frustration of reformist and revolutlOn~
hopes that the countries of Latin America could move rapidly towaf t
more humane forms of existence. Whatever our evaluation of wha
happened it is obvious that today we must take account of ve~
different 'realities than those foreseen by the numerous inte~lect~ur
currents which echoed these hopes. It seems urg~nt to revl~e tbe
instruments of analysis in order to record and begin to explal~ tbe
changes which have taken place, and even to recogmze s~me o te
aspects which have been seriously ignored. One of these is t~e st~ps
itself understood here as the set of organizations and relatlOnS~ p
pertalning to the "public" sphere within ~ delimited ter?tory,. wh~~e
claims from the population of this terntory co~for~lty ~lth u e'
xpressed content of its commands and supports this claim with s Pifl
3
t
rior control of the means of physical violence. One problem is tha ,

Corporatisrn and the Question of the State

51

spite of recent valuable contributions, much remains to be rethought

and investigated concerning the concept of the state a theme which
was ignored or explicitly denied by much of the dominant political
analysis until a short time ago. Here 1 can only refer briefly to this
problem.
The principal currents of ~glo-Saxon academic literature, especially
North American, have been mfluenced until recently by factors which
nave led scholars not only to ignore, but even to deny the existence of
the problems 1 will stress here. Among these factors are a historical
experience ~ wh~ch the role of the state was, although not insigni~t, l~ss vlSl?le.m ~he formation of nations and in the emergence of
mdustnal ca~l~ahsm; the tendency to see social change as a movement
alon? a traditional-modern continuum, which helped to focus many
studies on polar situations of "underdevelopment" (these are the most
"destatized," since what is at stake is the establishment of effective
co~mand over a ~erritory); and the tendency of many scholars to view
the.lf o~n countnes as the epitome of a consensually accepted social
rationality or "development," in which there is no place for the
fund~ental elements of coercion and ideological control, which are
contained more o~ les~ope~ly in all systems of domination, including the
mod~rn state. This viewpoint has shown itself in different manners in
the hterature: in "pluralism,"" which sees politics in terms of a market
analogy, as. a scenario which passively registers adjustments between
gro~PSand m which it is therefore impossible to attribute to the state
an l~dependent initiative to explain decisions adopted invoking its
~rclve forc:; and in structural functionalism" and systems analysis 7
w hl~h conceive of politics as the aspect of internal integration or the
~t ~ev~mentof goals for a social totality about which is postulated an
nnsto homogeneity of interests.
Studies most direc tIy f ocused upon comparative politics and "political d
COnevelopme
.
. n t" elith er h ave been strongly influenced by some of the
ceptlOns
JU
<lUant'tt.
st men tiione d , or, especially in the case of those based on
factor~~lV~ data, have ~ostulated a mechanical progression of political
On th
ependent variables of economic and social "development " 8
e
other
h d , mtellectual
.
.
llave unan
currents inspired by Marxist thought
similar~~ rec~ntly 9 been dominated by a conception that has led to
Parties ncluslOns. For a long time the officialline of the Communst
.
of the bsaw the . ~apl'tal'is t st ate as the direct
expression ' of the interests
of inde ~~rgeO~le.,.wi~hthe result that they also denied the possibility
tbUs jo~eddent m:tlatlve by the state apart from the bourgeoisie. They
te as b other mtellectual currents in suppressing the problem of the
SUch o~h concept and concrete reality.
bnef references cannot avoid being excessively general, ignoring

52

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

Corporatism and the Question of the State

nuances and subtleties within these currents. Nevertheless, the point I

would like to stress remains valid: With all their differences, these
currents share a common viewpoint that I will call "societalist." That is,
they deny or ignore the specificity of the problem of the state as a
societal factor endowed with varying, but rarely insignificant, capabilities
for autonomous impulse or initiative. By denying or ignoring such
specificity, they make of the state a dependent or instrumental variable
of civil society, which is consequently seen as the crucial explanatory
key to the nature and dynamism of the societal whole.
In fact, over the last decade, new contributions have overcome these
mistakes and have begun to open the way to investigations which will
allow us in the future to reformulate and specify the problem of the
state. Examination of these contributions must be left for another time.
Here it is only necessary to comment that a simple reaction to the
obvious failings of societalism can lead to a "politicism" or "statism"
which involves a no less erroneous oversimplification, only in the
opposite direction. For example, two of the most important books on
comparative politics published in the United States during the last
decade conclude that the accumulation of power is the alpha and
omega of "political development.t'I"
First, the satisfaction of other
values appears subordinated to the accumulation of power; and second,
a state, (supposedly) capable of ruling sovereignly over society, is
granted a disproportionate weight in the causation of observed and
recommended social changes. Moreover, politicism tends to approve
any accumulation of power, without asking by whom, for whom, and
at whose expense such power is exercised. This contains a message
analogous to that of most societalisms in the sense that it legitimates
existing domination, although the lack of "integration" and "consensus" of the "underdeveloped" nations shifts the reference of that
legitimation from society toward any consolidation of political power
which appears capable of exercising effective control. 11
Having pointed out the components of autonomy and domination,
the analysis must shift toward examining characteristics of and changes
in specific historical situations. This seems to be the most promising
method, though we still do not know how to "reaggregate" such studieS
analytically in order to formulate general theoretical propositions.
In the pages that follow, I present an initial summary of some of tbe
themes I am trying to advance. The reflections in this section
necessary to dispense partially with some problems in conceptuah~IJ'l5
the state. Another reason for these comments is that the oscillat10J'l
between societalism and politicism also appear in studies directly rel~
vant to the theme of corporatism in Latin America. In particular, t~
current interest in "authoritarianism" in the region can channel itself

~~r:

53

either direction: Authoritarianism can merel

'.
tion;12 or the term "authoritarian" add d tY ~as~ economIC domina'. WhIChpostulates a polt eal o regime" or " st at e " can
lead to a view
.
hi h
lC power, autonomous
f . '1
SOclety, w ic appears correlatively di ti ul
o C1VI
.
. . .
lsar lC ated and d
id f
capaclty for any mltIative or causal importo In th
evo~ o ~he
sight of the dynamic of civil society it lf
lS ~ay, we risk losing
international context 13 Ths t
h se and of its location in the
.
m urn as repercus .
.
concept of corporatism in that a "sov
. " . SIOnsconcernmg the
postulating a society ~hich is almos~rel~. ~ew of the state implies
corporatism homogeneous (that I'S n
en ire y subordinated, and a
. .
, onsegmentary) in its .
modalities of functioning. The vision f
.
1 lmpacts and
social equilibrium and integration is P~rtc~~p:at.lsm as a mec.hanism of
absolute the relative autonomy of th
t
e ideology Whl~h makes
impartial guardian of the "
e s ate and presents it as the
common good "1 thi
interpretation of the authoritarian st t t' d n lS sense, the politicist
regard to ideological denials of th
a rf en s to be too credulous with
nature of Latin American sOcietie: ~~. hundly unequal and conflictive
helps to crystallize.
'
icn, as we shall see, corporatism
These comments were intended to 1
the social and state coordinates t~a~ar the. way for a ~resentation of
corporatism, which corres onds
specify ~ partIcular type of
From there I will make
to the ?ureaucratIc-authoritarian state.
corporatism. The g
al e co~paratIve references to other types of
ener
coordmates ar t . al
hi
W ch result from contra untal .
. e YP1C or modal aspects
SOcioeconomic structur
p th mteractIOns between changes in the
SOcialimpacts of th b e, on .e one hand, and the emergence and
l'eSuItis an anal . e ureau.cratlC-authoritarian state, on the other The
aeek to de ib vtcal creeton, a "constructed type "!" that d .
t
scn e complete 1
oes no
!:Ugh they approximate
ex;~tl~ any of the. cases attributed to it,
lVhi ch reveals common
1alr tcently to be mcluded in a category
ich Correspond at a 1gener 1 patterns.IS
The cases of that typecorpo
,
ower evel of g
alit
1bI.:
ratlSm-are Brazil u d bt dI
ener 1 y, to a certain type of
llIch dif
' n ou e y the "
t"
M_te
fers in its historl'cal
pures
example; Mexico
and'
emergence as a b
.
'
Ple
In the role of its
df
ureaucratlC-authoritarian
__ 8ent structure and
arme orces, but which is notably similar m'
.wveen19
ways of functio'
.
Btooct
66 and 1970 experienced a nmg, ando Argentina, which belociOecas an attempt to consolidat process whch can only be underAr on~mic patterns of thi t
e the form of the state and the
iti:ntma continue to ex;r?s;ethThe present .poltical misfortunes
ion b Y~haracteristics whose exa;~ ~~ndencles though they are
lac' chile and Uruguay are al
a IOn must be left for another
'co k the consolidation of domi:~ti~xamK!e~ of this ty?e, although
and certain limitations (many
lC occurred m Brazil and
o
ern as a result of their small

stm

io~~

-1oQ

tt:

54

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL
Corporatism and the Question of the State

rt in the achievement of socioeconomic

domestic markets) make les~ cheBm il and Mexico have advanced and
f
ti
toward whic
raz
t .
trans orma ions .
bl d Other Latin American coun nes are
over which Argentma has stum e h itari
state and do not share the
f th b
aucratic-aut on anan
. al
d
not cases o
e ure
.
Th most striking typologic
an
corresponding form of corp~ratlsmt'h
e and eastern Europe, subject
. il T
appear m sou ern
f
genetic sim an les
1T al tendencies and processes o
today or in. the near ?a:'~t~o ~~~s: discussed here. This emphasizes
socioeconomic change simil .
"nI'
a trivial sense: the pertment
. . "Latin Amencan o y m
'.
th t
that our topc lS.
.
hIT
cal economy of nations
a
historical context lS provded b~ t e po lt 1 . als and were industrialized
. all
t
porters of pnmary ma en
were
y e:c . m a posiTion o f dependency upon the grea
late origm
but extensively,
centers of world capitalismo
The Emergence o f the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian

State

.
.
of the type of corporatism we want to
What are the mam coor?inates t o intimately related processes. The
analyze? They belong basically to w
ainly directed toward a high
first comprises changes in :he economy, ~Y concentration in industry
degree of vertical integratlon. and pr~e~aSiCallY benefiting large orgaand the productive structure ~n gener tional and foreign. 1 will call this
nizations, both publi.c ~~ pr~;,ate, :~n "of a capitalism far removed
process the profundlz.aclo~,
defe?'und;;development" which neverthefrom the archetypal situations o f
th of the central economies.
less does not foUow the patterns o !f.0w
. "of a new type of state,
The second process 1 .wil~caU th~ s~:f;:::~re
(1) comprehensive, ~
the bureaucratic-a~t~lOr~tarlan. This di tly manages; (2) dynamie, JIl
the range of activities it control s or refc . t as a whole: (3) peneh
ared to those o socie y
"vil
its rates of growt comp
.
.
f various "private" areas of el .
trating, through its subordination ?
d effieacy of the coercion.lt
(4)
've in the extensin an
.,
f jts
society; 5 repressive, . . the formalization and differentiation o oi
applies; ( ) bureaucratic, m
..
the owing weight of tearnS f
own structures; and (6) techn~crat~lC, m f "e~ficientist" techniques 0j's
.
rt in the applica lOn o
. .
tate
tcnicos expe.
th bureaucratic-authoritarian
s.
jS
formal rationahty. Further~ore,
e 'tal although this relationsh'P
1 ely linked to internatonal capi ,
e os
h t Ub examined later.
KoOre
subject to tensions t a Wl e d G schenkron and Barrington
0
The contributions of Alexan er er
f differences in the tempO e-1
h
the consequenees o
.
eSP
have begun to s ow
.
f
italism in several countnes,
tid t
sforrnation o capi
d ver
emergence an
r~.
.
f riculture and in advances towar .t j$
cially in commerclall~atlOn o
Among other eonsequences, 1
cal integration of rndustry.
important to point out:
1\

LV!

la.

