Europeización de la política farmacéutica

La política de control del gasto farmacéutico en España ha estado condicionada, entre otros factores, por la capacidad de desarrollo de la industria farmacéutica nacional, que en un entorno cada vez más globalizado necesitaba tiempo para adecuarse a las demandas de competitividad internacional. Algunas de las grandes empresas de capital nacional iniciaron un proceso de adecuación a estas demandas al incrementar el grado de internacionalización de sus actividades y el volumen de recursos dedicado a actividades de investigación y desarrolio. Como contrapartida, medidas orientadas a controlar el gasto farmacéutico, como los medicamentos genéricos o los precios de referencia, se han llevado a cabo con retraso con respecto a la mayoría de países europeos, y a través del pacto con la industria farmacéutica

Nuevo paradigma, nuevo contexto institucional: el caso de la política farmacéutica

The goal of this article is to give an explanation about how and why the regulation of the pharmaceutical sector changes for the last decade. The underlying assumption is that institutional frameworks are a key variable to explain the dynamics of policy change as anticipated by the policy network literature and the punctuated equilibrium model developed by Baumgartner and Jones. The adoption of a new policy paradigm –the rational use of medicines– cannot only be understood as a direct response to a crisis situation, changes in the political system or/and the consolidation of ideas introduced by active policy entrepreneurs as the policy windows model suggest. The way power relations are institutionalized (or policy networks) is important in order to explain why changes in the pharmaceutical policy are quite smooth and gradual. By the same token, this article argues that a redefinition of the policy image involves a transformation of the policy network. In 2008 the politics of the rational use of medicines are managed by a more open policy network in which policy experts play a more important role than before.El objetivo de este estudio es explicar cómo y por qué cambia la política farmacéutica española en la última década. En el se argumenta la relevancia de las instituciones como variables explicativa de la dinámica del cambio en las políticas siguiendo el esquema teórico planteado por el análisis de redes y la teoría del equilibrio interrumpido desarrollada por Baumgartner y Jones. La adopción de un nuevo paradigma en torno al medicamento –el uso racional del medicamento— no puede ser entendido únicamente como una respuesta a situaciones de crisis, cambios en el sistema político y/o la consolidación de ideas nuevas defendidas por activos emprendedores políticos. El análisis de la institucionalización de las relaciones de poder en torno a la política farmacéutica (o policy network) es importante para explicar por qué los cambios en la política farmacéutica se producen de forma gradual como resultado de una negociación entre el Estado con la industria farmacéutica y las farmacias. Asimismo, se argumenta cómo la adopción de un paradigma nuevo en la política farmacéutica, se produce de forma paralela a un cambio en la estructura institucional de la política. En 2008 la política farmacéutica se gestiona a través de una red más abierta y plural, en la que los expertos tienen mayor peso en la toma de decisiones

All News is Bad News: Newspaper Coverage of Political Parties in Spain

Spain has a highly partisan media system, with newspapers reaching self-selected partisan audiences and espousing explicitly partisan editorial preferences. Do the newspapers of the left and right differ in how they cover politics in ways that can be predicted by their partisan leanings? We review theories of issue-ownership, journalistic standards, and information scarcity and test hypotheses derived from each. We find that the parties converge substantially in virtually every aspect of their coverage. Few differences emerge when we look at what topics are covered or in the dynamics of which topics gain attention over time. However, we confirm important differences across the papers when they make explicit reference to individual political parties. Journalistic norms result in a surprising focus on the faults of one’s enemies, however, rather than the virtues of one’s allies. Our assessment is based on a comprehensive database of all front-page stories in El País and El Mundo, Spain’s largest daily newspapers, from 1996 through 2011

