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Collaboration Between Think Tanks and Government in the Development of Public Policy
governments in favor of free trade agreements, but LyD maintained
that this would not be enough and continued to push for the lowering
of import duties. Today, not only does Chile have multiple free trade
agreements, but has also continued to unilaterally lower tariffs to the
current rate of 1.2 percent.
A similar experience resulted when tackling the issue of building new
prisons in the country. The idea of contracting the private sector to
build new prisons was first proposed by LyD in 1991. Ten years later,
the government finally announced that concessions would be provided
to private companies to build prisons. By 2010 there were six prisons
functioning as a result of this effort.
LyD also collaborated with various government administrations that
were not ideologically aligned with LyD’s core principles. For instance
in 2008, the Chilean government at the time submitted a significant
public education reform bill to Congress. The bill was rejected by
the opposition in Congress, which presented an alternative reform
bill that was largely created by LyD. The initial rejection of the bill
by Congress opened space for dialogue between government officials,
legislators and LyD professionals who had worked on the alternate
bill. The discussions that resulted from this effort allowed for a more
comprehensive conversation to occur and as a result more proposals
were included in the final piece of legislation. A similar situation
also occurred when a draft bill was submitted to reform the country’s
environmental laws.
Collaboration between think tanks and government is not limited to
the government currently in power. Links can also be made with future
government administrations. During the last electoral campaign,
LyD played a significant role in making recommendations for then-
presidential candidate Sebastian Piñera’s proposed platforms. As a
result, more than 25 experts from LyD were called to work for the
administration of President Piñera as ministers, advisors and deputy
secretaries, after he won the election. This ultimately meant that many
of the proposals LyD has worked on throughout the years finally have
