Following the victories of conservative and right-wing forces in various Latin American countries in the 21st century, a historic debate emerged within the social sciences concerning political domination, elites, and power groups. The proliferation of businesspeople or technocrats becoming presidents or viable candidates attracted attention and became a recurring theme in journalistic and academic circles. Evidence of this can be seen in the governments of Vicente Fox in Mexico (2000-2006), Elías Antonio Saca González (2004-2009) in El Salvador, Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014/2018-) in Chile, Horacio Cartes (2013-2018) in Paraguay, Mauricio Macri (2015-) in Argentina, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) in Peru, and two less studied cases: Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) and Juan Carlos Varela (2014-2019) in Panama. In Colombia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010), while not representing the typical businessman, comes from a landowning family, prompting reflection on the relationship between different factions of the bourgeoisie and state power in a country plagued by violence. Likewise, there were candidates with a business background who ran in elections, such as Samuel Doria Medina in Bolivia and Álvaro Fernando Noboa Pontón in Ecuador, Edgardo Novick and Juan Sartori in Uruguay, Dagoberto Gutiérrez in Guatemala, Antonio Álvarez Desanti in Costa Rica, and Carlos Callejas in El Salvador. Globally, the governments of Donald Trump (2017-) in the United States and, to some extent, Emmanuel Macron (2017-) in France, exemplify a similar phenomenon. Business leaders and economic elites appear to have opted to exercise power directly by occupying various levers of the state, and in cases where direct occupation is not perceived, the link between political and economic power has been strengthened. The participation of businesspeople in politics is not a new phenomenon exclusive to the 21st century. In the Southern Cone and Central America, during the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 70s, both business figures and technocratic professionals trained in a mercantilist ideology were linked to the regimes by providing various forms of support in each country. An emblematic case was that of the Chilean dictatorship, which incorporated into its economic teams a group of economists trained under the neoliberal paradigm in the United States; hence the nickname "the [unclear] economists." chicago boysFollowing the democratic transition, a crucial moment in which the ties between business and politics strengthened was during the structural reforms implemented in the 1990s. The push for neoliberalism within a context of democratization facilitated the transformation of business leaders into electoral competition, their increasing politicization, and their rise to positions of power through political parties (Serna and Bottinelli, 2018). According to Durand (2010), the neoliberalism of the 1990s facilitated the entry of businesspeople into government, stemming from the profound changes that occurred in the structure of economic power. Individuals with business backgrounds, technocrats, and experts were incorporated into key government positions. However, the participation of figures with this profile was fragmented and particularistic, sometimes focused on specific policies or on occupying positions (Viguera, 1996). During the post-neoliberal period, while the concentration and foreign ownership of economic structures remained largely unchanged, several governments included figures from social movements who held various public offices, a relatively new development. The defining characteristic observed since 2000, but which has become more pronounced in the last decade, is the increasingly systematic participation of business elites in executive cabinets. This phenomenon has reignited historical debates about the ways in which political domination is exercised. Responses to these questions have focused on three main areas: elitist studies that emphasize the career paths of state officials; analyses of the transformations of economic power groups; and those who undertake an analytical effort to study the link between economic power and the ways in which political power is exercised. Although each country presents similar features that make them comparable objects, their government profiles are diverse: in some cases there is a majority of officials of a business background, in others, a political class and a civil service that has a track record of performance in the public sphere, even though socioeconomic policies have a clear orientation towards the market.

The current context of globalized and financialized capitalism has redefined the relationships between capital, the state, and society in each country. The formation of public-private partnerships, indebtedness, the role of NGOs, and the ThinkTanks International networks are part of the agenda of urgent issues and problems requiring investigation. Linked to these issues is a classic and historical question: the autonomy of the state. Newer phenomena, such as the capture of state decisions, conflicts of interest, and the revolving door, complete the set of questions. The Working Group seeks to study the presence of economic or business elites in Latin American politics. The growing participation of business groups in the executive and legislative branches and their influence on the definition of public policies is presented as a recurring phenomenon in the development of democracy and the reproduction of inequality in the region. We understand that it is essential to develop complex analyses that challenge rigid frameworks and put classical concepts, which have often been dismissed based on supposed theoretical trends, under scrutiny. At the same time, a territorial perspective deployed at the national level, where the different levels—municipal, provincial, and national—are articulated, and a comparative Latin American perspective constitute substantial contributions. We must also challenge the methodological perspectives used and develop solid disciplinary bridges that allow us to have a holistic view of the phenomenon studied.

The formation of the Working Group (GT) aims to institutionalize a collaborative process that its members have developed over the past few years, resulting in various activities, joint participation in panels, workshops, and conferences. The GT seeks to bring together the various pre-existing working networks to create a space that fosters exchange. Among the networks that comprise it are the Latin American Network for Research on Elites, which includes nearly 200 researchers from Latin America, Europe, and the United States, and the network for studies on elites and power groups in Argentina, which includes researchers from various institutions. 

The GT proposes the following lines of work:

- Transformations in power groups and their links with the State.

- Economic elites and political power.

- Trajectories and profiles of the elites.

- International networks, Think Tanks and NGOs.

