Politics In Chile

Chile's road to socialism, points out the author, was not a linear one. In the last twenty years political parties of an astonishingly wide range of opinions participated in the administration of the country, and their successes and failures have been clearly reflected in the shifting preferences of the voting population. Political ideas did not always receive nationwide acceptance; disobedience, dissent, and confrontation with the government or party officials in Santiago were frequent; and the struggle between centralism and provincial aspirations was a continuing fact of Chilean political life. Dr. Caviedes focuses clearly on the main protagonists of Chilean politics–the politicians and the voters–and interprets the changing fortunes of the different political parties, both historically and within the context of existing local social, political, and economic conditions. He provides a province-by-province analysis of twenty presidential and congressional elections, demonstrating the variegated character of the voters throughout the country and exploring as well the relevant links with the international political scene.

In this investigation of the dramatic political changes in Chile over the past 30 years, the author focuses on identifying the dynamics of political conflict underlying this turbulent period. This second edition incorporates coverage of the presidencies of Aylwin and Frei.

This is the first book in English to present a comprehensive analysis of the October 2019 social outbreak in Chile and its consequences for the country’s political system. For almost 30 years (1990-2019), Chile was recognized as a model of political and economic stability in Latin America, but the 2019 protests put into question the whole structure of representation based on programmatic political parties. This contributed volume analyzes the causes of the social outbreak by examining the interaction between political parties and social movements in Chile since 2000, establishing bridges between the sociology of social movements and the political science of parties and forms of traditional political representation. The book is organized in three parts. The first part analyzes the collapse of the political party system in Chile. The second part shows how social movements introduced innovative forms of political mobilization that challenged the traditional forms of political representation. Finally, the third part presents case studies focusing on specific social movements and their contributions to the renewal of political representation in Chile. The Social Outburst and Political Representation in Chile will be a valuable resource for sociologists, political scientists and other social scientists interested in understanding the challenges posed to political parties and institutions by social movements formed by citizens who no longer see themselves represented by the traditional forms political participation.

The third edition of Politics in Chile provides significantly updated coverage of Chilean politics and economic development from the return to civilian rule in 1990 to the 2006 election and early administration of Socialist Michelle Bachelet, Chile's first woman president. Lois Hecht Oppenheim focuses on recent efforts to reconstruct democratic practices and institutions, including resolving such sensitive and lingering issues as human-rights violations under Pinochet and civil-military relations. Chapters on the contemporary politics and economics under the civilian Concertaci governments are largely rewritten for this edition. Rather than focusing on the "search for development", the third edition considers in greater depth the "exceptionalism" of the Chilean economic experiment through successive stages of stability, socialism, and neoliberalism.

As many formerly authoritarian regimes have been replaced by democratic governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere, questions have arisen about the stability and durability of these new governments. One concern has to do with the institutional arrangements for governing bequeathed to the new democratic regimes by their authoritarian predecessors and with the related issue of whether presidential or parliamentary systems work better for the consolidation of democracy. In this book, Peter Siavelis takes a close look at the important case of Chile, which had a long tradition of successful legislative resolution of conflict but was left by the Pinochet regime with a changed institutional framework that greatly strengthened the presidency at the expense of the legislature. Weakening of the legislature combined with an exclusionary electoral system, Siavelis argues, undermines the ability of Chile's National Congress to play its former role as an arena of accommodation, creating serious obstacles to interbranch cooperation and, ultimately, democratic governability. Unlike other studies that contrast presidential and parliamentary systems in the large, Siavelis examines a variety of factors, including socioeconomic conditions and characteristics of political parties, that affect whether or not one of these systems will operate more or less successfully at any given time. He also offers proposals for institutional reform that could mitigate the harm he expects the current political structure to produce.

Paul Sigmund, who has studied Chile for more than a decade, and lived and taught there, offers an exhaustive, balanced analysis of the overthrow of Salvador Allende, and why it occurred. Sigmund examines the Allende government, the Frei government that preceeded it, the coup that ended it, and the Pinochet government that succeeded it. He also views the roles of various Chilean political and interest groups, the CIA, and U.S. corporations.

The critical issues concerning the development of a substantial and enduring democracy in Chile are those of strengthening civil society, democratizing the permanent institutions of the state, and building an economy geared to effectively satisfy human needs. In this book, the authors offer a critique of the Chilean transition and of the Aylwin electoral regime, analyzing the linkage between political compromises made prior to the civilians’ assumption of power and the choice of socioeconomic policy in the post-electoral period. They argue that the decisive factor underlying the Chilean transition is the contrast between the legal-political changes and socioeconomic and institutional continuities, a contrast that perpetuates the vast inequalities of wealth and power generated under Pinochet’s sixteen-year-old military dictatorship. They also challenge the myth of the “Chilean miracle ̳the purported success of neoliberal policies in promoting sustained growth and social justice—and therefore in laying the basis for long-term social harmony and enduring political stability.

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.