FROM ONE OF THE MOST neglected outposts of the Spanish Empire, Chile
developed into one of the most prosperous and democratic nations in
Latin America. Throughout its history, however, Chile has depended on
great external powers for economic exchange and political influence:
Spain in the colonial period, Britain in the nineteenth century, and the
United States in the twentieth century.
Chile's dependence is made most evident by the country's heavy
reliance on exports. These have included silver and gold in the colonial
period, wheat in the mid-nineteenth century, nitrates up to World War I,
copper after the 1930s, and a variety of commodities sold overseas in
more recent years. The national economy's orientation toward the
extraction of primary products has gone hand in hand with severe
exploitation of workers. Beginning with the coerced labor of native
Americans during the Spanish conquest, the exploitation continued with
mestizo peonage on huge farms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
and brutal treatment of miners in the north in the first decade of the
twentieth century. The most recent victimization of workers occurred
during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-90),
when unions were suppressed and wages were depressed, unemployment
increased, and political parties were banned.
Another persistent feature of Chile's economic history has been the
conflict over land in the countryside, beginning when the Spaniards
displaced the indigenous people during their sixteenthcentury conquest.
Later chapters of this struggle have included the expansion of the great
estates during the ensuing four centuries and the agrarian reform
efforts of the 1960s and 1970s.
Politically, Chile has also conformed to several patterns. Since
winning independence in 1818, the nation has had a history of civilian
rule surpassed by that of few countries in the world. In the nineteenth
century, Chile became the first country in Latin America to install a
durable constitutional system of government, which encouraged the
development of an array of political parties. Military intervention in
politics has been rare in Chile, occurring only at times of
extraordinary social crisis, as in 1891, 1924, 1925, 1932, and 1973.
These interventions often brought about massive transformations; all the
fundamental changes in the Chilean political system and its
constitutions have occurred with the intervention of the armed forces,
acting in concert with civilian politicians.
From 1932 to 1973, Chile built on its republican tradition by
sustaining one of the most stable, reformist, and representative
democracies in the world. Although elitist and conservative in some
respects, the political system provided for the peaceful transfer of
power and the gradual incorporation of new contenders. Undergirding that
system were Chile's strong political parties, which were often attracted
to foreign ideologies and formulas. Having thoroughly permeated society,
these parties were able to withstand crushing blows from the Pinochet
regime of 1973-90.
Republican political institutions were able to take root in Chile in
the nineteenth century before new social groups demanded participation.
Contenders from the middle and lower classes gradually were assimilated
into an accommodating political system in which most disputes were
settled peacefully, although disruptions related to the demands of
workers often met a harsh, violent response. The system expanded to
incorporate more and more competing regional, anticlerical, and economic
elites in the nineteenth century. The middle classes gained political
offices and welfare benefits in the opening decades of the twentieth
century. From the 1920s to the 1940s, urban laborers obtained
unionization rights and participated in reformist governments. In the
1950s, women finally exercised full suffrage and became a decisive
electoral force. And by the 1960s, rural workers achieved influence with
reformist parties, widespread unionization, and land reform.
As the political system evolved, groups divided on either side of six
main issues. The first and most important in the nineteenth century was
the role of the Roman Catholic Church in political, social, and economic
affairs. Neither of the two major parties, the Conservative Party and
the Liberal Party, opposed the practice of Catholicism. However, the
Conservatives defended the church's secular prerogatives; the Liberals
(and later the Nationals, Radicals, Democrats, and Marxists) took
anticlerical positions.
The second source of friction was regionalism, although less virulent
than in some larger Latin American countries. In the north and south,
reform groups became powerful, especially the Conservatives holding sway
in Chile's Central Valley (Valle Central), who advocated opposition to
the establishment. Regional groups made a significant impact on
political life in Chile: they mobilized repeated rebellions against the
central government from the 1830s through the 1850s; helped replace a
centralizing president with a political system dominated by the National
Congress (hereafter, Congress) and local bosses in the 1890s; elected
Arturo Alessandri Palma (1920-24, 1925, 1932-38) as the chief executive
representing the north against the central oligarchy in 1920; and cast
exceptional percentages of their ballots for reformist and leftist
candidates (especially Radicals, Communists, and Socialists) from the
1920s to the 1970s. Throughout the twentieth century, leaders outside
Santiago also pleaded for administrative decentralization until the
Pinochet government devolved greater authority on provincial and
municipal governments and even moved Congress from Santiago to Valpara�so.
The third issue dividing Chileans--social class--grew in importance
from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century. Although both the
Conservatives and the Liberals represented the upper stratum, in the
nineteenth century the Radicals began to speak on behalf of many in the
middle class, and the Democrats built a base among urban artisans and
workers. In the twentieth century, the Socialists and Communists became
the leaders of organized labor. Along with the Christian Democratic
Party, these parties attracted adherents among impoverished people in
the countryside and the urban slums.
In the twentieth century, three other issues became salient, although
not as significant as divisions over social class, regionalism, or the
role of the church. One was the cleavage between city and country, which
was manifested politically by the leftist parties' relative success in
the urban areas and by the rightist groups in the countryside. Another
source of strife was ideology; most Chilean parties after World War I
sharply defined themselves in terms of programmatic and philosophical
differences, often imported from abroad, including liberalism, Marxism,
corporatism, and communitarianism. Gender also became a political issue
and divider. After women began voting for president in 1952, they were
more likely than men to cast ballots for rightist or centrist
candidates.
