Political Knowledge Regimes and Policy Coordination: Labor Market Reforms in Chile and Uruguay (2000–2023)

One of the key challenges of the contemporary research agenda on policy coordination and integration is the empirical analysis of cases that allow scholars to identify the causal mechanisms underpinning the interaction among actors in public policy processes (Trein et al., 2021). Drawing on the framework of Political Knowledge Regimes (Garcé, 2014, 2017; Garcé & Cox, 2025), this article analyzes the cases of Chile and Uruguay with respect to the implementation of labor market reforms between 1990 and 2012. The comparison between these two cases shows that differences in policy coordination and actor integration produced technocratic reform processes in Chile while, in Uruguay, reforms were shaped by the influence of citizens and organized civil society. These differences are central to a comparative understanding of the relationship between democratization processes and the development of labor market policies in these countries. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of the relationship between knowledge, state coordination (Howlett, 2012), and labor market reforms, and help to illuminate how democratization processes become differently articulated with the production and use of knowledge in public policymaking. By explicitly incorporating the cognitive dimension, the article advances debates on policy coordination and integration, highlighting the role of political knowledge as a central element of contemporary governance.