Journal of Public Affairs (2011)Published online in Wiley Online Library(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.411
■ Foreword
Interest groups are both a positive and negativeforce in any society and their development and ac-ceptance as permanent political fixtures, as well asthe curbing of their worst manifestation, is essentialto the success of recent democratic gains in LatinAmerica. The collection of articles in this volumeprovides convincing evidence for their necessity.At the same time, the contributions explore the manycontradictions in the role of interests in a democracyand particularly the democracies in our region.
Until recently, Latin American politics has beenknown for elitism and political corruption. Thesecircumstances were very much the product of an ex-clusive, narrow-based set of special interests andpower groups. Ironically, as Latin American democ-racies develop the political antidote to exclusivenessis more interests and interest groups to embrace thebroadest range of economic, social and politicalgroups and opinions in society that is possible andthe prevention of excesses by power groups. In thisregard, the subtitle of this volume expressly statesthe main question concerning interest groups inLatin America: Does the surge in democracy that
Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Latin America has experienced over the past threedecades signify a new era for interests and interestgroups? I'd like to think it does, but turning backcenturies of history is not done overnight.We should be cautious, however, of using a broad
brush and generalizations to refer to all LatinAmerican countries. Clearly realizing this, the col-lection of articles in this volume is very helpful inpointing out similarities and major differencesacross the region. They certainly have no definitiveanswers, but they provide different perspectiveson the role of interest groups in general and, in par-ticular, assess the extent to which the interest groupsystem that has emerged in individual countries inthe region over the past three decades advances orretards democratic consolidation.In short, these articles will help the readers to
understand the region and promote an informed de-bate about interest groups.
Luís Inácio Lula da SilvaPresident of Brazil, 2003-10
November, 17, 2010