55

1. the more dynamic and visible role of the state in comparison with
tbe Anglo-Saxon countries
2. the difficulties of growth experienced by the national bourgeoisie
without the active tutelage of a state that carries out entrepreneurial
activities and is "interventionist"
to a degree unknown in the classic
cases of capitalist development
3. the tendency toward the appearance of highly bureaucratized and
expansive patterns of political authoritarianism
4. the "statist"

content of dominant ideologies of societal organiza-

ton and economic growth

5. the tendency to institutionalize mechanisms of control of the

popular sector, including at some point the statizing corporatization of
its organizations
These characteristics correspond generically to cases such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, whose incorporation into the central economies
occurred by means of authoritarian patterns culminating in variants of
fascismo The countries that concern us here are later examples of this
same tendency,17 although they were originalIy incorporated into the
world market under very different conditions from those of the countries which
folIowed the "fascist route" discussed by Barrington
18
Moore. Some of the consequences of this later tempo are additional
to, and partially modify, the general characteristics indicated in the
cases of Germany, Italy, and Japan. In Latin America, the demands of
the poPular sector for economic and political participation emerged
lIluch earlier, and the composition of the dominant classes is not the
llalne. In these later cases, international capital plays a decisive role,
COIllPletelyunknown in the earlier ones. It reflects and helps to cause
:e enormollS difficulties experienced by these economies in the in~ generation of technology, capital goods, and even the currency
~Ch
ll WouId allow them to "close" the cycle of capital accumulation in
}o~n markets. In these cases, moreover, international capital is not
COn~_~~taposed to the state and the national bourgeoisie; on the
Ch~Y'.
l~ has a crucial influence in the very determination of the
boUrg ~l'lstics of the state and of the national bourgeoisie. Those
Jocau;~s sectors whi~h control the largest and most dynamic of the
1IUbol'(f Wned compames also tend to be those most closely linked and
filoli~ated
inte~ational
~apital .. The state tends to assume aurto
ms
~ ban fo
. whch ar~-hke fascIsm-"modern,"
expansive, and
'::.eauCratlzed. But it has complex Iinks with an international
tbis'" lch is the rnost dynamic private element in its own economy,
is:enera~es consequences that force us to differentiate it from
state In which that external element was much less important
ct to the dominant local classes.

au:

Corp ora tiism and the Question of the State

57

GUlLLERMO A. O'DONNELL
56

In order to understand the bifrontal and segmentary character of the

corporatism corresponding to the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state, we
must focus not only on the expansion of the state but also on the
conditions that preceded its emergence. These conditions can be summarized in two parallel but related processes: the massive praetorianization of Latin American societies, or the increasing randomization of
their social relations; and social changes which stimulated the emergence and hypertrophic growth of complex public and prvate organizations.19 The former process resulted from the increasing incapacity of
preexisting institutional frameworks to regulate the behavior of diverse
sectors of civil society. This expressed itself in growing levels of conflict, in the rapid political activation of the popular sector, 20 in the
articulation by this sector of goals and leaders increasingly autono
mous vis-a-vis the state and the dominant classes, and in the limited
capacity of the state to extract and allocate resources. Although from
other points of view they were different, the periods preV10USto the
emergence of the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state in Brazil, Uruguay,
Chile, and Argentina had one important similarity: In all of thern, the
state increasingly lost the capacity to control its allies and adversaries,
and its evident crisis left it at the mercy of the most powerful sectors,
both internal and external, operating on their societies. Correlatively,
the economic situation was characterized by erratic and declining
ral
growth rates, decreasing investment, flight of capital, sharp intersecto n
changes of income, recurrent balance-of-payments crises, high inflatio ,
and other phenomena which in part expressed and in part fueled the
political crisis. To varyng degrees (which must be seen in relation to
the intensity of repression applied afterwards), the situation came to ns
be
seen as a "threat" to the capitalist systems and international affiliatioors
of these countries. This feeling tended to be shared by middle sect
which, reacting in typical fashion, opted for "order and securi:y" as a
response te the political .ctiv.tion 01 the popular sector. All this le<!\O
the lorro.tion 01 politic.l a11iancesoriented .toward consolidating
. 1 D . so,!:'
g tl,e
type of domination that could control Soclety effectlVe y. unn
epraetorian period, society had devast.ted the state, but, perh.ps.!c.
e
cause of this, proposed solutions tended to veer In the opposlt di
iaJI
Il ota.r
tion.
.
rfll i5
The situation before theo emergence
of the bureaucratlc-autho
d
"al
o
,,21
The te tiotl
lfl
state has been charactenze
as a SOCI lm~asse.
oa
'
descriptive, because no sector was able to estabhsh a stable dorn
1 jO
and the narro was the cre.tion 01 coalitions which, a1though UJ'..b~
impose their own preferences, were able to prevent other sec~ors
n o91~c'
es
imposing theirs. However, it s possible to detect chang tak g
beneath the surface of this "impasse." Even with the inconvenletl

;....,posed by po liti
~..
l ICal and economic inst bilit
o
depended upon the size of th o tal
l y, and m degrees which
m
dustrialization continued
m.,;e 1 etr?al market of each country in<un y
S imulated
b 1
'
internatlOnal corportions. As
ult
y ocal branches of
multinational companies whichares d ' the number of branches of
American markets rapidly inc
p~o ~ced and distributed in Latin
to grow more rapidly than threasde. ~reover, these affiliates tended
e omestic econ
.
h
sectors, ando even than the most dynamico locallyormes,
o
dt an their o own
Not on 1y d Id they create new a etiIV1les
OtO and ab b wne
o compames . 22
the most dynamic and profitable
f th
sor an important part of
consequence of their orientation ~owa~~e alre~dy exstng, but as a
generated numerous backward
d f
t~e internal market, they
o
an
orward linkag
ith
o t err own productive activitie Thi was
~s Wl
other stages
f h
economic
power, centered uponsb'
ISh
the basis of real systems of
ranc
Wlith 1oc al capitalists
at th o
o h eso of multima tiional companies
eir perip enes d
d
'
naticnals for a good part of their sales e o ~pe~ ent on the multiAll of this implies the rapid
th apitalization, and technology.
the weak state of the praetori:ow
o dof co~plex organizations that
trollng. At a different level th pe~o had httle possibility of contion whose relative weight ~soese e anges involved another organizamunist threat " acute POlIOtOal
gr~w, the armed forces. The "comled th e mternal
o'
conflcts and recurrent economic crises
and externalIC dO'
118 the last bulwark against so~~:~!
secto:s to see the armed forces
~d the pressures of diverse local
t tegra~lO~. Foreign aid programs
o the armed forces to se
sec ors coincided with the aspiration
~d ~om politicians, as p~ar~:et:hemsel~e~ .from the praetorian state
development" and eliminati~gre,~ef~mtlOon~~ their rol e in achievout onal security. "23 As a coroIl
su v~rslOn as prerequisites to
by ththeemergence of a strong stateary ?~thmg could be attained withTh e armed forces' putting a qui
w ~c could only be brought about
~_ e branches of multi ti
e en to the praetorian period
-ae naf
ma ional corpo ti
.
torianis ional bourgeoisie did not s ffei ions and various sectors of
the Ini:i However, together with theUarer :~onomiCallY from praebeto t e ~lass, they agreed on th
me o orces and a large part of
re
fundlllne~~~ltuation became uncontr~l~:~~sslt~ of ending it abruptly
~
w ly the capitalist structures or";;:'. thre~te~ed to modify
..
~
~ to eliminate the uncertai o
en societies. One main
'on sltuations imposed by pra nttIe~g~nerated by the continuaIly
"
of th
e onamsm The growi
.
Premat ~, popular sector encouraged th' o
OWI~gpohtical
tb.
rour~ demands for political and e view t~at excessive"
e
iO~"InCIPal
cause of such uncert mn
o ti econormc participation
ental they seemed to entail. ThiS
les and oof the risks of
characteristics of the b
p~edetermmed one of the
ureaucratic-authoritarian
state: its
o

'

!!!ti

58

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL
Corporatism and the Question of the State

,
ttempt at the political exclusin
o f th ~ pop ular "sector and its allies as
a
ion of " d "and "SOCIalpeace.
the first foundation ~ or er d'
ti n to be taken to reconstitute the
It also predeterm~ed the nect'lO The economic growth of the
mechanisms of capital accumula lOt~' d its benefits although not
'
iod
S far too erra lC an
"h
praetonan peno
wa
di
Presupposing-necessarily,
given t e
insignificant, were too s~~ra l~ t'
sed the bureaucratic-author].
composition of the ~oa!lbon th a C~~:'ist structures of Latin Ameritarian state-the contmUltY,of te, tP f equilibrium seemed to require
can societies, the only POSSlbl~pom t~al integration of industry, the
ard
rapid advance~ent t0.w
~ e ;~r ~roliferation of modern services,
exportation of industrial goo s, h ~ al infrastructure, and the divers.
the rapid improvement of, the ~ r~~c hi~h-income sectors.P" AlI this
fication of the consumption O
, nted toward long-term benefits,
would require huge mvestments ount
on sustained and important
f
it
necessary to coun up
, ti
There ore, 1 was,
'tal
d to eliminate the uncertam les
influxes of international ca~l
an
in the medium and long term.
which blocked public and prvate ~~s average rate of profit but also
This would not only ~arantee
t~g b nefit of the big organizations
make it stable and predictable, ~ e et e which had been seriously
bl
f "deepening" a productive s truc ~
, ,
capa e o
,
f raetoranization.
weakened by the erratic processes o f p
the right it was in no way
Although this project emerge~ r~~ d the ra~id introduction of
conservative. On the contrary, 1 en
e society In fact, it implied
l
f
profound changes at ~lm~st all lev~ s althou h it did not follow the
nothing less than a ~apltallst revolu~~on,ew fro! a state debilitated by
classical model. In its early stages,
gr "
hi ch had been ncreae
"
d f m a national bourgeoisie w 1
'al p'
praetorianism an ro,
'1
'tal Intemational capit
a
ingly subordinated to mt~mabO~at C~~i~g~bout new investment and
peared as the main dyna~lc agen o alance-of-payments crises. ~he
alleviate the restrictions imposed ~ydb ith ut a particularly decislve
deepening could not be ac~omphs ~ w~u~ the problem was far fr~JI
and visible role for international capital.
t " isks" associated Wlt~
intiles, and apparen
n
'
le because the unce rt am
d their confl'
slmp,
,
internati nal mvestors wary, an
,
d
praetorianism had made l~temad 10 t
ttract capital in a quantity an
b
ined m or er o a
, 2S
dence had to ,~regal
advance toward that deepening.
to
continuity sufficient for a real
liti al implications: In order te
This problem had eminently, po ~l~ndispensable th'at a new sta e
"solve" the econ~mic probl~m, t :'zation of society should erne~~
capable of imposing a drastic reorg
t d that after the praetor .,1
h
lready commen e,
, 'tbOV
and expand, 1 ave a
uld not be "deepened'
Wl llfld
period, the ~,roduc~ive sttr~~~~; e~~ail a high degree of stabi~itY llfli
imposing
an in
order,
ltha
predictability
SOCla
re 1atiion s . This could not, of course, be [ust

59

rder. Its content emanated from the social imbalances that had been
o centuated in the praetorian periodo Thus, some of its principal aspects
::ere to rid the, market of :'inefficient" ,produ~er~ (~~nerally local
capitalists), a hentage of the first stages of mdustnallzatlOn; to put an
end to "excessive" or "premature" demands for political and economic
participation by the popular sector; to eliminate elections and poltical
parties which had transmitted these demands; to "discipline" the work
force in its direct relations with employers; and to subordinate c1ass
organizations, above all trade unions, which could provide a base of
support for the resurgence of new leadership and demands. The attainment of these goals would lead to the stabilization of social relations,
which would encourage domestic and foreign investment, This not only
mplied immediate "social peace"; it signified, much more relevantly,
the imposition of a new domination which could plausibly guarantee its
continuity and thus support the socioeconomic decisions necessary to
carry out the deepening, The reduction of social uncertainty va the
stabilization of the new "order" had to be plausibly guaranteed for the
future so that the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state and the deepening
would not be merely a passing phase, as happened in Argentina, in the
reemergence of praetorianism.
It would seem that the need to reduce social uncertainty objectively
increases with the degree of complexity of the society. This is one cause
of the privatist type of corporatism in the central capitalist countries,
At least this is the way it tends to be perceived, especially by those in
control of massive organizational resources whose utilization is
nOlIDallybased upon highly routinized norms according to medium- or
long-range planning. However, the specific ways in which a highly
COlJlplexsociety is stabilized can vary from relatively gradual processes
of Poltical incorporation to the drastic exercise of coercion to exclude
:eViouSly incorporated sectors, In those cases which concem us here,
th e economic crisis, the political activation of the popular sector, and
eceonfears' of the dominant c1asses determined the course chosen. If
Illo OlJllCchanges suggested the importance that the largest and most
IlQidde~productive organizations were to have, then what has just been
th POmts to a new type of state, a "strong" state in much more than
et; ob~ous sense of its increased coercive capacity. It had to be an
ilQp~in8LV~state, not only to impose the great social transformations
Cona ~ In the deepening, but also to guarantee for the future the
'cho ohdation of the new "order," without which deepening could not
,~ce very faro Statizing corporatism is a fundamental aspect of that
"-rantee,"
'l'he state to which we refer is not of the traditional authoritarian
\\Thich rules over a politically inert population; nor is it of the

