Plataforma NoGracias: From interest group to lobby

Abstract

NoGracias group is a civil society organization that takes action in defense of a democratic (transparent and accountable to citizens) and sovereign public health system (its decisions are not dictated by the interests of other actors such as industries). It is inscribed in rationalism regarding its confidence in science and its method, but at the same time it is critical of the drifts that the rationalist fit of contemporary medicine has taken, that is, evidence-based medicine. It operates in a scenario in which the State has lost its classic strengths in favor of business groups and where access to the political process is not easy. Throughout its more than ten years of history, NoGracias has been able to build a theoretical framework that challenges great powers and goes a long way toward its institutionalization.