As Chile's political parties grew, they attracted followers not only
on the basis of ideology but also on the basis of patronclient
relationships between candidates and voters. These ties were
particularly important at the local level, where mediation with
government agencies, provision of public employment, and delivery of
public services were more crucial than ideological battles waged on the
national stage. Over generations, these bonds became tightly woven,
producing within the parties fervent and exclusive subcultures nurtured
in the family, the community, and the workplace. As a result, by the
mid-twentieth century the parties had politicized schools, unions,
professional associations, the media, and virtually all other components
of national life. The intense politicization of modern Chile has its
roots in events of the nineteenth century.
During the colonial period and most of the twentieth century, the
central state played an active role in the economy until many of its
functions were curtailed by the military government of General Pinochet.
State power was highly centralized from the 1830s to the 1970s, to the
ire of the outlying provinces.
Although normally governed by civilians, Chile has been militaristic
in its dealings with native people, workers, and neighboring states. In
the twentieth century, it has been a supporter of arbitration in
international disputes. In foreign policy, Chile has long sought to be
the strongest power on the Pacific Coast of South America, and it has
always shied away from diplomatic entanglements outside the Americas.
Chile - PRECOLUMBIAN CIVILIZATIONS
Politics and War in a Frontier Society
Chile's first known European discoverer, Ferdinand Magellan, stopped
there during his voyage on October 21, 1520. A concerted attempt at
colonization began when Diego de Almagro, a companion of conqueror
Francisco Pizarro, headed south from Peru in 1535. Disappointed at the
dearth of mineral wealth and deterred by the pugnacity of the native
population in Chile, Almagro returned to Peru in 1537, where he died in
the civil wars that took place among the conquistadors.
The second Spanish expedition from Peru to Chile was begun by Pedro
de Valdivia in 1540. Proving more persistent than Almagro, he founded
the capital city of Santiago on February 12, 1541. Valdivia managed to
subdue many northern Amerindians, forcing them to work in mines and
fields. He had far less success with the Araucanians of the south,
however.
Valdivia (1541-53) became the first governor of the captaincy general
of Chile, which was the colonial name until 1609. In that post, he
obeyed the viceroy of Peru and, through him, the king of Spain and his
bureaucracy. Responsible to the governor, town councils known as cabildos
administered local municipalities, the most important of which was
Santiago, which was the seat of a royal audiencia from 1609
until the end of colonial rule.
Seeking more precious metals and slave labor, Valdivia established
fortresses farther south. Being so scattered and small, however, they
proved difficult to defend against Araucanian attack. Although Valdivia
found small amounts of gold in the south, he realized that Chile would
have to be primarily an agricultural colony.
In December 1553, an Araucanian army of warriors, organized by the
legendary Mapuche chief Lautaro (Valdivia's former servant), assaulted
and destroyed the fort of Tucapel. Accompanied by only fifty soldiers,
Valdivia rushed to the aid of the fort, but all his men perished at the
hands of the Mapuche in the Battle of Tucapel. Valdivia himself fled but
was later tracked down, tortured, and killed by Lautaro. Although
Lautaro was killed by Spaniards in the Battle of Mataquito in 1557, his
chief, Caupolic�n, continued the fight until his capture by treachery
and his subsequent execution by the Spaniards in 1558. The uprising of
1553-58 became the most famous instance of Araucanian resistance;
Lautaro in later centuries became a revered figure among Chilean
nationalists. It took several more years to suppress the rebellion.
Thereafter, the Araucanians no longer threatened to drive the Spanish
out, but they did destroy small settlements from time to time. Most
important, the Mapuche held on to their remaining territory for another
three centuries.
Despite inefficiency and corruption in the political system,
Chileans, like most Spanish Americans, exhibited remarkable loyalty to
crown authority throughout nearly three centuries of colonial rule.
Chileans complained about certain policies or officials but never
challenged the regime. It was only when the king of Spain was overthrown
at the beginning of the nineteenth century that Chileans began to
consider self-government.
Chileans resented their reliance on Peru for governance, trade, and
subsidies, but not enough to defy crown authority. Many Chilean criollos
(creoles, or Spaniards born in the New World) also resented domination
by the peninsulares (Spaniards, usually officials, born in the
Old World and residing in an overseas colony), especially in the
sinecures of royal administration. However, local Chilean elites,
especially landowners, asserted themselves in politics well before any
movement for independence. Over time, these elites captured numerous
positions in the local governing apparatus, bought favors from the
bureaucracy, co-opted administrators from Spain, and came to exercise
informal authority in the countryside.
Society in Chile was sharply divided along ethnic, racial, and class
lines. Peninsulares and criollos dominated the tiny upper
class. Miscegenation between Europeans and the indigenous people
produced a mestizo population that quickly outnumbered the Spaniards.
Farther down the social ladder were a few African slaves and large
numbers of native Americans.
The Roman Catholic Church served as the main buttress of the
government and the primary instrument of social control. Compared with
its counterparts in Peru and Mexico, the church in Chile was not very
rich or powerful. On the frontier, missionaries were more important than
the Catholic hierarchy. Although usually it supported the status quo,
the church produced the most important defenders of the indigenous
population against Spanish atrocities. The most famous advocate of human
rights for the native Americans was a Jesuit, Luis de Valdivia (no
relation to Pedro de Valdivia), who struggled, mostly in vain, to
improve their lot in the period 1593-1619.