Corporatism and the Question of the State

60

61

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

.
alth
h in a controlled fashion, the
populist type, which actlVates,
dOu~ ewhere bureaucratic-authoripopular sector. As 1 ha~e. argue ec~~omic e~clusion of the popular
tarianism is a system of poht~c:.l ~d that it emerges after a substantial
sector. Its central charactens ic is
hi
d and also after and to a
.
'al' t' n has been ac leve ,
'
degree of mdustn Iza 10
f substantial political activation of the
large extent as a con~equence. o '.
. al task-and one of the bonds of
popular sector. In this sense, its pnncip
and expansion-is to elirnithe alliance which suppo.rts. its ~~erg;n~; abolishing the channels of
nate that activation. This is ~~ leve lar sector and its allies, and by
political access to the state of e P~PUt'onal bases of that activation.
.
d
t olling the organiza 1
.
capturmg an con. r
t 1 that links the state asymmetncally to
One of the mechanlsms of cor: ~o
oratization of the trade unions.
the popular sector is .the ~tatIzmg ~orPthe moment it should be menWe will return to this pomt, but .or.
ot taken into consideration,
tioned that if this aspect ofdex~lus;~~ l~':ctioning and re~ impacts of
then little can be understoo a ou
e . .
t te
.
d th bureaucratic-authontanan
sa .
corporatlsm un er e
. ally dominant sectors may be
As Marx pointed out, th~ economlC the need the state to put the
unable to control the state dm:ctlY'dbutt guYaranteetheir own survival
.
,,ts
place" ID or er o
f
rest of socetv
ID 1
.
whatever manner, the means o
and expansion. Whoever controls, ID.
ce of most middle sectors
.
d btains the acqUlescen
physic~ coerClOn ~
o
the state and offer that guarantee. The
of society, can seize hold ~fti .
of the relationship between state
result contradicts any s~mphs c.;~;
for the former to acquire an
and bourgeoisie, creatmg pOSSl 1 1 les
t
t only to the rest of
important degree of autonomy.' .in'tr:~ie~ut~~e Latin American cases
society, but also t~ the boUrg~olSle;h: uropean Bonapartism of .th.e
have important dlfferences
om
. American bourgeoisle 15
nineteenth century. In the firs~ ~l~ce,t:h~a!:lier
developed capitalist
e
not the "conquering bourgeOlsl . o
. .e of cases of latef
l
countries.26 Neither is it the national bourIgeols trast with the first
and Japan n con
. aJ'\
development such as Germany
.
d the Latin AmeflC
case the bourgeoisies of Germany, J~pan, an 1 x coalitions witb ~be
,
.
d h
h d to enter nto comp e
.
allp1
countries mentione
ere a.
ses and from the beginlllng 'st"
rll
traditionally dominant agranan clas h it ian and "interventio
.1
. t 1 t an aut on an
t'o1i1'
themselves subordina e yo.
the state and the na 1 ,.
.
.
untnes moreover,
. '1te>
state. In Latm Amencan co .
' ithin their own territory with 1 lo
bourgeoisie must come to gnps Wl d
dvantages in the contrO
national investors who ~ossess tremen ous a
e
economic and technologlCal resources'ed forces can put an end to ~c;e
On the other hand, only the arm
the coercive means to fO al
. d
d
ly they possess
USe
praetorian peno ,an
onul
ctor and its political allies. Beca
the exc1usion of the pop ar se

tbe "right" this power confers upon them, they occupy the highest
overnment positions and open the way to civilian technocrats, Moregver, they acquire an impulse of their own which soon sours the tune
~ey would have played if they had remained merely the "instruments"
f the great economic interests. The alliance with these interests is
~oven around the deepening and its political requisite, the exclusion of
tbe popular sector. Between these allies and the popular sector are
broad sectors-employees, small and medium businessmen-who fluctuate between their initial support for the termination of praetorianism
and the discovery that the new domination and the new "efficientist"
and "rationalizing" pattems of economic growth are not oriented
toward their benefit. Their positions oscillate in accordance with the
increased opportunities for consumption that may follow the first years
of "cleaning the market" (as in Brazil), or the uncertain radicalization
whch results (as in Argentina) from the inability or lack of time- for the
new system to begin rechanneling part of the economic growth toward
tbese sactors.??
In order to stabilize and reorganize the postpraetorian society and,
above all, to guarantee plausibly the continuity of the new domination,
state institutions must also be "put in shape." Their expansion consists
in the differentiation
and technocratization of the state.21\ At the
same time, bureaucratic interests are generated. These feed state expansion which, while a necessary condition for the deepening of the
economy, is also a partial obstacle to it. There is here an important
element of bureaucratic pathology, but there is also an objective need,
e,venthough it runs counter to the strictly economic rationality of the
~tuation. The expansive impulse of the state quickly puts on the
I e~IOgicalcloak of "nationalism."
This reflects an important aspect of
::!ty: Not even the most consolidated of these systems could operate
in f Iy an economic system which would excessively bias accumulation
110 aVor of international capital. Because international capital possesses
innrnany resources-capital, technology, access to external markets, and
of ~ence o~~r international institutions-it
is an indispensable member
dorn e ~oahtlOn. But because it has these advantages, its growth in the
~~lC
market must be limited to prevent it from absorbing all the
~tec;~ and national components of the capitalism the new state is to
e ha~e ~ere a fundamental tension which decisively influences the
t nstIcs of the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state. This is partIy the
of an alliance of mutual dependence, rooted in the deepening
~ between the state and international capital. Without the latter
ouId be no deepening and the new state would rapidly collapse.
satlle time, international capital could not operate without the

62

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

Corporatism and the Question of the State

63

political guarantee of a state capable of "reorganizing" and controlling

society. On the other hand, the alliance is filled with tensions resulting
from the political impossibility of what is economically rational or,
conversely, from the economic irrationalities imposed by the survival of
the new system of domination. Because it includes so dynamic and
indispensable a role for international capital, the process of making
these types of capitalism politically viable makes their operation much
more difficult than it was under European Bonapartism. The latter,
after all, was not faced with the gigantic task of economically limiting
and ideologically blurring the role of its international allies without
"discouraging" them.
These are fundamental tensions of the situation we are examining.
They affect the mutual interpenetrations and controls at the privatist
level of corporatism, which the state opens to this ally. But it must also
be stressed that these tensions contribute to some aspects of the
expansion of the bureaucratic-authoritarian state, in that they lead to
limitation of and vigilance over the internal growth of its indispensable
ally. The bureaucratic-authoritarian state is not merely an "interventionist" one which increases the regulation of "private initiative." It is,
especially after sustained investment by intemational capitalism, an
"entrepreneurial" state which, accentuating a previous tendency, takes
over the direct exploitation of diverse productive and service activities,
differentiating itself into public enterprises, decentralized organisms,
and the like. In this way arises what some authors have called a "state
bourgeoisie": functionary-businessmen who remove diverse productive
activities from private capital, absorb an important portion of accumulation, and together contribute so that the state grows more than
would have been necessary in strictly economic terms.P?
This combination of a growing state and international capital, in
which each element depends on and is limited by the other, s a
relationship between economics and politics which is only beginning to
be explored. The state's links with its indispensable but conflicting alI)',
although very different from its links with the popular sector, expr~~
the resulting ambiguities. However, before considering these li~1 e
under the rubric of privatist corporatism, we must quickly exaJllJJl
other topics.
. al
From this tension arise factors which convert the state-internatlarl t
capital duo into a trio, a mnage ti trois in which a new part;;i
although weaker than the other two, comes to play a very impar ~
role, making the coalition even more complex and opening up rl~,
possibilities of autonomy for the state. This new element is, of
tD
the national bourgeoisie. Its companies tend to be closely linke.er"
international capital, and also to have a long history as suppb

ea:

concessionaires, or coparticipants in the sta'

. . .
national bourgeoisie of the deepe'
t
te s actlVItIes. This is the
it
f th
nmg s age of this typ
f
. .
In spi e o
e announcements of its de
e. o capItallsm.
survived, though at the cost of sub di ~th or nonexlstence, it has
national capital and abandonment o;~l natIo.n .t.o the state and interpatterns of economic growth and p l T P~s~bIlI~y ~f leadi~g the new
national bourgeoisie only if it finds : ~ l~ h?mmatlOn. It IS a viable
unsnown in previous cases of ea it~. a e w lch shelters it to a degree
t
protection it would disappear, or a~ le::t r~ev~lo~m.ent. Without such
totally peripheral position with respect t . ;nIDn ~nItS ow~ market in a
only in branches the Iatter had disre ard~: :rnat~o~al capItal, working
of growing weakness, and losing th g
?b'l~gotIatmg from a position
pattems of accumulation.
e POSSI1ity of sharing in the new
In order to gain a place in the new
.
.
uses "nationalstic" arguments whi h albance, the n.atlOnalbourgeoisie
military men and technocrats and IChi are echoed m the ideology of
sion between the two princi~al alli:. l~~i:efle.c~ the fundamental tenbet~een a state capitalism that would
m.ltIgat~s polar tendencies
natlOnal capital and a totall . t
. excesslvely dlscourage" intery m ernatlOnalzed
an ~nd to the poltical viability of th
ec?no~y that would put
trOI8 is not a fiction Th b
e. new dommatlOn. The mnage
expanding its own e~trep~en~:.~ucratI.c-.a~thoritarian state, as well as
bo~geoisie "strategic" prod t al actlVItI~s, shares with the national
plOlted by them; areas in whi~~ ~ and S~fVIcesthat could only be ex::te in association with a n tl.nter~atlOnal capital could only partici. Verse"controls" of tore
. a iona partner, publc or private' and
llltern ti
19nmvestment
df
'
fro a iona] capital woud
t
an orms of association which
'h... IIltPoltical risks which al~tcePall.only
because they provide protection
.&qa thi b
s
les otherwi
Id
IlationaIs ourgeoisie tends to be th
se wou
have generated.
1h
capital does not ex
e most closely linked to inter_Us, the national bourgeo.C~udetkhepossibility of conflicting interests
neg ti
isia see s p T
.
etclUdeo .late its relationship with . t OSIl?nS of power from which it
activ:ities~~ frorn the direct eXPI~~a~~natlOnalcapital and, if Possible,
f.otheir t On the other hand the b IOn o.f. s?me highly profitable
~er
c; e th~ sectors of national ~ur~eolsle IS.disposed to abandon
Opijon
butrnpames or in stagnant b uhsmessWhICh,because they are
Uona;
a p li
ranc es of the
IllUch
o ICy of survival at the.
economy, have no
rnore
OnIy the
orthodoxly co~petl.t. P~~lphery of the trio, in condi'.
state
ive.
tn th
can open these op
t '.
llluc~ face of international c:~~alunltIes to. the national bouj-,
~~i~e st:re
than ~he erectionPof ~u,!,~~~VlV~'tthe bour~eoisie
-rriers
protectlOn against competit
an rade barners. It
and operate in the nationaI b ors ~ h.0,have overcome
ourgeolsle s own market.

-..

Corporatism an d the Question of the State

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

tural , inequalities.
Third ,mos t of th id 1 '
65
1
isIll rnp y a degree of class '
e,l eo ogical postulates o
rase !taly and Salazar's P tlegrabOn which+except t
f corporatlb' isl
integration of all elass~r ugal+was never forrnally al~ai'::'ee~tent ,m
in "public" institutions that or 01 aII the organized sectors ~. that IS,
lbis is most elearly expre,,':,'; ~omponenls 01 the state itse~l ~OChlety,
"chambers , " which compnse
' th mh the Idea of th e great corp
. er ti
aps
pan 01 the state. This i
e w ole of society and
ora IsI
and "elass" prineiPlesldet replaces "liberal" (territori.':re ~ ~omponenl
functioning of th ese struct
o representation . 33 1n no casean didindividual)
th

Here ties the parado 01 a bourgeoisie that beeomes highly politicized

x
when, in eontrast to its "e\aSsieal" aneesto", it has lost all possibility o
jeading the eeono
and politieal proeess. Misto be expeeted,
mie this is
mie
refleeted on the ideologieal plane. The myth 01 the "econo
mirades" 01 this eapitali
is not so much nationalist as statist;
sion more
sm
preeiselY, it is "national.statist.""
Its goal is the expan
01 the
bureaucratie.authoritarian
state and the growth 01 the national and
private eomponent 01 the national bourgeoisie whieh that state has
praetically reinvented. To this end, a rhetorie 01 nationalstatist "grandeur" emerges, whieh eontrasts with the mueh more privatist ideas
es
artieulated by international capital. These dillerene
renect the ve"
realTotensions
1have pointed
out. direction is toward eapitalist growlh
reeapitulate,
the resulting
baSed upon tne exelusion 01 a previously aetivated popular sector. This
direetion is national.statist but has an indispensable axis in internation~
ee
capital, in which the national bourgeoisie reeovers ts importan
ben
cause 01 its decisive politieal and ideologieal eontributio
to nthe viability 01 the new dOInination, despite its eeonomie subordinatio . This
entalis a notable expansion 01 the state and, at the same
oxestime, a more
"advan " level 01 dependeney. The apparent parad
implied by
tnese eed
terros, as well as the dilfieulty 01 expressing them verballY,
indieate how primary and tentative are the eoneepts with which we
s in order to take into aeeount historical realities lor whieh
must deal
ns Vie
have not been prepared by other experienees or the eoneeptio
th'Y
nave inspired. However, they may serve to put into perspeetive \he
tneme 01 bilrontal and segmentary eorporatism with whieh 1 will nO'
deal.
The "Statizing" Eleroent of Corporatisro
ntal
Recall that 1 eoneeive 01 eorporatism as a bilrontal and segmen~
set 01 linking struetures between state and society. The bifro ti."
results trom two simultaneous yet distinct eomponents: nthe "sta ";
ton" 01 organizations in civil society and the "privatizatio " 01 so~
institutional
of the state.
'(lt
Corporatis areas
interests
me as an effective social reality, not as a pOI
id
mlor the study 01 eorporatist ideologies. The latter JS ~ v~~
01 depart
topie, butureit does not appear to be the most fruitlul way 01 beglnJ'1i
t
on our them . In the first place, the linite invarian eontent 01 lb'",
e
libO
ideologies tends
to hide those historieal translormations s 01 the
notO
poratism that noW exist ",cially. Seeond, its vi";on
01
elas
equl
eter
and integratio elash", with the segmentary char. n
01. pheoUS ""'"
n
th.t pr",uppo,", and eontributes to the lorm.tio
01 numer
'"

:#

ideology or its legal.lormalur;s .eorrespond lo that poslulated be real

showed clearly the se
esign. On the contrary Ih
y the
AlIIerieancases in whic~menlary. character they shared ~: structures
11 should b
.
we are nterested.:"
WI the Latn
,
e pomted out that
"
thng v~ry different from what tShtatI,zmgcorporatism involves
conneclmg th
e ideology lai
somedirectly and ::e ~oups--espeeiallY the Irade ~~Ims. It is a way of
a
grating" them withubOthrdmate
level, without an ions+into the state
, ti
o er class
y pretense at '"
pnva ISI corporatism th I
es or organizations With
intereas open lo civi ' . e ormal similarity is ea
'. I . regard lo
including the Irad~ soeiety, diverse sectors e! a ter, SI~~e ID the state
as .e?rporalisl ideo:lJons. However, this opening ~~~~ :epresented,"
aetvities M
gy would have it in 1 d
e s ale does not
state and no~r:~:er, the. I?rmal role lends ::.,~: all classes and Ihei:
of organized . t al participant in public de "
that of advisor to the
to
m erests
d '
cision-maki
T
. ~, boards or eou ils n a visory planning commi ang. he presenee
_w vision o
nci s resembles, bul is n
ISSJOnsor on regulaof which the f global elass integration and ~~ Ihe.same
as, that architecon
delinealed b~ ';;.~ a :onstiluent. The formal
01 classes in a state
~
But Latn ~ld~oIOgy may have bee~l';;,e~:bes with the images
-"t;1Ilentar
encan corporatism h
m some European
~ legislar reproduetion of those .
as never been more than a v

fru::

-: z:

,~~n~p:i~e;o 1~::,;lalin~me";:;;';::i~a~i~~ :::::;~ lo pres~:7.

tura . ounls lo
society of some . ..
s organIza
Vlsion 01 th ~ore than distorted fragm ;nsblullOnal areas 01 the
. do lo us e ideology. This is one im en s 01 the giobal architecus
~
realily.
T: th~se ideologies as Ihe !~rtanl reason why it is very
<I
Atneriean ese Ideol?gies hide the del s of an :malysis lo deduce
"'Ib~r
of Ibe eorporabsm, as well as th:ebt~bflehIstorical changes in
l'lt;an
corporatis m wh'leh eorresponds
1 rontal and
'" p ,an slale."
lo th
segmentary
. artICular
'
e bureaucratic-

ho.."