The representation of business interests duringthe COVID-19 pandemic in Spain

This article explains the representation of business interest during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article describes how business interests get into the policy process across policy areas and political venues. Following previous studies (Dür and Mateo, 2016), the article argues the COVID-19 pandemic did not alter business groups’ position in the policymaking process. Business groups occupy a predominant role in the discussion of policy proposals vis-à-vis other types of groups during the COVID-19 in the governmental arena, and this is especially the case for economy related policies and agriculture affairs. In contrast, business groups occupy a secondary role in the parliamentary arena, especially for non-economic issues. The article also explains which business associations represent business interest during the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical strategy relies on two datasets developed by the Quality of Democ-racy Research Group (www.q-dem.com) containing information about interest groups’ mobi-lization in the Spanish Congress of Deputies and the Spanish government from March 2020 to March 2021

Divergence and convergence of policy priorities among sub-national units in federal systems: the cases of Canada and Spain

The study of policy dynamics at the sub-national level in federal systems is getting growing attention by scholars of comparative politics and agenda- setting. These studies analyze to what extent the political agendas of regional governments are converging or diverging over time, focusing on: institutional factors (e.g., formal rules defining issue jurisdiction, type of government, intergovernmental arrangements), preferences (mostly of political parties), and agenda capacity (Hooghe et al. 2008). This constitutes an important change from previous analysis on comparative federalism, which traditionally focused on institutions as explanatory variable, providing a static outlook on the vertical distribution of authority between levels of government (Wibbels 2003). It also constitutes an important change in relation to another set of studies (Filippov et al. 2004; Wibbels 2006; Aldrich 1995) that pay attention to party politics and policy preferences, but still deal mainly with the relationship between the national and regional governments as a whole (e.g., Constantelos 2010). Finally, analyses of issue prioritization at the sub-national level (and the relations with the national and supranational level of governance) also make a ontribution to the policy [...]

Newspaper attention and policy activities in Spain

Spain"s newspapers are characterised by strong partisan identities. We demonstrate that the two leading newspapers nonetheless show powerful similarities in the topics of their coverage over time. The media system is strongly related to the policy process and it shows similar levels of skew (attention focuses on just a few topics) and friction (attention lurches rapidly from topic to topic) as others have shown for policy processes more generally. Further, media attention is significantly related to parliamentary activities. Oral questions in parliament track closely with media attention over time. Our assessment is based on a comprehensive database of all front-page stories (over 95,000 stories) in El Paı´s and El Mundo, Spain"s largest daily newspapers, and all 7,446 oral questions from 1996 to 2009. The paper shows that explanations of friction and skew in governmental activities should incorporate media dynamics as well. Political leaders are clearly sensitive to media salience

Government-Opposition Dynamics in Spain under the Pressure of Economic Collapse and the Debt Crisis

Government - opposition relations in Spain have been long characterised by a high level of consensus and cooperation. The question analysed here is whether the economic crisis initiated in 2008 has created unprecedented levels of conflict in the political system or whether opposition parties have maintained a cooperative strategy oriented to influence far-reaching policy decisions. Results illustrate that patterns of consensus have decreased significantly since the outbreak of the crisis, and this is partly explained by the rising amount of legislation with socio-economic content, variations in the government's popularity, and the type of government. The analysis also shows that the crisis has increased the incentives of opposition parliamentary groups to oppose European Union legislation, especially among left parties

Continuidad y cambio en la organización de intereses industria farmacéutica

La globalización y la europeización generan un cambio en la estrategia y la distribución de poder de la organización de intereses de la industria farmacéutica. Las empresas de capital extranjero aumentan su cuota de poder en la organización a medida que aumenta su control sobre el mercado de medicamentos y se ponen en práctica los cambios en la regulación derivados de la integración europea. Este aumento de poder se formaliza a través de la renovación de los Estatutos de 1997, momento a partir del cual el poder dentro de la asociación se distribuye a partes iguales entre las empresas de capital nacional y las empresas de capital extranjero. La integración europea también genera una mayor participación de Farmaindustria en la Efpia, asumiendo su presidencia desde 1998. La mayor participación de Farmaindustria a nivel europeo no significa una transferencia de sus actividades a la organización europea. Por el contrario, la Efpia y Farmaindustria se refuerzan mutuamente en el desarrollo de sus funciones para protegerse frente a las acciones de la Unión Europea, y apoyarse en la defensa de intereses comunes a nivel nacional