Engendering Democracy In Chile

Engendering Democracy in Chile documents the rise of a women's movement in Chile in response to the establishment of a military regime. It focuses on the growth of the women's movement and its institutionalization under the new democratic government and concludes with its achievements while highlighting the challenges faced by women as they work for political and economic change in Chile.

Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject History - America, grade: 8,5, VU University Amsterdam , language: English, abstract: On the 11th of September 1973, Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president of Chile, was deposed by a military coup that brought the dictator Augusto Pinochet to power. Allende died shortly after in what has been presumed to be suicide.2 The involvement of the American government and Kissinger in particular in these events has been a topic of heated debate. To what degree did American conceptions of democracy contribute? And how was its own democratic image hurt by it? This paper explores the way American conceptions of democracy influenced its actions in the Chilean coup of 1973. In order to do this, it first discusses the debate surrounding its actions in Chile itself. Did the US intervene to protect democracy? Or was there a – to them – more important reason that took precedence over it? Then, it turns to a discussion of the US government's actions after the fact to bring more nuance to the topic and ask whether its ideal of democracy had anything to do with it.

Provides an innovative theory of regime transitions and outcomes, and tests it using extensive evidence between 1800 and today.

The politics of scientific advice across four environmental conflicts in Chile, when the state acted as a “neutral broker” rather than protecting the common good. In Science and Environment in Chile, Javiera Barandiarán examines the consequences for environmental governance when the state lacks the capacity to produce an authoritative body of knowledge. Focusing on the experience of Chile after it transitioned from dictatorship to democracy, she examines a series of environmental conflicts in which the state tried to act as a “neutral broker” rather than the protector of the common good. She argues that this shift in the role of the state—occurring in other countries as well—is driven in part by the political ideology of neoliberalism, which favors market mechanisms and private initiatives over the actions of state agencies. Chile has not invested in environmental science labs, state agencies with in-house capacities, or an ancillary network of trusted scientific advisers—despite the growing complexity of environmental problems and increasing popular demand for more active environmental stewardship. Unlike a high modernist “empire” state with the scientific and technical capacity to undertake large-scale projects, Chile's model has been that of an “umpire” state that purchases scientific advice from markets. After describing the evolution of Chilean regulatory and scientific institutions during the transition, Barandiarán describes four environmental crises that shook citizens' trust in government: the near-collapse of the farmed salmon industry when an epidemic killed millions of fish; pollution from a paper and pulp mill that killed off or forced out thousands of black-neck swans; a gold mine that threatened three glaciers; and five controversial mega-dams in Patagonia.

This book examines the relationship between free markets and democracy. It demonstrates how the implementation of even very painful free-market economic reforms in Chile and Mexico have helped to consolidate democratic politics without engendering a backlash against either reform or democratization. This national-level compatibility between free markets and democracy, however, is founded on their rural incompatibility. In the countryside, free-market reforms socially isolate peasants to such a degree that they become unable to organize independently, and are vulnerable to the pressures of local economic elites. This helps to create an electoral coalition behind free-market reforms that is critically based in some of the market's biggest victims: the peasantry. The book concludes that the comparatively stable free-market democracy in Latin America hinges critically on its defects in the countryside; conservative, free-market elites may consent to open politics only if they have a rural electoral redoubt.

What impact do political parties have on women's political representation and on state gender policies? Does this vary at national and local levels? This study looks at the National Women's Ministry in Chile, a country of ideological conflict, strong parties and centralized government and the leftwing Brazilian Workers' Party, characterised by clientelism, weak parties and decentralization.

A team of examiners from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reviews Portugal's education system in a three-part report. Part One begins with the consequences of the 1974 revolution, Portugal's economic problems, its impending attachment to the European Economic Community, and rising public expectations about education. It continues with criticism of the Ministry of Education, which is overstaffed and has duplicate functions. The examiners propose reduction of branches and suggest the establishment of a national education advisory council and closer relations with other government agencies. A high priority for the compulsory school-level education (four primary and two preparatory grades) is improvement of standards in rural areas. Accepting the future extension of compulsory schooling from 6 to 9 years, the examiners counsel step-by-step reform of the school structure and curriculum. Education of 16-to-19 year olds is a problematic issue since upper-secondary schools are not providing adequate vocational courses. The examiners feel a solution is for Portugal to adopt a comprehensive education and training policy for that age group implemented jointly by the Ministries of Education and Labor. Part Two of the report includes a record of the review meeting between the OECD examiners and the Minister of Education and his delegates and addresses five areas of concern. The third part is a summary of the Ministry of Education's Backgroud Report of the education system in Portugal. (MD)

Written as a book for undergraduate students as well as scholars, Surviving Dictatorship is a work of visual sociology and oral history, and a case study that communicates the lived experience of poverty, repression, and resistance in an authoritarian society: Pinochet’s Chile. It focuses on shantytown women, examining how they join groups to cope with exacerbated impoverishment and targeted repression, and how this leads them into very varied forms of resistance aimed at self-protection, community-building, and mounting an offensive. Drawing on a visual database of shantytown photographs, art, posters, flyers, and bulletins, as well as on interviews, photo elicitation, and archival research, the book is an example of how multiple methods might be successfully employed to examine dictatorship from the perspective of some of the least powerful members of society. It is ideal for courses in social inequalities, poverty, race/class/gender, political sociology, global studies, urban studies, women’s studies, human rights, oral history, and qualitative methods.