Cut off to the north by desert, to the south by the Araucanians, to
the east by the Andes Mountains, and to the west by the ocean, Chile
became one of the most centralized, homogeneous colonies in Spanish
America. Serving as a sort of frontier garrison, the colony found itself
with the mission of forestalling encroachment by Araucanians and by
Spain's European enemies, especially the British and the Dutch. In
addition to the Araucanians, buccaneers and English adventurers menaced
the colony, as was shown by Sir Francis Drake's 1578 raid on Valpara�so,
the principal port. Because Chile hosted one of the largest standing
armies in the Americas, it was one of the most militarized of the
Spanish possessions, as well as a drain on the treasury of Peru.
Throughout the colonial period, the Spaniards engaged in frontier
combat with the Araucanians, who controlled the territory south of the R�o
B�o-B�o (about 500 kilometers south of Santiago) and waged guerrilla
warfare against the invaders. During many of those years, the entire
southern region was impenetrable by Europeans. In the skirmishes, the
Spaniards took many of their defeated foes as slaves. Missionary
expeditions to Christianize the Araucanians proved risky and often
fruitless.
Most European relations with the native Americans were hostile,
resembling those later existing with nomadic tribes in the United
States. The Spaniards generally treated the Mapuche as an enemy nation
to be subjugated and even exterminated, in contrast to the way the
Aztecs and the Incas treated the Mapuche, as a pool of subservient
laborers. Nevertheless, the Spaniards did have some positive interaction
with the Mapuche. Along with warfare, there also occurred some
miscegenation, intermarriage, and acculturation between the colonists
and the indigenous people.
Chile - The Colonial Economy
The government played a significant role in the colonial economy. It
regulated and allocated labor, distributed land, granted monopolies, set
prices, licensed industries, conceded mining rights, created public
enterprises, authorized guilds, channeled exports, collected taxes, and
provided subsidies. Outside the capital city, however, colonists often
ignored or circumvented royal laws. In the countryside and on the
frontier, local landowners and military officers frequently established
and enforced their own rules.
The economy expanded under Spanish rule, but some criollos complained
about royal taxes and limitations on trade and production. Although the
crown required that most Chilean commerce be with Peru, smugglers
managed to sustain some illegal trade with other American colonies and
with Spain itself. Chile exported to Lima small amounts of gold, silver,
copper, wheat, tallow, hides, flour, wine, clothing, tools, ships, and
furniture. Merchants, manufacturers, and artisans became increasingly
important to the Chilean economy.
Mining was significant, although the volume of gold and silver
extracted in Chile was far less than the output of Peru or Mexico. The
conquerors appropriated mines and washings from the native people and
coerced them into extracting the precious metal for the new owners. The
crown claimed one-fifth of all the gold produced, but the miners
frequently cheated the treasury. By the seventeenth century, depleted
supplies and the conflict with the Araucanians reduced the quantity of
gold mined in Chile.
Because precious metals were scarce, most Chileans worked in
agriculture. Large landowners became the local elite, often maintaining
a second residence in the capital city. Traditionally, most historians
have considered these great estates (called haciendas or fundos)
inefficient and exploitive, but some scholars have claimed that they
were more productive and less cruel than is conventionally depicted.
The haciendas initially depended for their existence on the land and
labor of the indigenous people. As in the rest of Spanish America, crown
officials rewarded many conquerors according to the encomienda
system, by which a group of native Americans would be commended or
consigned temporarily to their care. The grantees, called encomenderos,
were supposed to Christianize their wards in return for small tribute
payments and service, but they usually took advantage of their charges
as laborers and servants. Many encomenderos also appropriated
native lands. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the encomenderos
fended off attempts by the crown and the church to interfere with their
exploitation of the indigenous people.
The Chilean colony depended heavily on coerced labor, whether it was
legally slave labor or, like the wards of the encomenderos,
nominally free. Wage labor initially was rare in the colonial period; it
became much more common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Because few native Americans or Africans were available, the mestizo
population became the main source of workers for the growing number of
latifundios, which were basically synonymous with haciendas.
Those workers attached to the estates as tenant farmers became known
as inquilinos. Many of them worked outside the cash economy,
dealing in land, labor, and barter. The countryside was also populated
by small landholders (minifundistas), migrant workers (afuerinos),
and a few Mapuche holding communal lands (usually under legal title).
Chile - Bourbon Reforms, 1759-96
Chile defeated the Peruvian fleet at Casma on January 12, 1839, and
the Bolivian army at Yungay, Peru, on January 20. These Chilean
victories destroyed the Peru-Bolivia Confederation, made Chile lord of
the west coast, brought unity and patriotism to the Chilean elites, and
gave Chile's armed forces pride and purpose as a military with an
external mission. The successful war also helped convince the European
powers and the United States to respect Chile's coastal sphere of
influence. Subsequently, the country won additional respect from the
European powers and the United States by giving them economic access and
concessions, by treating their citizens well, and by generally playing
them off against each other.
Since its inception, the Portalian State has been criticized for its
authoritarianism. But it has also been praised for the stability,
prosperity, and international victories it brought to Chile, as well as
the gradual opening to increased democracy that it provided. At least in
comparison with most other regimes of the era, the Portalian State was
noteworthy for being dominated by constitutional civilian authorities.
Although Portales deserves some credit for launching the system, his
successors were the ones who truly implemented, institutionalized,
legitimized, and consolidated it. From 1831 to 1861, no other country in
Spanish America had such a regular and constitutional succession of
chief executives.
