Corporatism, Trade Liberalization and Sectoral Responses: The Case of Venezuela, 1989–99

The Venezuelan manufacturing sector, unlike agriculture, cooperated with state’s efforts to liberalize trade in the 1990s, despite the economic costs it absorbed and the political opportunities to sabotage the reforms. This paper offers two explanations for this, which modify and conciliate traditional interest-based and corporatist theories of state-society relations. High levels of sectoral autonomy from the bureaucracy and political parties (and hence Congress), together with low levels of involvement in profit-making on the part of the associations representing the sector, encourage sectoral cooperation with costly and risky state policies. In addition, traditional corporatist instruments used by states—inducements and constraints—hurt rather than enhance state-sector cooperation.