Corporatism, public policy and welfare: The case of the Spanish blind

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Abstract
A general assumption in the literature on corporatism is that corporatist arrangements are unlikely to occur in the welfare arena. This literature has further predicted that for a corporatist arrangement to emerge in the welfare arena, it would have to be promoted by professional groups. This article analyses a case which runs contrary to this common understanding: that of a corporatist arrangement promoted by welfare recipients, in this case, the Spanish blind. The article briefly examines the nature of this corporatist arrangement, carried out by the state in conjunction with ONCE, the Spanish organization of the blind which monopolizes both the representation of the interests of the blind and the provision of welfare services for the blind. The article shows how this limited corporatist arrangement, which formerly only affected the blind, expanded over the whole disabilities policy arena, in such a way that the blind have managed both to govern the representation of interests of other organizations of disabled people and to take over public policies affecting these other groups. This expansion of a formerly limited corporatist arrangement is explained by the kind of interdependent relationship between ONCE and the state.

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