Manuel Bulnes Prieto (president, 1841-51), hero of the victories over
the Chilean Liberals at the Battle of Lircay in 1830, and over the
Bolivian army at Yungay in 1839, became president in 1841. As a
decorated general, he was the ideal choice to consolidate the Portalian
State and establish presidential control over the armed forces. He
reduced the size of the military and solidified its loyalty to the
central government in the face of provincial uprisings. As a southerner,
he was able to defuse regional resentment of the dominant Santiago area.
Although Bulnes staffed his two administrations mainly with
Conservatives, he conciliated his opponents by including a few Liberals.
He strengthened the new political institutions, especially Congress and
the judiciary, and gave legitimacy to the constitution by stepping down
at the end of his second term in office. Placing the national interest
above regional or military loyalties, he also helped snuff out a
southern rebellion against his successor.
Intellectual life blossomed under Bulnes, thanks in part to the many
exiles who came to Chile from less stable Spanish American republics.
They clustered around the University of Chile (founded in 1842), which
developed into one of the most prestigious educational institutions in
Latin America. Both foreigners and nationals formed the "Generation
of 1842," led mainly by liberal intellectuals and politicians such
as Francisco Bilbao Barguin and Jos� Victorino Lastarria Santander.
Through the Society of Equality, members of the group called for
expanded democracy and reduced church prerogatives. In particular, they
defended civil liberties and freedom of the press, seeking to constrain
the government's authoritarian powers.
Bulnes presided over continued prosperity, as production from the
farms and mines increased, both for external and for internal
consumption. In response to foreign demand, especially for wheat during
the California and Australia gold rushes, agricultural exports
increased. Instead of importing scarce and expensive modern capital and
technology, landowners expanded production. They did this primarily by
enlarging their estates and absorbing more peasants into their work
forces, especially in the central provinces, where the vast majority of
Chileans toiled in agriculture. This expansion fortified the hacienda
system and increased the numbers of people attached to it. The growth of
the great estates also increased the political power of the landed
elites, who succeeded in exercising a veto over agrarian reform for a
century.
In the mid-1800s, the rural labor force, mainly mestizos, was a cheap
and expanding source of labor. More and more of these laborers became
tenant farmers (inquilinos). For a century thereafter, many
workers would remain bound to the haciendas through tradition, lack of
alternatives, and landowner collusion and coercion. Itinerant rural
workers and even small landowners became increasingly dependent on the
great estates, whether through part-time or full-time work. The landed
elites also inhibited industrialization by their preference for free
trade and the low wages they paid their workers, which hindered rural
consumers from accumulating disposable income. For a century, the lack
of any significant challenge to this exploitive system was one of the
pillars of the social and political hierarchy.
Liberals and regionalists unsuccessfully took up arms against
Bulnes's conservative successor, Manuel Montt Torres (president,
1851-61). Thousands died in one of the few large civil wars in
nineteenth-century Chile. The rebels of 1851 denounced Montt's election
as a fraud perpetrated by the centralist forces in and around Santiago.
Some entrepreneurs in the outlying provinces also backed the rebellion
out of anger at the government's neglect of economic interests outside
the sphere of the central landowning elites. Montt put down the uprising
with help from British commercial ships.
From 1851 to 1861, Montt completed the construction of the durable
constitutional order begun by Portales and Bulnes. By reducing church
prerogatives, Montt eased the transition from a sequence of Conservative
chief executives to a series of Liberals. As a civilian head of state,
he was less harsh with his liberal adversaries. He also promoted
conciliation by including many northerners as well as southerners in the
government.
Benefiting from the sharp growth in exports and customs revenues in
the 1850s, Montt demonstrated the efficacy of the central government by
supporting the establishment of railroads, a telegraph system, and
banks. He created the first government-run railroad company in South
America, despite his belief in laissezfaire . He also initiated the
extension of government credit to propertied groups. Under President
Montt, school construction accelerated, laying the groundwork for Chile
to become one of the most literate nations in the hemisphere. Expanding
on the initiative started by Bulnes, Montt also pushed back the southern
frontier, in part by encouraging German immigration.
As the next presidential succession approached, a second rebellion
ensued in 1859. The rebels represented a diverse alliance, including
Liberals who opposed the right-wing government and its encroachments on
civil liberties, Conservatives who believed the president was
insufficiently proclerical, politicians who feared the selection of a
strongman as Montt's successor, and regionalists who chafed at the
concentration of power in Santiago. Once again, Montt prevailed in a
test of arms, but thereafter he conciliated his opponents by nominating
a successor acceptable to all sides, Jos� Joaqu�n P�rez Mascayano
(president, 1861-71).
Under Bulnes and Montt, economic elites had resisted paying direct
taxes, so the national government had become heavily dependent on
customs duties, particularly on mineral exports. Imports were also taxed
at a low level. The most important exports in the early years of
independence had been silver and copper, mined mainly in the northern
provinces, along with wheat, tallow, and other farm produce. The Chilean
elites eagerly welcomed European and North American ships and merchants.
Although these elites debated the issue of protectionism, they settled
on low tariffs for revenue. Despite some dissent and deviations, the
dominant policy in the nineteenth century was free trade--the exchange
of raw materials for manufactured items, although a few local industries
took root. Britain quickly became Chile's primary trading partner. The
British also invested, both directly and indirectly, in the Chilean
economy.
Chile - The Liberal Era, 1861-91
Chile quickly became enmeshed in the cold war, as Moscow and
especially Washington meddled in its affairs. That friction resulted in
the splitting of the CTCh in 1946 into Communist and Socialist branches
and then the outlawing of the PCCh. The Socialists were now opposed to
the Communists and aligned with the (American Federation of
Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, the AFL-CIO), having grown
closer to United States labor interests during World War II.
