Introduction

Rivalry, politicization, and weak institutional capacity characterize most of the history of business associations, especially encompassing associations, in Argentina. For the second half of the twentieth century the associational domain for business was unstable, partisan, fragmented, and competitive for firms within the same sectors. By the end of the century, the outcomes in terms of organization and business–government relations could hardly have been more different from those in Chile. In contrast to Chile's strong encompassing associations and multiple institutional channels for associations to participate in policy making, Argentina lacked a single stable economy-wide association (despite repeated attempts to create one), and other associations had few consistent channels, either formal or informal, for input into policy making.

Chile, Colombia, and Mexico all tend to the more organized, societal corporatist end of the continuum in Latin America. Brazil and Argentina cluster on the disorganized end of the continuum. Business is disorganized in different ways in Brazil and Argentina, though in both cases mostly as the legacy of meddling by state actors in business organization. In Brazil the distortions of state-regulated corporatism discouraged investment in voluntary encompassing associations. In Argentina state actors, especially in the governments of Juan Perón, rendered business politics more politicized and fluid.