- Capitalism, the State and public policies

In 1997 Thomas Piketty published the book Economics of Inequalities (2015 [1997]) where he raised the discussion about the inequalities of capitalism and challenged the thesis that associated economic growth with increased social equality. Empirical data had shown that the concentration of wealth and capital gains never recovered the astronomical level it had before the First World War; therefore, the author says, “the most plausible explanation involves the fiscal revolution.” That is, “the privileged tool of pure redistribution is fiscal redistribution, which allows for the correction of inequality through taxes and transfers” (Piketty, 2015:159). This approach is a key to interpretation in two ways: firstly, it shifts the focus of the debate, which during the 1990s was associated with poverty, to inequality; and secondly, if the problem of inequality is not associated with economic growth but rather with the public policies implemented by certain socio-historical actors, the study of economic elites, power, and the State becomes a fundamental vector.

In the field of political science, there is a significant body of work analyzing the phenomenon of elites. Among the pioneering works are those of Gaetano Mosca (1939), Robert Michels (1949), and Vilfredo Pareto (1965). Charles Wright Mills's study ([1956] 1963) also paved the way for a body of work on elites, based on his analysis of American society, where he described elements for understanding economic, political, and military elites. In Latin America, the study of elites was extensive until the 1990s. In Argentina, a pioneering work was that of José Luis De Imaz (1962, 1964), which broadened the scope of studies on the topic and defined elites according to the institutional position they occupy in spaces linked to power, wealth, and prestige. Following this study came others, inspired by Marxism, such as those by Juan Carlos Portantiero (1973) and Guillermo O'Donnell (1977). Among the more recent works that have studied the phenomenon of elites in the State in Latin America are those by Ana Castellani (coord. 2016) in Argentina; José Francisco Puello-Socarrás (2005) in Colombia; Francisco Durand (2010) in Peru; Renato Boschi and Eli Diniz (2004) and Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira and Eli Diniz (2009) in Brazil; Yves Dezala and Bryant Garth (2002) in Chile; Cárdenas Benedicte Bull (2014) and Alexander Segovia (2018) in Central America; and Alejandra Salas Porras in Mexico (2014), among others. A comparative and Latin American analysis of the transformations in economic power groups is found in the book compiled by Wilson Peres (1998) and the research of Paloma Fernández Pérez and Andrea Lluch (2015), on business families in Latin America.

Francisco Durand (2010) argues that the neoliberalism of the 1990s facilitated the entry of businesspeople into politics, stemming from the modifications that occurred in the structure of economic power. According to Aníbal Viguera (1996), during those years, business participation was fragmented and showed no novel features due to the absence of institutionalized mechanisms linking businesspeople to politics. Only a modification in this direction—the author stated at the time—would have allowed for a substantial transformation of the historical pattern of business political action. While it is true that Latin America has a history of governments that implemented pro-market policies or that had officials with a business background, one fact is undeniable: in recent years, as at no other historical moment, a significant number of governments led by businesspeople have coincided. Generally speaking, businesspeople have decided to eliminate political intermediation by founding their own parties or accessing power through traditional political parties.

Understanding who those who represent political power are and how they govern is a question that has historically challenged the social sciences. Responses to this question have focused on three main areas: elitist studies that emphasize the trajectory of state officials or the legislative chamber (Camp, 2006; Joignant, 2011; Dargent, 2014; González-Bustamante and Alejandro Olivares, 2016; North and Clark, 2017; Codato and Espinoza, 2018; Vommaro and Gené, 2018; Gessaghi, Landau and Luci, 2020); The analyses concerning the transformations of economic power groups (Boito, 2012; Gaggero and Schorr, 2016; Castellani, 2016; Durand, 2013; Robles-Rivera, 2014; Luci, 2016; Segovia, 2018); and those who make an analytical effort to study the link between economic power and the modes that the exercise of political power acquires (Castellani, 2016; Durand, 2006/2017; Basualdo, 2017; Segovia, 2018; Waxneker, 2018). Although they are not abundant, there is a set of works that have developed comprehensive analyses on Latin America and comparative studies are even scarcer (Viguera, 1996; Durand, 2010; Giordano, 2014; Ansaldi, 2017; Serna and Bottinelli, 2018; Nercesian and Cassaglia, 2019).

In a recent work, Waldo Ansaldi (2017) insists on the need to maintain classic categories such as social class. According to the author, in analytical terms, subjects can be social or political. This approach provides a useful framework for characterizing elites within the state, both as political subjects and, at the same time, for elucidating which class or class fraction they represent, as social subjects. In his reflection on the forms of capitalist representation, Goran Thernborn ([1978]2016) posited the existence of a type of “capitalist institutionalization,” whereby state leaders are recruited from among the personnel who occupy capitalist economic apparatuses; that is, a direct institutionalization of the bourgeoisie—or fractions of the bourgeoisie, to use Poulantzas's concepts—as the dominant class. One of the transformations in contemporary globalization processes has been the progressive formation of transnational capitalist classes (Sklair, 2005), among which four important factions have been identified: i) the corporate faction, those who control large transnational corporations; ii) the state faction, globalized politicians and bureaucrats; iii) the technical faction, composed of professionals in globalized networks; and iv) the consumer faction, merchants and media responsible for marketing and shaping consumer tastes. Contemporary theories of globalization argue that these processes give rise to new global classes (Sassen, 2007) structured around the strategic positioning and control of global networks. In this sense, key positions in the management of multinational companies, intra-company and cross-border trade, as well as the role of the state in the power structure, are highlighted.