Once in office, Gonz�lez Videla (president, 1946-52) rapidly turned
against his Communist allies. He expelled them from his cabinet and then
banned them completely under the 1948 Law for the Defense of Democracy.
The PCCh remained illegal until 1958. He also severed relations with the
Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.
Controversy still swirls around the reasons for this aboutface .
According to Gonz�lez Videla and his sympathizers, the repression of
the Communists was necessary to thwart their plots against his
government, although no evidence has been found to substantiate that
claim. According to the Communists and other critics of Gonz�lez
Videla, he acted under pressure from the United States and out of a
desire to forge closer economic and military bonds with the dominant
superpower. Historians have established that the president wanted to
appease the United States, that the United States encouraged a crackdown
on Chilean Communists, and that the United States government appreciated
Gonz�lez Videla's actions and thereafter expanded the scope of its
loans, investments, and technical missions to Chile. The United States
and Chile also agreed to a military assistance pact while Gonz�lez
Videla was president. However, no conclusive evidence has come to light
that the United States directly pushed him to act.
Although Gonz�lez Videla feared Communist intentions and respected
the wishes of the United States government, he also turned against the
PCCh for other reasons. He hoped to mollify right-wing critics of his
government, especially landowners, to whom he guaranteed a continuing
moratorium on peasant unionization. He sought to remove any ideological
justification for a military coup. He also wanted to weaken the labor
movement in a time of economic uncertainties, slow growth, and rising
inflation, when the PCCh was promoting strikes. Gonz�lez Videla's
banning of the Communists coincided with his movement away from social
reform in favor of the promotion of industrial growth.
As the Radical years (1938-52) drew to a close, Popular Frontstyle
coalition politics reached a dead end. The Radicals had swerved to the
right, the Socialists had splintered and lost votes, and the Communists
had been forced underground. Although the middle and upper classes had
registered some gains in those fourteen years, most workers had seen
their real income stagnate or decline. Often a problem in the past,
inflation had become a permanent feature of the Chilean economy, fueled
by the deficit spending of a government that had grown enormously under
the Radical presidents. Progress had been made in industrialization, but
with little benefit to the majority of the population. Promoting urban
industries did not generate the growth, efficiency, employment, or
independence promised by the policy's advocates. World War II had left
the country more dependent than ever on the United States, which by then
had become the dominant economic power in Latin America.
Populist development strategies had proved viable during the 1930s
and 1940s. The protection and credit that went along with
import-substitution industrialization had kept manufacturers satisfied.
Although penalized and forced to accept low prices for their foods,
agriculturalists welcomed expanding urban markets, low taxes, and
controls over rural workers. The middle class and the armed forces had
applauded state growth and moderate nationalism. The more skilled and
organized urban workers had received consumer, welfare, and union
benefits superior to those offered to other lower-class groups.
These allocations postponed any showdown over limited resources, thus
enabling right and left to compromise. Political institutionalization
and accommodation prevailed, partly because the unorganized urban poor
and especially the rural poor suffered, in effect, from marginality.
Starting in the 1950s, however, social demands outpaced slow economic
growth, and the political arena became increasingly crowded and heated.
In addition, accelerated mobilization, polarization, and radicalization
by ideologically competing parties placed more and more stress on the
"compromise state" to reconcile incompatible demands and
projects.
By 1952 Chileans were alienated by multiparty politics that produced
reformist governments, which would veer to the right once in office.
Chileans were tired of politiquer�a (petty politics, political
chicanery, and pork-barrel politics). Citizens were also dismayed by
slow growth and spiraling inflation. They showed their displeasure by
turning to two symbols of the past, the 1920s dictator Ib��ez and the
son of former president Alessandri.
In an effort to "sweep the rascals out," the voters elected
the politically unaffiliated Ib��ez back to the presidency in 1952.
Brandishing his broom as a symbol, the "General of Victory"
ran against all the major parties and their clientelistic system of
government. He made his strongest attacks on the Radicals, accusing them
of mismanagement of the economy and subservience to the United States.
Along with the short-lived Agrarian Labor Party (1945-58), a few
Communists backed Ib��ez in hopes of relegalizing the PCCh; a few
Socialists also supported him in hopes of spawning a workers' movement
similar to Peronism in Argentina. Other leftists, however, endorsed the
first token presidential campaign of Salvador Allende in order to stake
out an independent Marxist strategy for future runs at the presidency.
Allende received only 5 percent of the vote, while Ib��ez won with a
plurality of 47 percent. As it always did when no candidate captured an
absolute majority, Congress ratified the top vote-getter as president.
Chile - Ib��ez's Second Presidency, 1952-58
Like the Radicals before him, Ib��ez entered office as a reformer
governing with a center-left coalition and ended his term as a
conservative surrounded by rightists. Along the way, he discarded his
promises of economic nationalism and social justice. Also like the
Radicals, he left festering problems for subsequent administrations.
Early in his administration, Ib��ez tried to live up to his billing
as a nationalistic reformer. He rewarded those who had voted for him in
the countryside by setting a minimum wage for rural laborers, although
real wages for farm workers continued to fall throughout the decade. He
also postured as a Latin American spokesman, hailing Juan Domingo Per�n
when the Argentine leader visited Chile.