0ns
,exammation
thr th
at interest
o f these
ough
tim
us.' What
is this ideologies
type of can h~dly answer the
e and fram country t
corporatIsm? How has 't
o country? . How can these1

.
GUlLLERMO A. O'DONNELL
66

ons

variatio
be explained? Another way to answer \hese questi
would
be to ns
look at formal legal nonns This type of anaiysis can also be
instruetive, but it eannot tell us much about problemsS like: What part
of that legislatio is reallY applied? How can pattern of applieation
n
ns
di!!er from one social
elass or sector to another?" It should
be obvio",
us
\hat only at the level iInplied by these and the previo
questio
can
we begin to explore the real social import of this phenomenon.
It is well Imown that Latin American society has never been pluralist
(at least in \he Anglo-saxon sense). that the role of politieal parties and
of parli
has been very different from hat presupposed by the
ament
model of eonstitutional demoeraey, and that "vertical" relationships
betW dive
social seetors neve greatly eomplieated theonexpression
rse class eleavages." However, the manifestati
n
of "horizontai"
of these
eharaeteristies has been ehanging signifieantlY By some simplification,
we can distingulsh a first stage in whieh elientelism isen
the principal forro
of artieulation of the society and of linkage betwe
tne society and
the state. Clients and patrons are eonneeted by means of social relation
ships in whicb lower.level patrons are grouped in a elientelistie !ashion
aro
others of a higher level. Tire highest level is \he state, the poin!
n
of und
eonvergenee for eonfederations of patrons. Whe this is \he principal
n
pattern 01 linkag , tne society tends to be little dilferentiated and
e
politieal aetivatio 01 the population is low." patron-elient relatio '
n
ships are interpers
links, not mediated by formal or bureaucratic
onal
ber
actef
organizations; they tend to contain a small num
of people;
onal their base
is territorial, although narrow beeause 01 its interpers
ehar
,
and \hey are multifunctional, although the low level of di!!erentiati"
of society restriets the number of available roles. Tirese eharaeteristi~,
ses
come together with the result that politieallife generally "pas . ove!!
ns
a politieallY inert population-<>xeept for eIllptio
of protest wltb'~
stable organizational bases-and eonsists fundamentally of unst>b:
eoalltio
of patrons. The state, although usually authoritarlall ~,
ns an image of strength as the "patron of patrons," scar"'1
projecting
penetr
civil society. \t is restrieted to working through eoalitions ~
ateswhieh effectivelY control the territory. Also, the
patrons
w entI\' J
ciients into multifunetional vertical structares wi\h a narro tertlto',.
base atomizes \he popular sector and hinders the emergenee o cl'lI
age and solidari
other than regional ones or direet eonfliets mm
""tb f
ties
stie
patrono
Tire state is more a nominal entity than an effeetive eo
"
s
01 the territory, while elasses are dispersed around elienteli n sYs
ehie
This corresponds to the period of oligar ian dominatio hicb
ln
Ameriea, within the framework of an agrar
society in w
talist relations have penetrated to a limited extent and in whiel'
:c\rm.ation of a national market has not been completed.

Corporatism and th e Question of the St te

a

67

Cliente lism did not d ec lime abru tl

peare. H owever, as the ori
p y, nor has it
tl"'en d elasses
and of lin~rmeipal
pattern of vertie~ompletely disaptIling whi~h, in eontrast, ~: with the ~tate, it was dis ';"IlCUlallon beJJlultlfunctlOnal,
can incl u d e multit
s n? territorial
base ' IS
. pnot
ace.d
. .
d
m by "some"
""tlZ
and formalizat
u es, entails a high d
principle
aUon
active
penetration
of the sltOn
and egree of dbureau.
.
a etofintsocial
di relations ,corresp
_ corporall . Clientelism de li o . verse sectors of civil o~ s to an
sm accidental' th e med m favor of eorpo ti society. 'I'his
by no means
","omp.nied the eomme' . I~ p:ocesses of intemal ra ~sm for reasons
industrialization With
r~la ization
of agricult ure and mgration
which
1
this
th
th 1
DlOnydisappeared, and el"
e social eonditions of ~ aun?hing of
means by which civil
.,entehsm began to be di
oligarchic hegeand linked itself to the :~e;ety artieulated its relat:~Pla~ed as the main
'!bere is not enou h a e.
ns etween classes
ehange
space here t o summarize either
. s th at occurredg with
"
with
the launching 01 indu tri . \h~ immense
consolidated a new
the phenomenon of p s ~=tlOn
or the
ereated by urbani
. lan?e which would n opu 18m." The state
mstitutions. One o:,:~ni
industrialization, an~wt~~elude the sectors
popular sector eeono . undamental problems la . . growth of state
dommation of the Imically and politically
y m incorporatng the
~_ee
of aUlon:~garehy,
b~t also eont;ol~~mg. it lo break the
migbt carry its politi ous organizational bases I g it. to prevent the
:: bourgeois and :~~ activation beyond the ii;~:ers, and goals that
.~
implied t
e-based seetors. Th
1 S aeeeptable lo the
? of the ur~,::"eendent changes in ';:',~ :' b~ little doubt that
O
8IlS1onof
the i
popular sector . t
ganization and politi
on,
e mtemal market initially
.. ' jus imas the P":,allel proeesses 1oflb
ti QOWev
proved its ec
.
lII1d
er, popul
onomic posiway it corresponded

wl.

::u

folllentect
Political activation
.lsm wasit also cor
.
. poratist:

The social .
' were carefull
permitted and n. . 1 mcorporation
<1Ibert .rel.tionshi s
y eo~tro\led, especi:ui
lis early moments,
~e18 hlngs, quite p fsubordmating the uni y by the imposition of
to Who
a ew of th
ions to th
:: ~~
~~:rv::n;;;;:';i~t
t~egr:'fni~~~ ~:;~i~;e;;,,:\~t:~:.
Ilnd
,and to de id
Ir unds to infl
recognition
.
' of
uence th e selection of'
Ith e emplo el e u pon the right
~ ass'. or th/:::::~ This did not mak:~h:esentation
before the
Wi\h a de
ns mer~ inslnunents
popular sector, the

P:~~~

1lu.~t

differe;;t':':..: J;obtical, eeonom~:, ,:~ul~sm, b~t it did

orporatism was n::r hlStory from earlier e~ eologlcal subway of "
."
a new type of t
pItallst experiorganlzmg" the popular sesc:~e
or means
society,ofbut
r by
its

Corporatism and th e Question of the State

GUlLLERMO AoO'DONNELL

o guaranteeing an "order"
d
6'
poning the economic demandan
that requir e posts o f an
the accumulation
pop 1
o'
an su or nating or destro ymg
o the 1 u ar sector
depoliti cizmg
o o it
b di
d more
come
autonomous durin th
e ass .orgamzations that had b '
responds
e praetonan
eo too the political 100
er tilag and
ato o ti periodo Client ellsm corpopuhs timcorporates and h e t eronymomiza1 IOn of
the
popular
t
o
sec OI"
m
bureaucra ic-authoritarian stat th
o us y activates it. But o th '
it ti
f d
oo o
e
SI hi
ua hIOn
oe tilaereandis atan aott empt
to creat e m
d o epoliticization ' mer
o
a new
a 19 egree of activation urbani
o omization, in the context f
state is not the same as?
a~lzatlOn, and industrializati
o
ti it
o
m previous
od
ion. The
con mui y of ideology and 1 o 1 o
openo s; nor, apart f
which oit is linkedo to the po puelgar
is ation,
secto is the type
o of corporatisr
a ism the
by
n er conditions of errati
r, controllmg and penetr ti
o
U d
""onomie
and popular part ~e growlh and a high level 01 d a id : it,
the popular sector and the I~:;;tio~, the tendeney toward au:::m
10;
thi~ would permit appeared as:n
much more "threatening" alli';: o
::~n ~elati~ns and the redistri::ti':::J':f
obstade to the stability e~:
lb b mg o capitalism. Therefore with
resourees required for the

68

subordinate association with the populist state, which facilitated its

n
controll
social incorporation and political activatio in a period of
ed
o
rapid urbanizatio
n and industrialization Because of this, whatever may
have been its affinities with existing ideologies, as an effective social
reality, corporatism has not "always existedo" On the contrary,
it
es
emerged together with, and as a consequence of, the process to which
n
1 just alluded. Populism, in spite of its eorporatizatio
of the popular
sector, entailed a crucial increase in its political and economic weighto It
also implied a substantial improvement in the direct relations between
the bourgeois
and the unionized layers of the popular sector o Toie
gether with the eomplex proeess of redistribution of power that oco
curred under populism, tnose relationships changed Above all, the
recognition of the unions' right to represent the working class before
the bourgeois , the codification of the right to strike (at least in
principle), andie important improvements in the statutes regulating
o security of employment all emerged together with corporatlzation
Especially in the great urban concentrations, the paternalistic sovereignty of
the capitalist in "his" business was weakened by the role that the
populist state-eOTporatist but also aetivist and "proteetive"-granted
to

U:L

the workers' representation by the unonLater, the initial impulse of industrialization and growth ofned
the
internal market lessened and gave way to the erises already mentio
,s
and the populist state began to crumble, opening the way for mas
praetorianism. The weakened state eould do little to eontain the grow'
ing activation 01 the popular sector. Likewise, the redueed eapabiliIY 01O
the state to mediate conflicts among classes, together with the ecOl
on
nomie erses. led the bourgeoisie inereasingly to resent the rights
ed lab
had inherited from the previous periodo Praetorianism impli , am !
other things, an activation 01 the popular sector sustained by a loosen'
ing of the eorporatist eontrols populism had imposed on it; or, ",h"
amo
to the same thing, based on, and expressed in, a dear tenden'l
unts
toward the autonomy of the popular sector with respeet to the sto"
and the dominant dasses. This is one of the mmn causes of the
dr"t>'
aue
n
defensive reaction that led to the implantatio
of the bure "'
tes
authoritarian
tpe
Thus-and stateo
this must be emphasized because it differentia
tpe
eorporatism of the bureaueratie-authoritarian
state from that 01 ~
populist state-lhe bureaueratie-authoritarian
state is not a Syste"'"ll
eontroll
ineorporation. It is a system 01 exelusio" of the pop 1I
,,"etor."ed It is not a case of heteronymously activating the popO;
sector. as under populism, or of inereasing ts eonsumption, or 01",
it to reeompose the domIDant eomition, or of inereasing its ",el
vis-a-vis the state and the dominant classeso On the contrary, it is !l

;.:~u~~~:~~~u~h?ritarian sta~ has t~:g~!~~::::t:;pular

sector,
abundantly H
m part repression which o th
task of cono owever, this e t 1 o'
m
ese cases
n the conditions which C~uln
dro is ~so prevention, in that~tasel~e?
ates
ers and
o
permit the
imiJead
exclusi~n
dorganization of the popul
reappearance 01 demands
POnents c:Uex tthe new pattems of accU:ulaSte~torAlagainstits politicai
iso , one e
dO
IOno though b th
ton outri
an iscern a sequence in
o comfin achiev d ght repression and then 1 t
bas
if Wh1Chthe emphasis falls
e some d
a er, 1 and wh
th
Pleventive
o egree of consolidati
o en e new system
the stabilit mechamsmso The functionin on, ~n the implantation of such
relations r: ~nd the predictability
of gf t these mechanisms permits
Preventive !UlIhed ?y the new pattem ~ ure stability of the social
PoPUlar 1
ec amsms imply
o economic growth 41 S h
hay
eaders e
.
' among other thi
.
ue
titye neverthel
~ergmg "from below": th
ngs, the repression 01
"febo';:'abolishes,:.::, some way managed 'to '~fi~:::.?:g
01 those who
.,
leaders' and repress organizations whieh
rough; the capalQb e 8anctio.'
the generation 01 antici t could be won over by
tb ardination 4~ against those who WOUld1bc1paked
reactions by means of
tna t
o
The
st
ti
o
rea
away
e
~l:'
effieient m a ~zl~g corporatization 01 th from the required
:
Dnder th ee amsm for the exerci
e popular sector is
': lDeehanismeli~:,eaueratie-authOritarianlS~t ~l this preventive
its exclus
44 10g the state to the pula
e, corporatism is
eltpansio oIono
op ar sector in order to

n of th oeob ureaucratic-authorO
o
1 af the part
of C1Vllsociety composed l~f~: e popular
state includes
sector, its
so

