The Dual Performativity of Think Tanks and Corporate Elite: Structural Holes, Digital Strategies, and The Neoliberal State in Chile

This article examines the role of two pro-market think tanks in Chile—the Centrode Estudios Públicos (CEP) and Fundación para el Progreso (FPP)—in sustainingmarket-oriented policies via distinct but complementary strategies. Employing amixed-methods approach combining social network analysis, media corpus analysis, andsocial media analytics, it conceptualizes these organizations as relational infrastructures thatmediate elite cohesion and facilitate the circulation of market rationality. Drawing on theconcept of social capital—understood as resources embedded in networks and activatedthrough strategic affiliations—CEP and FPP enact different forms of influence: the formerthrough technocratic legitimacy and elite connections, the latter via ideological outreachparticularly targeting youth audiences. The findings reveal how overlapping fields of powerstabilize and dynamically rearticulate neoliberal rationalities amid political uncertainty.Recognizing the hybrid and evolving nature of think tanks is thus essential to understandingthe persistence and transformation of market-centred governance in post-authoritariancontexts.