After two years of expansionary fiscal policies in league with
reformers and a few leftists, Ib��ez converted to a conservative
program to stem inflation and to improve relations with the United
States copper companies. As the effort to move import-substitution
industrialization beyond the stage of replacing foreign consumer goods
bogged down, the economy became mired in stagflation. The rates of
industrialization, investment, and growth all slowed. Monetarist
policies proposed by a team of United States experts, known as the
Klein-Saks Mission, failed to bring inflation under control. Price
increases averaged 38 percent per year during the 1950s.
Persistent inflation stoked a debate among economists over causes and
cures. Emphasizing deep-rooted causes and long-term solutions, advocates
of structuralism blamed chronic inflation primarily on foreign trade
dependency, insufficient local production (especially in agriculture),
and political struggles over government spoils among entrenched vested
interests. Their opponents, avocates of monetarism, attributed rising prices principally to classic
financial causes such as currency expansion and deficit spending. Like
the Klein-Saks Mission, the monetarists recommended austerity measures
to curb inflation. The structuralists denounced such belt-tightening as
recessionary, inimical to growth, and socially regressive. The
monetarists replied that economic development would be delayed and
distorted until expansionary monetary and financial policies were
corrected.
Adopting a monetarist approach, in 1955 Ib��ez made concessions to
the United States copper companies, chiefly Anaconda and Kennecott, in
an effort to elicit more investment. These measure reduced the firms'
taxes and raised their profits but failed to attract much capital.
Discontent with this experience underlay subsequent campaigns to
nationalize the mines.
Ib��ez also enacted reforms to increase the integrity of the
electoral system. Under the new plan, the secret ballot system was
improved in 1958, and stiff fines for fraud were established. These
reforms reduced the sway of landowners and facilitated the growth of the
Christian Democrat and Marxist political movements among peasants.
Ib��ez's middle- and working-class support flowed over to the
Christian Democrats and the Marxists. The Christian Democratic Party
(Partido Dem�crata Cristiano--PDC) was founded in 1957 with the merger
of three conservative elements: the National Falange, founded in 1938;
the Social Christian Conservative Party; and the remnants of the
Agrarian Labor Party that had backed Ib��ez. The Christian Democrats
espoused reformist Catholic doctrines that promised a society based on
communitarianism. The new party appealed strongly to the middle class,
women, peasants, and ruralurban migrants. Its displacement of the
Radicals as the preeminent centrist party meant that a pragmatic
organization was replaced by an ideological group less amenable to
coalition and compromise. At the same time that the center was hardening
its position, the right and the left were also becoming more dogmatic
and sectarian.
Relegalized by Ib��ez in 1958, the PCCh formed an enduring
electoral alliance with the Socialists known as the Popular Action Front
(Frente de Acci�n Popular--FRAP). The Marxist parties embraced more
militant projects for the construction of socialism and disdained
alliances behind centrist parties. They replaced Popular Front politics
with "workers front" politics. The PCCh and the Socialist
Party became more exclusive and radical in their ideological commitments
and in their dedication to the proletariat. Of the two parties, the
Socialist Party posed as more revolutionary, especially after the 1959
Cuban Revolution.
As they had in the 1930s, the Marxist parties experienced success in
the 1950s in tandem with a unified national trade union movement.
Dismayed by runaway inflation, the major labor unions replaced the
fractionalized CTCh with the United Federation of Chilean Workers
(Central �nica de Trabajadores de Chile--CUTCh) in 1953. The Communists
and Socialists, with their enduring strength in older unions in mining,
construction, and manufacturing, took command of the new confederation.
As the 1958 election approached, the electorate divided into three
camps well-defined by their predominant class and ideology. The right
represented mainly Conservatives and Liberals, the upper class, rural
dwellers, the defenders of capitalism, and the status quo. In the
center, the Christian Democrats and Radicals spoke largely for the
middle class and the proponents of moderate social reforms to avoid
socialism. On the left, the Socialists and Communists championed the
working class, advocating a peaceful transition to socialism.
Rural-urban migrants and women had gained social and political
importance. The percentage of the population registered to vote in
presidential contests had risen from about 11 percent in the 1940s to
17.5 percent in 1952 and then to 21 percent in 1958. In the 1958
election, the right--Conservatives and Liberals--hoped to return to
power for the first time since 1938. Their standard-bearer was Jorge
Alessandri Rodr�guez, an engineering professor and the son of Chile's
most recent rightist president. He posed as an independent who was above
party politics, offering technocratic solutions to the nation's
problems. In the center, the Radicals, with candidate Luis Bossay Leyva,
and the Christian Democrats, who nominated Eduardo Frei Montalva, vied
for moderate votes. On the left, the reunited Socialists and Communists
backed Salvador Allende.
In a preview of the 1970 election, the 1958 vote split three ways: 31
percent for Alessandri, 29 percent for Allende, and 40 percent for the
rest, including a strong third-place showing by Frei with 21 percent. If
it had not been for the 3 percent of the votes snared by a populist
defrocked priest, the 15 percent won by the Radicals, and the low
percentage (22 percent) of women casting ballots for Allende, the
Marxists could easily have captured the presidency in 1958, several
months before the Cuban Revolution. As it was, they and the Christian
Democrats were highly encouraged to build their electoral forces toward
another face-off in 1964. An especially noteworthy shift was the
transfer of many peasant votes from the right to the columns of
Christian Democrat and Marxist politicians promising agrarian reform.
Chile - Jorge Alessandri's Rightist Term, 1958-64
After the 1965 elections gave them a majority of deputies in
Congress, the Christian Democrats enacted ambitious reforms on many
fronts. However, as a single-party government, they were often loath to
enter into bargains, compromises, or coalitions. Consequently, rightists
and leftists often opposed their congressional initiatives, especially
in the Senate.