70

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

as to guarantee the viability of the new domination and of the new

pattem of economic growth. This imposition of control reverses the
tendency of the praetorian periodo Though it may resemble the cor.
poratism of the populist period in the formal operation of its mecha,
nisms, the two are separated by the crucial difference between the
exclusion and the controlled activation of the popular sector.
Moreover, the corporatism of the bureaucrati~-authori~ar~an ~tate
corresponds to a significant weakening of the worki~~ ~lass ID its direcj
social relations with the bourgeoisie. Gone are the IDltlally benevolent
populist state and the weakened and erratic .sta~e of the praetori~
periodo In their place, the bureaucratic-authontarlan
state expand~ ~
conquering fashion over the organizations of the popular sector. :rhl~ lS
part of a generalized defensive reaction oriented :o,:ar.d deact~vatmg
and "putting in its place" a popular sector-and within it, especially, a
working class-that appears as the dynami~ ch~nnel for "s.u?version"
and as the main impediment to the reconsttuttcn and stability of the
new pattems of capital accumulation. The pri~e of the p~rtial ~ut
important victory won by the popular sector during the P~PU~lStpenad
was its corporatization.
For the bureaucratlc-authontarlan
st~te,
statizing corporatism is one of the most important means ~f defeatmg
and excluding the popular sector. This defeat, accompa~lled by concomitant changes-typicaUy the abolition or severe curtall~ent of th~
right to strike and the modification of legislation govermng workers
dismissal-weakens the popular sector, not only in relation to the st~t~,
but also in relation to the bourgeoisie in general. Here the bourgeOls1e
finds one of the bonds that cement its alliance with the state..
.
Under bureaucratic authoritarianism, the statizing corporatlzatlOn oft
. h
. . al l k ge tha
the class organizations of the popular sector is t e prmcip
ID a
stabilizes and guarantees for the future the exclusion of the popul~
sector and its weakening in direct relation~ ~ith the do~ina~t c~ass~d~S
civil society. However, this theme of statizing corporatlzatlOn incl another aspects. In particular, we cannot ignore that in the most exp Jlls
sive and consolidated bureaucratic-authoritarian
states, the state. see ce
.
. t
Th ir eXIsten
also to have subordinated some business orgamza ions.
el
. to
may have come to depend formally on the state, perhaps in relatlonute
their financing, and in almost all cases their l~aders. eXf;ess ~ t~~Jlle
feeling of impotence in trying to influence public pohc~.
Thi are a5
is important because it can lead to "statist" concluslOns that sucl1
obvious as they are erroneous ". The .reasoning that can lead ~~h tl1e
conclusions is along the followmg hnes:. (1) In countI"Y.X bd to tI1e
employers' associations and the trade umons are subordinate
'nitijJ'
state, and their leaders express similar .fee~ing~of ncapacity ror o t116
tive; (2) these organizations are the mstltutlOnal expresslOns )( tI16
bourgeoisie and of the working c1ass; therefore, (3) m countrY

Corporatism and the Question of the State

71

\'Vorking class and the bourgeoisie-and

almost certainly the rest of
society-are equally subordinated to a highly autonomous state. I will
argue th~t although (1~ ~d (2) may be empiricaUy true, (3) contains a
non seqUltur, because it Ignores a much broader and mutually dynamic
set of linkages between the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state and the
bOurgeoisie.
)3asicaUy,through statizing corporatization, the bureaucratic-authoritarian state deprives the popular sector of almost all its organizational
resources. This is not so with the bourgeoisie, which retains important
organizational resources and numerous informal channels of access to
the state- Moreover, the relative efficacy of these channels tends to
inerease as a consequence of the exclusion of the popular sector. These
affirmations can be clarified by some brief references to diverse channels of access to the state.
1. The most obvious channel is the electoral one. Before the rise of
the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state, the popular sector had a certain
weight here which, although not corresponding to its numbers, determined that its preferences would be attended to in some way. The
elimination of this channel had a lot to do with the diagnosis that it had
an exeessive propensity to give voice to "irresponsible" or "premature"
demands, antagonistic to "social stability" and capital accumulation.
. 2: A second channel results from the control of permanently functiomng organizations, significantly autonomous from the state and
otber social sectors, that can formulate demands on behalf of a certain
sector, elaborate and diffuse information, create and finance leading
~'
and, in general, have its "own weight" in conflicts and coalitions
~nted toward influencing decisions invoking the power of the state.
ble cannot be done if the state imposes control s that make it impossiCOUJ.:: formulate and support demands sustained by resources that
COrpo OP?ose the state and other sectors. This is precisely what statizing
atate ~ahzation avoids: The leaders of organizations rely more on the
di... or their positions than on those they "represent"
the content
~US10n
"
(eithe
,an d f orm of presentation of demands are severely
limited
ot Be"rexpressly or through the "lesson" given in other cases by the use
tbe POer~bs.a?ctions);the management of economic resources including
t.I_
SSl 1hty f
..
h
'
--un. and it . o aC~Ulrmg t em, the legal existence of the organizathe stat s n~ht to mv?ke representation of its members will depend
~ersed e. L1ttl~ remams he re of a class organization. Rather, its role
. t. ,an~
it becomes a bulwark of the state on one of its
~ve fronbers with civil society.
o~ther ~eans. of poltical access is the promotion of protest
~
SUff1clent importance to call attention to certain problems
"l:.n~ually transmit the content of the demanded "solution. ,,46
--.sSlC b e h avior
.
. thiIS category is, of course, to refuse to work.
m

72

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL
Corporatism and the Question of the State

Protest tends to be "expensive." It entails the risk of sanctions and

requires the continued support of the sectors it mobilizes. It also suffers
from diminishing returns: Escalating levels of protest (and of the
consequent risks involved) are required to produce the same results. In
the cases analyzed here, one of the first decisions of the new state wa,
to limit the right to strike, prohibiting it directly or subjecting it to
such requirements as to produce the same resulto This is one of the
main means of controlling the popular sector: to make difficult and te
raise the costs of its most institutionalized means of protesto Other
forms of protest come up against another aspect of state expansion-its
greatly increased capacity for repression, and its willingness to use it.
4. Another important access channel is the result of informal rela.
tions between public functionaries and sectors of civil society. I will
come back to this point later, but it is worth mentioning here that this
channel tends to be much more open to the bourgeoisie and the higher
layers of the middle class than to the popular sector.
\
This brief list permits an approximate answer to the question of the
real impact of statizing corporatization on different social classes.
Statizing corporatzation implies stripping the popular sector of practically all its organizational resources. In the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state, this is part of processes that tightly close other access channels. In
effect, the effort to deactivate the popular sector includes repression
and prohibitions directed against the movements and political parties
that could invoke its interests; the closing or stringent control of the
electoral system derives from the "necessity," upon which the state and
bourgeoisie agree, of not obstructing the new social "order"; the
increased disposition and capacity for repression, together with the
corporatization of the unions, makes the use of the strike and other
forms of protest very costly; and the totality of these measures, added
to others regulating the work situation, also weaken the popular sector
in its direct relations with the bourgeoisie.
What is the impact of statizing corporatization under the ~~eal.ld
cratic-authoritarian state with respect to the national bourgeoisie aIlp
international capital? The most extreme hypothesis is that S1.1~a1
corporatization has occurred in a large number of entrepreneU!1f
organizations, which is of course much less likely than in the c~se~s
trade unions. Even in this extreme case, which in Latin Amenco~S
approximated only by Brazil, and to some extent by Mexico, 1
important to note the following:
00JV
1. The corporatized associations tend to be national organiZat1 of
which speak for highly aggregated interests, rather than associatioPs
specific business nterests."?
. (1;
2. The corporatized associations tend to belong to the nat10

73

bOurgeoisie, neither acting for nor re

ti
national corporations.48
'
presen mg, the branches of multi3. As these associations are corporatized, others t
tolerated by the state, more active and bette fi
d end to emerge,
ones, which remain limited to ceremonial r functo- than the earlier
cornrnents on public policy.f?
ctions or post facto
4. Above all, besides the organizations that
o .
tbe firms themselves reman as a perman
t b esc~pe corporatlzatlOn,
tbat can be mobilized by the bourgeol. oen ase of lmportant resources
.
Sle.
'!bese points vary from one case to another b .
.
tbat the eventual corporatization of busin ut it see~s .vahd to affirm
deprive the bourgeoisie of much of the oess ~sso~latlOns do es not
controls. Rather, in conquering thes
organlzatlOnal resources it
them into shells whose substance is te as;oclations, the state converts
which the bourgeoisie continues to e r~s trr~~ to ?ther organizations,
autonorny vis-a-visthe state. In the b~~ ro Wl~ an lm~ortoant degree of
strongly contrasts with the impact f a~~~a~IC-authontarlan state, this
popular sector which cannot
tO s a izing' corporatization of the
,
coun upon alt
ti
nizations and moreover finds itself suboec erna rve permanent orgasevererepression against any att
t t J t to the constant threat of
In
d
emp o create them
or er to evaluate these differential .
.
o .
quences of other aspects of th b
lompacts, the indreet conse1inkageswith society must be t ukreau~ratlc-authoritarian state and its
nll....
e a en into acco t F
,--nces of the closure of th 1
un.
rst, the consebourgeoisie than for the o eu~ectoral syst~moare very different for the
~torian
period and t:e p l~t.sealctor..Thl~ ISespecially true after the
1VbichPartl
po 1 IC actlvatlOn of th
ul
:ains
a b:aa~o~:~
l~h~oUghthat cha~n:l. P~~co~,s~~t::~
. bourgeoisie. These links oro .m s ~tween pubhc functionaries and
::ces
of interests at the leve:~~ate m personal rel.ationships and in
'-=0 eseconomy with the "
groups of compames or of branches
na o T .
corresponding" t t f
o
o
hure'
hrrd, though this does n
o s a e unctlOnarles or instituot
.1..- aUCratic-authoritarian t t
h duectly refer to linkages with the
-o Occu
s a e, t e weakeni
f th
tbia \\> rs at the level of its direct r 1 t.
?g o
e popular sector
Jb.L_ ayoconsolidates its class d : a l?nS with a bourgeoisie which in
~~es 10 th
ommatlOn Fourth th
~tion.
e area of privatist corporatism. I will d:al w~~~~:~er~:~:
e 1 have b
een able to say so th
o or the corporatization of me. mg fairly concrete about the
S Us note Concerni
th
unlOns, I must end on a more
:ice
it to say for ~~e m~~~~o::t!Z~ion
of bus.iness organiza.
only arise through
f ~
e non seqUItur mentioned
a con usion of th
and aggregated interests of some bus. e area ~f t~e highly
mess orgamzatlOns with

~n::~:~~

74

Corporatism and the Question of the State

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

the entirety of lnkages between the state and the bourg~oisie. Of

course, to avoid an error does not mean that we must now ~wmg to the
other extreme, toward a societalist non sequitur, that all.this con~eal.s a
bourgeoisie which is omnipotent over the bureaucratIc-authontar~an
state. In fact if our analysis is not too erroneous, what we should find
in the linkages between the state and the bourgeoisie are the reverberations of a tense alliance which unravels itself in th~ context of t.h~
mutual dependence of the state and international cap.Ital, of the pO.h~l'
cal and ideologicallegitimation contributed by the natonal bourgeo.lSle,
and of the exclusion of the popular sector. These aspects wer~ outlined
earlier and will reappear in the discussion of privatist corporatIsm.
The "Privatist" Element of Corporatism
A summary is convenient at this point. We have examined the state's
corporatization of class organizations, both of the popular sector and of
the bourgeoisie. This implies a movement [rom the state ~ow~rd. the
'ety through which the former conquers or subordinates mstItutlOns
e
SOl,
{"'t"
of the latter. However, corporatism is also an advance o
prwa e
sectors toward the state, through which some areas of t~e state. ar.e
opened to the "representation of interests" from civil socety. This 1S
the privatist aspect of corporatism. In other words, t~e the~~ we
analyzed thus far implies a pen~tration ~f the state mto civil socle~:
the situations we will now conslder are, m contrast, c~annels of c~ o
plex interpenetrations
between the state and the ?om~ant sector the
civil society. 1 am not referring to informal relatlOnshlpS, b.ut to onpublic institutionalization
of links between state and soclet~, e
stituted by commissions, boards, councils, and other centr~~zed ~
decentralized state institutions in which one finds the bO~rgeOlsle (a~h;
at times , workers) "represented" by those
. directly deslgnated by
state or proposed by their class organizatlOns.'al
. t' t'
f SoIlle o
In a general sense, these are areas of part ~nva Iza IOn o
lic1~
the state's structures and activities. They are pomts of contac~, p~b oj{e
established between the state and sectors ~f civil s~ciety, which ;:rial
the "legitimate representation"
of certam functlO~~, nonte eneral
.terests At this level the phenomenon is charactenstlC of the c1e
g. s tO
.
,
.
.
hi h te den
m
category of complex capitalist econo~les m ~ ic
n s appeIV'
"adjust" mutually the behavior of public an~ pnvat~ sector 1 tbese
One reason for this is that the big organizatlOns Whl~h con~a11 eol1'
sectors tend to require medium- and long-ran~e planmng, an alue ~f
trol resources capable of significantly affectmg the ~uture v f tbe~
variables whose predictability is necessary fo~ the att~nme~t eco~'
goalS.51 It is at this level of privatist corporatlsm that, m tacit r

