Cohesion, consensus, and conflict: Technocratic elites and financial crisis in Mexico and Argentina

Abstract

Observers of economic policy-making in developing countries often suggest that consensus and cohesion within technocratic policy elites facilitate the implementation and consolidation of reforms, but have not clearly defined these terms or the relationship between them. Likewise, political sociologists argue that social networks account for elite cohesion, but have not adequately specified the relevant structural properties of these networks. This article argues that structural network cohesion facilitates elite consensus formation by enabling cooperation, while fragmented networks promote competition between factions and hence conflict. I support this hypothesis empirically by examining two cases in which elite consensus was severely challenged by financial crises: Mexico and Argentina. Mexican policy elites sustained consensus throughout the crisis, whereas conflict plagued the Argentine elite. Likewise, while the Mexican technocratic elite is highly cohesive, the Argentine elite is fragmented and factionalized. I document this hypothesis using a mixed-methods approach that embeds an analysis of elite networks within a comparative analysis of policy-making patterns drawing on extensive fieldwork in both countries.

Strategy and Steering in Governance: The Changing Fates of the Argentine Planning Council

“…The rhetoric of policy integration thus never fully resonated with reality, even when national planning strategies had broad support and were enacted. Elite competition, which included segments of political, economic, military and sometimes academic elites, transpired in the competition between ministries and their projects (Van Gunten, 2015). It undermined the reality effects of any overarching strategy for spatial development.…”

Coming to Terms with the European Refugee Crisis

“…In this regard, however, the extant literature provides significantly fewer cues. Though various features of elite groups and the policy debate, such as the institutional networks connecting elites (Van Gunten 2015), horizontal trust between them (Weinberg 2022), or the role of policy framing when faced with policies that potentially conflict with their interests (Teigen and Karlsen 2020) have been identified as possible determinants of elite support, we lack a coherent account of the origins of elite support behind government policies. Tellingly, in a twowave survey of MEPs' immigration attitudes some time before the refugee crisis, Lahav and Messina (2005) document a convergence of views without specifying the driving mechanisms.…”

Exploring the Relationship between Business Elite Networks and Redistributive Social Policies in Latin American Countries

“…The acceptance of long-term cost-sharing projects of redistribution requires underlying structures that facilitate agreements and inducement among business elites. Theories and studies on network analysis showed that cohesive networks promote the mobilization of resources for collective action [36], more participation of actors [37], effective transfer of information [38], reduction of uncertainty and transaction costs [39], similar behavior [40], shared beliefs [41], consensus [42], and may even increase the legitimacy of actions. Network cohesion also generates opportunities for social control and peer-inducement, which brings more standardization of preferences, and less autonomy [43,44].…”