One of the major achievements of Eduardo Frei Montalva (president,
1964-70) was the "Chileanization" of copper. The government
took 51 percent ownership of the mines controlled by United States
companies, principally those of Anaconda and Kennecott. Critics
complained that the companies received overly generous terms, invested
too little in Chile, and retained too much ownership. Nevertheless,
copper production rose, and Chile received a higher return from the
enterprises.
Frei believed that agrarian reform was necessary to raise the
standard of living of rural workers, to boost agricultural production,
to expand his party's electoral base, and to defuse revolutionary
potential in the countryside. Consequently, in 1967 his government
promoted the right of peasants to unionize and strike. The
administration also expropriated land with the intention of dividing it
between collective and family farms. However, actual redistribution of
land fell far short of promises and expectations. Conflict arose in the
countryside between peasants eager for land and landowners frightened of
losing their rights and their property.
During the tenure of the Christian Democrats, economic growth
remained sluggish and inflation stayed high. Nevertheless, Frei's
government improved income distribution and access to education, as
enrollments rose at all levels of schooling. Under the aegis of
"Popular Promotion," the Frei government organized many
squatter communities and helped them build houses. This aided the PDC in
its competition with the Marxists for political support in the
burgeoning callampas. At the same time, Frei enacted tax
reforms that made tax collection more efficient than ever before. The
Christian Democrats also pushed through constitutional changes to
strengthen the presidency; these changes later would be used to
advantage by Allende. The PDC also revised electoral regulations,
lowering the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen and giving the
franchise to people who could not read (about 10 percent of the
population was illiterate).
Although friendly to United States investors and government
officials, the Frei administration took an independent stance in foreign
affairs--more collegial with the developing nations and less hostile to
the Communist bloc nations. For instance, Frei restored diplomatic
relations with the Soviet Union and most of its allies. Chile also gave
strong backing to multilateral organizations, including the Latin
American Free Trade Association ( LAFTA), the Andean Group, the
Organization of American States ( OAS), and the United Nations.
Meanwhile, aid and investment from the United States multiplied. Under
Frei, Chile received more aid per capita from the United States than did
any other country in Latin America.
After the two governments that followed the Christian Democrats,
Chileans would look back with nostalgia on the Frei administration and
its accomplishments. At the time, however, it was hounded by the right
for being too reformist and by the left for being too conservative.
While some on the right began forming paramilitary units to defend their
property, some on the left began encouraging illegal seizures of farms,
housing plots, and factories. Among the masses, the Christian Democrats
raised expectations higher than they intended.
As the next presidential election approached, Frei remained
personally popular, but his party's strength ebbed. With no clear winner
apparent, the 1970 campaign shaped up as a rerun of 1958, with the
right, center, and left all fielding their own candidates. The right
hoped to recapture power and brake the pace of reform with former
president Jorge Alessandri as the candidate of the National Party
(Partido Nacional--PN), established in 1965 by Conservatives and
Liberals. In the center, the Christian Democrats promised to accelerate
reform with a progressive candidate, Radomiro Tomic Romero. The left
vowed to head down the road toward socialism with Salvador Allende as
its nominee for the fourth time.
Under the leadership of the Socialist Party and the PCCh, the leftist
coalition of 1970 called itself Popular Unity (Unidad Popular--UP).
Joining the alliance were four minor parties, including the shrunken
Radical Party and defectors from the Christian Democrats, most notably
the United Popular Action Movement (Movimiento de Acci�n Popular
Unitario--MAPU). The coalition was reminiscent of the Popular Front of
1936-41, except that it was led by the Marxist parties and a Marxist
candidate. Further to the left, the Movement of the Revolutionary Left
(Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria--MIR), a small organization
headed by radicalized students, scoffed at the electoral route, called
for armed struggle, and undertook direct assaults on the system, such as
bank robberies.
To the surprise of most pollsters and prognosticators, Allende nosed
out Alessandri 36.2 percent to 35 percent in the September 4, 1973,
elections; Tomic trailed with 27.8 percent of the vote. In the cold war
context of the times, the democratic election of a Marxist president
sent a shock wave around the globe. The seven weeks between the counting
of the ballots and the certification of the winner by Congress crackled
with tension. Attempts by the United States and by right-wing groups in
Chile to convince Congress to choose the runner-up Alessandri or to coax
the military into staging a coup d'�tat failed. A botched kidnapping
planned by right-wing military officers resulted in the assassination of
the army commander in chief, General Ren� Schneider Chereau, on October
22, 1970, the first major political killing in Chile since the death of
Portales in 1837. That plot backfired by ensuring the armed forces'
support of a constitutional assumption of power by Allende.
After extracting guarantees of adherence to democratic procedures
from Allende, the Christian Democrats in Congress followed tradition and
provided the votes to make the front-runner Chile's new president.
Although a minority president was not unusual, one with such a drastic
plan to revolutionize the nation was unique. Allende was inaugurated on
November 3, 1970.
Chile - Salvador Allende's Leftist Regime, 1970-73
The Allende experiment enjoyed a triumphant first year, followed by
two disastrous final years. According to the UP, Chile was being
exploited by parasitic foreign and domestic capitalists. The government
therefore moved quickly to socialize the economy, taking over the copper
mines, other foreign firms, oligopolistic industries, banks, and large
estates. By a unanimous vote of Congress in 1971, the government totally
nationalized the foreign copper firms, which were mainly owned by two
United States companies, Kennecott and Anaconda. The nationalization
measure was one of the few bills Allende ever got through the
opposition- controlled legislature, where the Christian Democrats
constituted the largest single party.