?av~

75

tion of their mutual limits of relative autonomy, the state and the
oUgopolized structure of complex and industrialized modern capitaliSlllS join together, interpenetrating
and mutually guaranteeing the
predictability of the~ future behavior.
1 have already pomted out that this is the only type of corporatism
existing in the central capitalist countries and that the bifrontal
corJ>0ratism that interests me here includes this privatist component as
\VeDas the statizing one already analyzed. 1 should add that this
bifrontal character is not the result of the mere juxtaposition of the
t\VOCOIllPonents. On the contrary, the real functioning and impacts of
privatist corporatism remain conditioned by the presence or absence of
the statizing component. Contrasting the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state with the constitutional democracies of contemporary central
capitalism one can see two differences at the level of the privatist
corporatization of institutional state areas. First, the relative weight of
one of the sectors-the popular one-and its capacity to define goals
and to formulate and support demands through autonomous control of
resources is much lower because of the statizing corporatization which
has been forced upon it. Second, this is reinforced by the fact that the
gene~alcontext which characterizes the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state
also mcludes the closure of the electoral system and the severe curtail~t
of the right to strike and other forms of protesto One consequence
18 that the presence of the popular sector in corporatized state areas
tends to be manifested, not by leaders who have emerged from that
aector'd but by "f une tiionanes
."
.
Uons
wh o, morder
to maintain their posi"_ ' epend as much on the benevolence of the state as on those they
. that because channels of access in
."_present
. 1 . "A no th er consequence lS
,-u.Clp
e
more
ap
.
t
t
h
1ri.th
'.
propna e o t e popular sector are closed, in contrast
Iizesthcon~tIt,:tlOnal democracies, privatizing corporatization monopoot ciVile mstItut
.
IOnal'ize d channels for the "representation of interests"
Jinkagess~lety ?efore the state. This monopoly is consolidated through
PoPUlar t WhICh the number and pattems of organization of the
tbat the ~~c or tend to have less weight. Of course this does not mean
. actionreprese n t atiives " of the corporatized
.'
unions cannot obtain the
f
utilized
~ome demands, or that the state's privatized areas cannot
of the o and out differential benefits to some layers or organizaUcratic_popul~ s~ctor. However, what still stands is that in the
.
con teauthontarlan
st at e, st atiizmg
corporatization
and the
xt
of
lusi
2!"II .
ntation "
~xc USlOn fundamen tally restrict the weigh t of
.'
assgned to the popular sector in the privatized

18

Only prelirn'
.
.
corn le
m~ to the e~amm~tlOn of privatist corporatism.
P x and important dimension is that of the linkages it

76

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

Corporatism and the Question of the State

establishes between the state and the bourgeoisie. Here we again face a
point that does not lend itself to simplification. On ~he one hand, the
economical1y dominant sectors have in these are as an important mecha_
nism of control ouer the state, as much by way of "agreements" in
which the state commits future decisions, as by the opportunities they
offer for less visible processes of co-optation of functionaries and of
"colonization" of entire agencies. But, on the other hand, this opening
of some of the state's institutional areas is a more or less successfU}
attempt (depending on the particular case and period) at control of the
principal allies of the dominant coalition. !h!~ compo~e,nt of ,corporatization is part of the attempt to "reorgan~ze ~d st~blhze, S?Clety,
It includes the limitation and control of pluralism, mcludmg legItImated
interests and the right to represent them; the exchange of information
with a stable set of "representatives" who are the leaders of organizations through which social sectors must express themsel:,~s; th~ ,com,
mitment of powerful private sectors to the support of publ~c policies so
as to reduce obstacles to their adoption and implementation; and the
conversion by all possible means of the behavior of "private" actors and
the treatment of issues relating to institutionalized are as of the state
itself into a small number of private spokesmen who lack, or cannot
express, fundamental objections to the existing patterns of domination
and economic growth. In other words, though these areas are the
principal institutionalized means of representation of civil society be'
fore the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state-an d im thiIS sense are a "penetration" of civil society into the state-they
are also a mechani~m
state control, not only with respect to the popular sector (WhIC~
subject to the very different mechanisms of statizing corporatizatlOn)
but with respect to its own principal allies. At the same time, the
institutionalization
of these linkages-which in principle ,mak~s ~:
more visible and controllable than those of informal rela~lO~shIPSally
creases the possibility of successful attempts by these allies m~orr:OJl'
to "colonize" the state.52 Of course, the state always retans the
corporatized spheres in which decisions can be enforced thrOUg~tOr)'
state's claim of universal validity for its comm~ds ov~r the t~~n 'fIJe
and its superior control of the means of physical violence
tI1e
,
'
be tweeJ'l
resultant complexities express the alliance
and the tensions
'talist
state and the economically dominant sectors in a complex caP1 oll'
society. However, in the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state, tho~~ ~ter
plexities increase because of the unusually weighty presence
attrg,C&
national capital. On the one hand, the state must econornically
t i
and politically guarantee this capital and, on the other, it must hrJ'1 1l'
o
growth and protect the national bourgeoisie and its own ecoJ'l
activities from it.

~!

77

This aspect of corporatism is even more ambiguous than the statized

ope. In ,the latter, w~ found a st.r0ngly asymmetrical relationship of
dorninatlOn. I~ pnV,atIst corporatIsm, there is a wide range of much
more symmetncal lmkages, true interpenetrations
between the state
and the oxternal ~d, internal dominant sectors, in which they "meet,"
constantly renegotatmg and exploring the limits of their alliance. The
intricacies, variations, and tensions of these adjustments are little
known. This lack of information is particularly regrettable if as is
Jikely, the direct,ion of resultant control tends to vary not onl; from
one case and penad to another, but also in accordance with the type of
jssue at stake.
Some Conc1usions and Generalizations
We lack adequate theorization of the linkages between state and
society. These, in turn, are aspects of the wider problem of the
interrelationships between the political and the social in which
~ust begin by reexamining the problem of the st~te itself. T~:
mtellectual currents that ~revailed until recently all denied or ignorad
that a,ny such problem exists, While this is beginning to be overcome
tbere lS the danger of swingng toward a "statist" or "politicist" view.
e~neous as the previous "societalism." Moreover, to postulate th~
genenc,pro~lem of the relative autonomy of the state vis-a-vis society
~ ~ hst dlVerse aspects of its domination, is only to pose a proble~
m no way to resolve it.
Tbere is
"1 ti
lIOciet
no ,re a ive autonomy" of "the" state in relation to "the"
incorr!~tlAt ths l:vel we can only utter trivialities or smuggle in
I18pect f Y generallzed conclusions based on the observation of some
1tbich t the relationships between them. We must begin by specifying
.
s ate and wh h
iet
.
tbia, it WOuld
IC SaCIe y we are speaking about. In arder to do
detued
be useful to construct typologies which are neither so
~ incI~ to make each case a type by itself nor so general that each
J\lth
es substantial differences.
hI.- OUghthis d
t xh
-"Olic'" l.Y onent
.
oes
d no
liti e aust all the relevant factors , a focus upon
a.UsefUl1
e po 1 ical economy may permit us to place ourselves
evel of anal ' Th
, chao,
yS1S. lS may allow us to identify on the one
e at~es In factors central to the evolution of the ec~nomy and
111 a~rth equally central aspects for the characterization
and
'sh Corr e state. Although there is no perfect fit, it is possible to
Untall espondences, mutual influences, or "affinities" acting
: the y among these factors. 1 have mentioned one such intin l:re~pondence
between the deepening of capitalism in
encan Countries and the emergence and expansion of a
<q{

78

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL
Corporatism and the Question of the State

bureaucratic-authoritarian
state. The interaction of t~ese pr~cesses ~eQ
to a new articuiation of political, economic, and SOCI~relatlOns. ~hlCh
ould be summarized thus: (1) the exclusion of a preVlous~ypoliticajj,
~ctivated popular sector; (2) the reconstitution of mechanlsms.of ?api.
tal accumulation in favor of large public and private organzatio-j,
(3) the emergence of a new coalition whose ~~i~cipal members are.state
personnel (especially the military and civilian technocr~t~), m~er.
national capital, and the segments of th~ local ~ourgeolSle WhlCh
trol the largest and most dynamic national busmess; and (4) the
~~;ansion of a state with a greater capacity to guarantee .the exc~usion
of the popular sector and, in general, to control the ~OClety, onented
toward its stabilization and predictability, appropnate. to the .new
patterns of accumulation. Non~ o~ ~his i~ specifically Latm Amencan.
On the one hand, there are similarities with Europe~ cases, both past
and present, that have also been subjected to deepemng p:ocesse.s of a
retarded, dependent, uneven, but nevertheless extensvely indus.
trialized, capitalismo On the other hand, there are important cont~~ts
with cases, both in Latin America and elsewhere.' that. hav~ not advanced" to the same stage as those countries mentioned m this c~apter.
which have been industrialized under a socialist econo~y, or which, by
reason of exceptional circumstances (for example, 011) have mass~ve
economic resources directly controlled by the state that may modify
the general conditions examined here. S4 In other words, the them~ of
this essay is a referent historically situated by a certain type of capitalism, not by geographic proximities or cultural are.a~.
cterThe new patterns of dominaton+more specifcally, the chara
istics and social impacts of the bureaucratic-authoritar~an. stat~~
intimately related to the deepening of the t~pe of capIta~hsmin the
discussion. This does not prevent important internal t~nslOns 1 t be
alliance which carries it through. However, these tenslO.ns.mUSallies
examined together with the mutual dependence of the principal d'ng
. t ~r~st im exclu
1
and from the broader perspective .of.t~eir .common m
olitcal
the popular sector, drastically limiting its op~ort~mtIes for P ne\\'
access, and "delaying" its economic participation m favor of t he
patterns of accumulation.
.'
eceded ts
Given the mass praetorianism of the penod which pr
enng
emergence and the complexity of the soci~ty subject to ~he d~:~essad
the expansion of the bureaucratic-auth?n~an
state is ~ucton o
diti n for guaranteeing the consolidation and repro
f tJ1e
con 1 10
bi d'
f vor o
mechanisms of capital accumulation .stro~gly rase 1~ a d prVllte.
and "modern" econormc units+both public an
t re'
mos t comp 1ex
.
bond
tba
.
The state's economic expanslOn. exte~ds, however, ey
f burellll
quired by strictly economic considerations, partly because o

79

fe impulse, but especially because of the crucial political need to

era
~
national bases in a capitalism being deepened with the help of a
re tagonist such as international capital.
ProAs part of its expansion, the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state adees over society like a conqueror, increasing its effective control.
~ous
means are utilized in this advance-some as obvious as the
suppression o~ electoral channel~, r~pression, and id~olo~cal manipulation. Others aim at the corporatIzatlOn of class organizations, especially
those of the popular sector which, moreover, is almost totally stripped
of altemative resources. On the other hand, the corporatization of
business organizations deprives the bourgeoisie of organizational resources to a much smaller extent and allows it to retain effective
altemative access to the state. This is the area o statizing corporatization, whose main role is that of principal institutionalized link between
the bureaucratic-authoritarian state and the popular sector, to consolidate popular exclusion and to prevent successful challenges o the
state's authority.
This "conquering state" is also a "porous state," open at numerous
interstices-informal and institutionalized-to
links which contain bidirectional processes of control and influence, especially with the
dominant classes of civil society. The privatist plane of corporatism is
the resultant of the institutionalized areas through which the state
publicly opens itself to these interpenetrations. These two components
of corporatism show it as bifrontal and segmentary, since its statizing
oomponent affects, above all, the popular sector, and its privatist
oo:p<>nent opens the state to interpenetrations with, above all inter:: on?l capital and the national bourgeoisie. This expresses the'difer~
III the modes o linkage with the state between those who have
sio eXcluded from , and those who are--although not without ten01 ~~
or, the ruling alliance. Briefly, the statizing corporatization
tionaf e ass organizations of the popular sector is the principal institu~u
ll1e~s for the exclusion and preventive penetration o the
H.._
cratIc-auth itari
ta
hi
.
~ organiz'
on anan s te, w ich crystalhzes the heteronomy o
COlporat ~tIonal resources and leaders o that sector. The privatist
ih~
lzatl0n of
. tit ti
-Ioitution
some ms 1 u ions o the state itself is the main
1IlutUaJ.
al channel for the representation of interests and for the
~""""-~ Control b t
th
.
.:-O:~
e ween
e state and the dommant classes of civil
O .
llder the b
.
'.
. .
e Po
ureaucratlC-authontarlan state, statizing corporatization
tber PUlarsector occurs within a framework of policies---the closing
tion o~ccess ~hannels, .the m~dification of labor legislation, the
PopUlthe nght to ~trlke-W?lCh help to consolidate the exclusion
ar sector. This sector lS therefore weakened, not only in the

80

GUILLERMO

A. O'DONNELL

face of the state, but also in relation to the dominant classes. This sa
central requirement for the stabilization of social relations and for the
consolidation of the new pattems of accumulation in which the alliance
which sustains the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state is cemented. 1'he
deepening of capitalism undertaken by this alliance requires the politi.
cal deactivation of the popular sector and the guarantee of its futUre
control by the state and its class allies. Because the popular sector had
experienced a period of strong activation, its forced exclusion divorces
these societies from democratic-constitutional
pattems and directs
them toward authoritarian forms. During the first stage, naked repres.
sion prevails, oriented to the destruction of the organizational bases and
leadership of that political activation. Later on, the preventive and less
visible controls of statizing corporatization are emphasized.
Perhaps now some of the initial affirmations of this chapter are clear,
In particular, we have seen that the phenomenon of corporatism must,
first, be differentiated into its various components and, second, be
related to other linkages between state and society. The mode of
functioning and real impacts of any type of corporatism are a function
of, and in turn indicate, the type of state which it helps to link with
civil society. Therefore, beyond ideological and formal similarities, the
exclusion of the popular sector is enough to differentiate the functioning and real impacts of bureacratic-authoritarian corporatism from
that existing under populism. On the other hand, its bifrontal character
separates it even more clearly from the solely privatist corporatism of
the political democracies of the central capitalist countries.
Like the others, the bureaucratic-authoritarian state neither floa~
sovereignly over civil society, nor acts as the "agent" of the econorn1'
cally dominant sectors, nor serves as the passive scenario established for
adjustments among "groups." It is a much more complex phenomenon
that we could only examine briefly here. In the cases with which,w~ ~
concemed, such complexity is even greater, since the political VlabJll.
of the deepening of a historical type of capitalism cau~es the bur~a~
cratic-authoritarian state to expand as a direct econormc agent an 'W
custodian of a national bourgeoisie which may, be-i~ ~onjunct~on ~gi'
its economic weakness, on the one hand, and its political and [deo ' I
cal importance, on the other--the most vivid indication of the ong1Jl
characteristics of these cases.
, ,
oda1
Retuming to a qualification made at the begmnmg, although t tlJe
the Mexican case-even considering the peculiarities resulting fro)'ll id
PRI-can be included in the category 1 have delineated here, what 1stlJe
about the praetorian period which preceded the emergence of; B
bureaucratic-authoritarian state does not apply to Mexico. This JIl/l.
j;9.tI
a consequence of the fact that the elective affinities between the s

Corporatism and the Question of the State

81

d tbe stage of deepening of capitalism that the Mexican case shares

:th the res~ are ~ven,stronger th,~ have argued here. This is only one
of the questlOns lmphe~ by the initial speculations about the tempo of
the appearance of certam contrap~ntally related factors, which future
stUdies can perhaps answer. For this to be possible, it will be necessary
, the meantime to redeem conceptually one of these factors, the state,
: a level ,wh~ch ~ermits, the detection of its changes through time,
together with its differential modes of linkage with diverse social classes
and sectors at each stage. Corporatism is only a chapter, though
cert;ainlyan important one, in the study of those modes.
1 nsist again that each type of corporatism is a function of the type
of state of which it is one in the set of structures or modes of linkage
with civil society. In turn, each type of state results from complex
interactions with certain characteristics and processes of change in civil
society. The corporatism of the bureaucratic-authoritarian state must
be understood within these coordinates. From these result its bifrontal
condition-statizing and privatist-and its segmentary condition-the
summary of the differential impact which the statizing and privatist
components entail for the allies of the bureaucratic-authoritarian state
andof?r those which it excludes. Corporatism-especially, but not only,
~tizmg corporatism-is a fairly recent addition to the manifold mechaDlSIDs of clas~ d?mination. The fact that the emergence and expansion
of an authontarlan state are necessary to impose it should not lead us
to forget this fundamental fact.

NOTES
'l1Iia chapter was t
l t d f
S
ish
'
"
1 1riah to
rans a e rom pams by Richard Gillespie and Anthony Powell,
tbia ess e~pr,ess my gratitude to those who have criticized and commented upon
.
ay In ItS
ious sr
'
lIIdebted 1
vanou~ s ages ,of preparation. Among the many to whom 1 am
Grau L'I' M~ust mentlOn David Collier, Atilio Boron John S Fitch Jean-Noel
la
iluti
El"
,.
,
Ibd PhU'Ip
In,
zabeth Jelm, Alfred Stepan, Marcelo Cavarozzi Oscar Oszlak
..
pe Sch itt
W'
"
-- Publi p , mi, er.
ith Oszlak and Schmitter, 1 gave a seminar on "The Sta te
A.I~:c ohcymLt'
A
'
"
-~istrac'
a m menea,
sponsored by the Centro de Investigaciones
~,at the 1 10t~Publico, Instituto Di Tella, and the Social Science Research Counns ItUto de D
ll E
'
,
t 1974'
esarro o conormco y SOCial, Buenos Aires, from June to
~ehial
en', whch greatly contributed to this work. 1 wrote this essay in the very
8ee ,Vlronment provided by the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton,
.GIOvani Sart '''C
M' f
"
~litical S .
orr,
oncept
IS ormation m Comparative Politics," Ameri'l'his de~/:,~~e Revlew, 64, no, 4 (December 1970):1033-53,
Cehtur
1 Ion owes much to that proposed
by Philippe Schmitter in "Still
:85-1r1 of Corporatism?",
Review
of Politics,
36, no, 1 (January
tion i~ Also "see ~ames Mal~o.y, "Authoritarianism,
Corporatism,
and
Peru,
Reuieui of' Politics, 36, no, 1 (January 1974):52-84, My

82

GUILLERMO

A. O'DONNELL

interpretations
and conclusions are somewhat different from those of these two
authors.
3. This definition is an "analytic mnimum," just sufficient to distinguish th
state from other phenomena. In more specific analyses, it will be necessary to ad~
other, more varia ble characteristics.
4. The differences in the weight and role of the state in the historical formation
of a territorially based political unit and in the implantation of a market which
covers that territory are fundamental topics for a comparative theory of political
economy. It is worth consulting the pioneer work of Joseph Nettl, "The State as a
Conceptual Variable," World Politics, 20, no. 4 (July 1968):559-92. Investigations
being carried out by Charles Tilly and his associates offer an important analysis of
the formation of national states in Western Europe, which differ substantially frorn
the strongly "destatized" and much more gradualist view of change presented in the
greater part of the literature on "political development." See especially Charles
Tilly, "Postscript: Western Statemaking and Theories of Political Transformation,"
in his Formation
of National
States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1975). Barrington Moore's Social Origine of Dictatorship
and
Democracy
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1966) continues to be invaluable on this topie,
as do the recent contributions of Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System
(New York: Academic Press, 1974), and Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity
to Feudalism (London: NLB Editions, 1974).
5. See especially the work of Arthur F. Bentley and its influential reformulation
by David Truman in The Governmental
Process (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1961),
6. See Ta1cott Parsons, "The Political Aspects of Social Structure and Process,"
in Varieties of Political Theory , ed. David Easton (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1966), pp. 71-112.
7. See Karl Deutsch, The Nerves of Government
(Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press,
1963).
8. The works that have best reflected this point of view are those of Seymour
M. Lipset, including Political Man (New York: Doubleday, 1960).
9. See, for example, Nicos Poulantzas, Hegemonia y dominacion
en el estado
moderno,
Pasado y Presente no. 48 (Cordoba, 1973), esp. pp. 11-105; and o~car
,
..
?" L a tim Ameri
Oszlak "Capitalismo del estado: alternativa
o transicin?
en can Semlnar
on Public Enterprises and Their Relations with the Central Governrnent (Caracas,
November 1974), mimeograph.
, '
,
.
.'
(Nell'
10. I refer to Samuel Huntington, Political Order I~ Changing soc~e,tleSnd se'
Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), and Leonard Binder et al., CriSIS a
quences of Potitical Development
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), a/Io
11. On this point, I rely on the excellent critique published by Mark Ke~~e~~rld
"Order or Movement: The Literature of Political Development as Ideology,
Politics, 26, no. 1 (October 1973):139-54.
dePc~'
12 This is the case of certain simplistic versions of the problem of depen par'
r
.,
which . postulate a mechanical
and unilateral causa t'Ion on th e par t o f "exte f tl1t
.
"
.
tifli
th
problem
o
.
dominating factors. ThIS, of c?ur~e, implies once aga~n s I mg
e
nt or t,p
Latin American state, authoritarian
or not, so that it appears as the age Tpis, I
immediate consolidation
of domination exercised by "external"
factors. wor~
hasten to add is not an objection that can be validly opposed to other pceJ"
concerned with dependency,
which were much richer and more subtle CO
tualizations.
s Sil
13. One of the better empirical investigations carried out recently
IImpar
Kaufman Purcell, "Decision-making in an Authoritarian Regime: Theoretlca

Corporatism

and the Question of the State

83

ioJ1S from a Mexican Case Study;" World Politics, 26, no. 4 (October 1973):
cat 54 See also chapter 7 in this volume.
28- .
14. See John McKinney, Constructiue
Typology and Social Theory (New York:
leton Century Crofts, 1966).
APr5. In this essay I can only refer in a very general way to the specifics of the
included in the "type."
~.
Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic
Backwardness
in Historical Perspectiue
(CaJPbridg~, ~ass.: Harvard ,University Press, 19.62); Moore, ~o~ial Origins; David
CoUier, "Tlmmg of Economic Growth and Regune CharactenstIcs,"
Comparative
Politics (fo~thc.omin~), prese,nts an interesting statistical treatment of these probleIDsof timmg I~ Latin Amenc~.
17. Albert Hrschman considers these as cases of "late-late" industrialization, in
c:ontrast with the "late" cases discussed by Gerschenkron in Economic BackwardSee Hirschman, "The Political Economy of Import-Substituting
Industrializaon in Latin Amrica,"
in his Bias for Hope (New Haven: Ya le University Press,
1971), pp. 85-123.
18. The Latin American countries to which I am referring here, as well as most
r.stern European countries, were originally incorporated into the world market as
a:porters of raw materials. This was not the case with the countries which followed
the "Cascist route." Although "late" in relation to England, the United States, and
France, these soon joined the nucleus of industrial capitalism to which the Latin
American and Eastern European countries remained linked as exporters of primary
materials. From this spring the sequential (and dependent) characteristics of industrialization, as well as the historical roots of differences in the formation and
Irticulation of classes, and in the role and type of authoritarianism
in the countries
whic~ interest us he re, in contrast to those following either the "democratic"
or
"1uc18t routes" in Europe. For more discussion of this topic see my "Reflexiones
IObre las tendencias generales de cambio en el Estado burocratico-autoritario
"
~~ted
at the Conferencia sobre Historia y Ciencias Sociales, University ~f
"IIIIIP1nas,Brazil, June 1975.

".BI.

cra:!:}n thi~ sec:ti~n I update the analysis presented in Modernization

and Bureau-tionaI U~hor.taransm (Berkeley:
University of California, Institute of Interde"A'
tudias, 1973). See also Guillerrno O'Donnell and Delfina Linck DepenIa y autono
' (B
'
,
lIIalysis of the mla
uen?s Aires,: Amorrortu Editores, 1973), chap. 3. A good
tlriallisrn
se themes, with specal attention to changes in the kinds of authoriIJIecificalland c<:,r.poratism, can be found in chapter 1 of this volume. For the more
~thorita~
pohtl~al aspects of "authoritarian
regimes," see Juan Linz "An
(Me" Yorr~~nFReglme: Spain," in Mass Politics, ed. Erik Allardt and Stein Rokkan
!arIan Regi~ r~e .Press, 1970), pp. 251-83; and idem, "Totalitarian and AuthoriPoIiNeol S ,es,
In Fred 1. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby eds. Handbook
of
~. .
clence (R di
M'
'
,
'NeolOrder
ea mg,
ass.: Addison Wesley, 1975). See also Huntington,
e:~,~leconcep't of '.
"
~erist
mcreasmg randomizafion has been proposed by David Apter as
:~
IC of the
t '
'.
:'"'Ill Inod
.
. uncer amty and fragmentabon of social relations of situations
ity Pr ermzatlOn (Choice and the Politics of Allocation
[New Haven: Yale
20. O'D ess, 1971 J).
.
8ee O;nell, Modernization,
esp. chaps. 2 and 3,
orcuato Di Tell
Cl
. 1
Paid
a,
ases SOCia es y poder politico
(Buenos Aires:
A.lItel"ico o(~ 1974); and Charles Anderson, Politics and Economic
Change in
"'th ou h ew
...
. York:
. . Van Nostrand ,. 1967)
g Insufflclent, the available information on the period prior to the

84

GUILLERMO

Corporatism

A. O'DONNELL

a:

emergence of the bureaucratic-authoritarian

state points in this direction. S
e
O'Donnell and Linck, Dependencia.
For the Argentine case see al so Pablo
chunoff and Juan Llach, "Capitalismo industrial, desarrollo asociado y distribucior.
del ingreso entre los dos gobiernos peronistas, 1950-1972," Desarrollo Economicon
15, no. 57 (April+June 1975):3-54.
23. Regarding the armed forces and their role in implanting the bureauCratic.
authoritarian
sta te, see Guillermo O'Donnell, "Modernizacion
y golpes militares
(teoria, comparacion y el caso argentino)," Desarrollo Economico,
no. 47 (October+December 1972):519-66.
24. For a more detailed treatment, see O'Donnell, "Reflexiones."
25. We are dealing here not only with an objective need for those tYpes o{
capitalism to be "deepened,"
but also with the subjective perception of that need
on the part of the functionaries who carried out the economic policy in the initia]
period of the bureaucratic-authoritarian
states.
26. Charles Moraze, El Apogeo de la Burguesia (Barcelona: Editorial Labor
1965).
'
27. See O'Donnell, "Reflexiones,"
with regard to the bifurcations in the recen!
history of the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state and changing relations with intsrnational capital and the national bourgeoisie.
28. This is one of the numerous aspects which urgently require research. For
Brazil, see Celso Lafer, "El sistema poltico brasileo; algunas caractersticas y
perspectivas," Desarrollo Economico,
14, no. 56 (January+March 1975):641-76.
29. A term utilized, although not identically, by Fernando H. Cardoso in
Fernando H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependencia
y desarrollo en America
Latina (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1969); Nicos Poulantzas, Poder politico y clases sociales
(Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1972); Charles Bettelheim, and Paul Sweezy in Oscar Oszlak,
"Capitalismo de estado."
30. The blocking of direct access to certain activities does not stop international
capital from playing an important rol e as a supplier of inputs, capital goods, and
technology
to the national (private and state) companies that carry out such
activities.
31. The dominant coalition ineludes a fourth member: the national and inte~
national sector dedicated to export activities (mostly primary products). Althoug t
it has lost its former prirnacy, this sector controls a large portion of the eJ{po~
income, and in some cases it also controls food prices in the domestic market. T e
variations from one country to another in the composition of this sector are t~
great to be analyzed here. However, although its interests in general are contrar~tBl
those of the urban sector as a whole (and thus also to international
ca~1 a
operating in industry and services), it tends to agree with international capit~ ~~pg
more "privatist"
or "anti-interventionist"
point of view than that of e~ls of
economic policy. This is especially evident in the way in whic~ a larg~ portl~~ of
export incomes is appropriated to finance sta te expansion. An mterestm.g.stu coo'
the relative dynamis~ of the prin~ipa~ allies ~s,;eter McDonoug~, "P?htlCa~iCl1i'
sequences of Econornic Concentration
m Brazil (~nn Arbor: Umve.rslty of 3 aod
gan, 1974), mimeograph. See also O'Donnell and Linck, Dependencia,
chap.
sources cited for the Argentine case..
.
.
iaS efll
32. This is a seldom explored topic. See Bolvar Lamounier,
IdeolOg . car
B
regimes autoritarios,"
Estudos CEBRAP, 7 (1974):67-92; and Fernando
) pp.
doso, Autoritarismo
e democratizacao
(Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1975 ,
187-222.
pe"
33. State and society are fused in this ideology because these chambers ap
1

and tbe Question of tbe State

85

fundamental

part of the state itself, while tbe legitimated social relations

"public." The full manifestation of this ideology is found in
,ppea1' f Mussolini which contributed to the generation of theories on "totalitarian~~, These theories are currently discredited because--like some culturalist interiIIJIl fons o Latin American "corporatism"
and "authoritarianism"-they
are little
preta Ined with confronting the architectural design of the ideology with its actual
COncerns of functlOnmg
.'
'1' impac t .
an d socia
A useful introduct.ion to ~he pertine.nt ?ibliography on Italian fascism can
be found in Renzo de Felice, Le interpretazioni
del fascismo (Bari: Laterza, 1969).
35. perhaps the ~~st .articulate recent expression of an approach centered upon
tbe ideological and juristic-forrnal aspects of corpor.a~ism is to be found in Howard
WW'da, "Toward a Framework for the Study of Political Change in the Iberic-Latin
Tradition: The Corporative Model," World Po litics , 25, no. 1 (January 1973):
206-36; and "Corporatism and Development in the Iberic-Latin World: Persistent
StrainS and New Variations," Reuiew of Politics, 36, no. 1 (January 1973):3-33.
Tbia viewpoint leads (in my view, inevitably) to already criticized concJusions.
36. The first stages of an interesting project of recompilation and evaluation of
&he legal and institutional characteristics of corporatism in Latin America are found
iD chapter 15 of this volume.
37. In spite of its brevity, an exemplary work is Richard Morse, "The Heritage
al Latin America," The Founding of New Societies, ed. Louis Hartz (New York:
lfIrc:ourt, Brace and World, 1964), pp. 123-77. See also chapters 2 and 5 in this
1OIume.Also relevant are James Kurth, "Patrimonial Authority, Delayed Developmeat and Mediterranean Politics," and William Glade, "The State in Mediterranean
Putitics," papers presented at the annual convention of the American Political
8eieDceAssociation, New Orleans, 1973.
lO be ato be essentially

pat::'

~38.

B~ this term 1 understand, with admitted vagueness, the mode of relationor hnkage between state and dominant classes, on the one hand, and the
=:ar
s~tor (urban and rural) on the other, which embraces the greater part of
relatlOns between one and the other.
..;:.
This is not the occasion to discuss populism except in respects directly
e with the theme of this chap~er: On pop~lism, see especially Francisco

__Ii ' Classes populares e desenvolvimiento

social. Contribucao ao estudo do
.
pu ISmo ' "(S'
.
11. Cardos'
antIago de Chile: ILPES-CEPAL, 1968), mimeograph; Fernando
co: Siglo o and Enzo Faletto, Dep~ndencia y desarrollo en America Latina (MexXXI, 1969); Torcuato di Tella, Clases sociales; Helio Jaguaribe Crisis y
~
IUQs
de A
.
L .
,
"'UQOI 19
menca
atina: reforma o reuolucion
(Buenos Aires: Editorial
derte 8 7.3); O'Donnell, Modernization;
and idem, "Populismo,"
Diccionario de
40. 1 OClal~s (Paris: UNESCO, forthcoming).
.
n an rrnp t t f
h
.
'-eIUdin "
or an
ort commg book, Alfred Stepan distinguishes between
.
iat g and" exc l u dimg " corporatJsm.
These correspond approximately
to the
and
bureau
ti
thoritari
.
ion"
era ic-au orr arran penods.
I prefer to use "inclusontL._
as cha
t . ti
f
-ltlod
l"
rac ens ICSo types of states which manifest themselves inter alia
.
,
,
1. Th' a ItJes o f f une tiiorung and impacts
of their corporatism.
Ucrat~ guarantee of the future predictability of the "order" attained through
le auth
it "
(
) is f
orr ariamsm and therefore of the domination it contributes to
t
Undamental in attracting foreign capital. For an elaboration of this
and an
. t'
f
elI "R
examina Ion o the contrast between Brazil and Argentina see
,
eflexiones."
,

werr: ?

""--t.

~n;:cellent
study of the effectiveness of repressive and, above all, pre01 can be found in chapter 10 of this volume. See also Marcus Maria

86

GUILLERMO A. O'DONNELL

Corporatism

Figuereido and Peter McDonough, "Repression and Institutionalization

in Brazil"
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1974), mimeograph; and Kenneth Ericksol
"Labor in the Poli tic al Process in Brazil: Corporatism in a Modernizing Natiol':
(doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1970).
43. Philippe Schmitter has rightly insisted upon the fundamental preventive rOle
of corporatism in "Corporatist Interest Representation and Public PolicY'Making in
Portugal" (1973), mimeograph. He points out that "the role and consequences Of
corporatism
must be evaluated not so much in terms of what it openly and
positively attains as in terms of what it negatively and surreptitiously prevents frOIl
occurring. "
44. Although I have referred to the urban sector, it is worth noting that when
the level of political activation in the agrarian popular sector is low, clientelisll
tends to prevail; but when it increases significantly, or seems imminent, it is
replaced by corporative types of control. The present Peruvian case demonstrates
this clearly, as does the study of Dominican rural communities by Kenneth SharPe
in chapter 11 of this volume.
45. The most important work which draws attention to the corporatization of
entrepreneurial associations in Latin America is that of Philippe Schmitter, Interest
Conflict 'and Political Change in Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971),
46. Albert Hirschman, in Journeys Toward Progrese (New York: The Twentieth
Century Fund, 1963), presented a convincing argument concerning the use of
protest to call attention
to certain problems and, eventually, to transmit the
content of the preferred solution,
47. In contrast with the unions, the entrepreneurial associations that have been
corporatized are those which attempt to represent highly aggregated interests, not
those formed for the representation of local interests or by branches or subbranches
of a certain activity. I am tempted to propose a "postulate of the maximum
efficiency of the minimum possible aggregation of interests," according to which,.in
order to obtain decisions from the sta te, it is useful to formulate demands WhlCh
are as specific as possible and are directed toward the lowest level of the state wi.tb
decision-making capacity to resolve the demands, National entrepreneurial assOC13'
tions, or those which for some reason must articulate a wide variety of interesj
tend to direct their demands to hgh-level persons (ministers or those just belo~
who cannot easily resolve them by themselves. Therefore, thes~ associati,on,s ten!ial
fulfill a ceremonial role or one of general comment on the outhnes of eXlstng s e
and economic policies, The periods of scarce activity, when these associatio~S ~f
little more than a ceremonial faqade, may be indicative not of state dominatlOnthe
the bourgeoisie, but rather of a situation in which both the ext~nsive ~c~ess toCY
state that the bourgeoisie enjoys and its general agreement with eXlstng pO
render unnecessary any other role for these associations,
48. Cf. Schmitter, Interest Conflict and Political Change.
, ' ted iJl
49. Schmitter, personal communication, July 1974, What has been md!cab1e to
other paragraphs, modified by the specifics of the PRI case, is also a?phC~astid'
Mexico. See Ricardo Cinta "Burguesa nacional y desarrollo," and Juho La . in
,
,
del Campo, "Los grupos dominantes
frente a las alternativas
de Cam b'10, "bot 9 l!IId
perfil de Mexico en 1980 (Mxico: Siglo XXI, 1972), vol. 3, pp, 165-9
99-164,
,
'Bueno'
50. See Fernando H. Cardoso, Estado y sociedad en Amerzca Latino ( ode of
Aires: Ediciones Nueva Vision, 1973), about "bureaucratic rings" as a ~
5"
,
"1 so CletY,
linkage between segments of the state and dorn inant
sectors o f CIVI
ctO tf
also O'Donnell, Modernization,
regarding informal coalitions between 11
situated at the top of complex public and private organizations.

el

and the Question of the State

87

See Andrew Shonfield, Modern Capitalism (New York: Oxford University

51.1965), and Nicos Poulantzas, Poder Poltico.
Between 1966 an,d, 1970, I ~ond~cted interviews with government personnel
ntina, Among military officers it was frequently said that the corporatizaArg~ state institutions was a good way of "bringing to light" and exercising
n o
to
t
iti
f
.
,
.. ane
e over the oppor un~ les o aece~ enjoyed by big capital. The latter was seen
ygil ally bu t also as excessively aggressrve (and successful) in its attempts to co-opt
bal~efunctionaries. I do not wish to allude sol ely to situations which would be
pu 1'dered as cases o f " corrup tion."
IOn, but to more subtle relationships surrounding
1
con5
t
'
"
ivat
'
future eareer prospec s m pr~va e ac tiivity, ", ~omp:nsa~lOns
of social status, conts coming from the same social class, and Similar stuations.
tae53, The privatization of some state institutions tends to be accompanied by the
c:reation of new decision-rnaking
centers-centralized,
multifunctional
and polysectoral-which attempt, with varying degrees of success, to compensate for the
state fragmentation promoted, among other factors, by the privatizing aspect of
corporatism, Celso Lafer, "Sistemo politico brasileo," is particularly iIluminating
on this point.
54. 1 must refer here to what might appear as an important omission-the
contemporary Peruvian case. In previous works, I have argued that the Peruvian
cue was closer to the "populist"
category, on the basis of its processes of
antioligarchical conflict, its extension of industry, and its controlled politicization
of the popular sector, This case, however, has differential characteristics from those
of previous populist experiences which have generated an important literature
~ocuaed on ~he main patterns of social impacts and the functioning of its state and
ita c:orporatlsm" ~ee especially Julio Cotler, "Bases del corporativismo en el Peru,"
Socre~ad y P~/tICa, no, 2 (1972); and "Crisis politica y populismo militar en el
~
~studlOs Internacionales,
12 (January-March
1970); Anibal Quijano
nacionalISmO n'
, li
ili
'
Perif:'
,~OlmperlQ
zsmo y"mlltarz~m~
e~ el Peru (Buenos Aires: Ediciones
ClOIIl"ena.1971), James Malloy,
Authortarianism "; Alfred Stepan in his fortharadl~ book; and Abr~~am Low~ntha~, ed., The Peruvian Experiment:
Continuity
cOlIling)~ngeUnder Mllltary Rule (Prmceton: Princeton University Press, forth-

rre:2.
i?

AUTHORITARIANISM
and
CORPORATISM

in Latin America
JAMES M. MALLOY, Editor

UNIVERSITV OF PITTSBURGH

PRESS

Con ten ts

Copyright 1977 , University of Pittsburgh Press

All rights reserved
Feffer and Simons, Inc., London
Manufactured in the United States of America

Preface
First prntng 1977
Second printing 1979

l. Introduction
1. Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America: The
Modal Pattern
James M. Malloy
11. Authoritarianism, Corporatism, and the State
2. The Politicized State in Latin America
Douglas A. Chalmers
3. Corporatism and the Question of the State ../
Guillermo A. Q'Donnell
4. Back to Weber: Corporatism and Patrimonialism in the
Seventies
Simon Schwartzman

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

Authoritarianism
America.

and corporatism in Latin

III. Comparative and Case Studies

5. Corporatism, Clientelism, and Partisan Conflict: A
Study of Seven Latin American Countries
Robert R. Kaufman
6. The Politics of Economic Stabilization in Postwar Latin
America
Thomas E. Skidmore
7. Mexican Business and Public Policy
John F. H. Purcell and Susan Kaufman Purcell
8. Mexico's PRI: The Institutionalization of Corporatism?
Euelyn P. Steuens
9. Pluralist and Corporatist Dimensions of Interest
Representation in Colombia
John J Bailey

(Pitt Latin American series)

"Outgrowth of a conference ... held at the
University of Pittsburgh in April 1974."
Bibliography: p. 529
Includes index.
1. Latin America-Politics and government1948-Congresses.
2. Corporate StateLatin America-Congresses.
3. Authoritarianism
-Congresses. I. Malloy , James M.
JL958.A9
1976
320.9'8'003
76-6669
ISBN 0-8229-3328-4
ISBN 0-8229-5275-0 pbk.

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