Socialization of the means of production spread rapidly and widely.
The government took over virtually all the great estates. It turned the
lands over to the resident workers, who benefited far more than the
owners of tiny plots or the numerous migrant laborers. By 1972 food
production had fallen and food imports had risen. Also during 1971-72,
the government dusted off emergency legislation from the 1932 Socialist
Republic to allow it to expropriate industries without congressional
approval. It turned many factories over to management by the workers and
the state.
In his first year, Allende also employed Keynesian measures to hike
salaries and wages, thus pumping up the purchasing power of the middle
and working classes. This "consumer revolution" benefited 95
percent of the population in the short run because prices were held down
and employment went up. Producers responded to rising demand by
employing previously underused capacity.
Politically, Allende faced problems holding his Popular Unity
coalition together, pacifying the more leftist elements inside and
outside Popular Unity and, above all, coping with the increasingly
implacable opposition. Within Popular Unity, the largest party was the
Socialist Party. Although composed of multiple factions, the Socialist
Party mainly pressed Allende to accelerate the transition toward
socialism. The second most important element was the PCCh, which favored
a more gradual, legalistic approach. Outside the Popular Unity, the most
significant left-wing organization was the MIR, a tiny but provocative
group that admired the Cuban Revolution and encouraged peasants and
workers to take property and the revolutionary process into their own
hands, much faster than Allende preferred.
The most important opposition party was the PDC. As it and the middle
sectors gradually shifted to the right, they came to form an
anti-Allende bloc in combination with the Natinal Party and the
propertied class. Even farther to the right were minuscule,
paramilitary, quasi-fascist groups like Fatherland and Liberty (Patria y
Libertad), determined to sabotage Popular Unity.
The Popular Unity government tried to maintain cordial relations with
the United States, even while staking out an independent position as a
champion of developing nations and socialist causes. It opened
diplomatic relations with Cuba, China, the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea (North Korea), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North
Vietnam), and Albania. It befriended the Soviet Union, which sent aid to
the Allende administration, although far less than Cuba received or than
Popular Unity had hoped for.
Meanwhile, the United States pursued a two-track policy toward
Allende's Chile. At the overt level, Washington was frosty, especially
after the nationalization of the copper mines; official relations were
unfriendly but not openly hostile. The government of President Richard
M. Nixon squeezed the Chilean economy by terminating financial
assistance and blocking loans from multilateral organizations, although
it increased aid to the military, a sector unenthusiastic toward the
Allende government. It was widely reported that at the covert level the
United States worked to destabilize Allende's Chile by funding
opposition political groups and media and by encouraging a military coup
d'�tat. Most scholars have concluded that these United States actions
contributed to the downfall of Allende, although no one has established
direct United States participation in the coup d'�tat and very few
would assign the United States the primary role in the destruction of
that government.
During the second and third years of the UP, demand outstripped
supply, the economy shrank, deficit spending snowballed, new investments
and foreign exchange became scarce, the value of copper sales dropped,
shortages appeared, and inflation skyrocketed, eroding the previous
gains for the working class. A thriving black market sprang up. The
government responded with direct distribution systems in working-class
neighborhoods. Worker participation in the management of enterprises
reached unprecedented proportions. The strapped government could not
keep the economy from going into free fall because it could not impose
austerity measures on its supporters in the working class, get new taxes
approved by Congress, or borrow enough money abroad to cover the
deficit.
Although the right was on the defensive in Allende's first year, it
moved on the offensive and forged an alliance with the center in the
next two years. In Congress this center-right coalition erected a
blockade against all Popular Unity initiatives, harassed Popular Unity
cabinet ministers, and denounced the administration as illegitimate and
unconstitutional, thus setting the stage for a military takeover. The
most acrimonious battle raged over the boundaries of Popular Unity's
"social property area" (�rea de propriedad social),
which would incorporate private holdings through government
intervention, requisition, or expropriation. The Supreme Court and the
comptroller general of the republic joined Congress in criticizing the
executive branch for overstepping its constitutional bounds.
Allende tried to stabilize the situation by organizing a succession
of cabinets, but none of them guaranteed order. His appointment of
military officers to cabinet posts in 1972 and 1973 also failed to
stifle the opposition. Instead, it helped politicize the armed services.
Outside the government, Allende's supporters continued direct takeovers
of land and businesses, further disrupting the economy and frightening
the propertied class.
The two sides reached a showdown in the March 1973 congressional
elections. The opposition expected the Allende coalition to suffer the
typical losses of Chilean governments in midterm elections, especially
with the economy in a tailspin. The National Party and PDC hoped to win
two-thirds of the seats, enough to impeach Allende. They netted 55
percent of the votes, not enough of a majority to end the stalemate.
Moreover, the Popular Unity's 43 percent share represented an increase
over the presidential tally of 36.2 percent and gave Allende's coalition
six additional congressional seats; therefore, many of his adherents
were encouraged to forge ahead.
In the aftermath of the indecisive 1973 congressional elections, both
sides escalated the confrontation and hurled threats of insurgency.
Street demonstrations became almost daily events and increasingly
violent. Right-wing groups, such as Fatherland and Liberty, and
left-wing groups, such as the MIR, brandished arms and called for a
cataclysmic solution. The most militant workers formed committees in
their neighborhoods and workplaces to press for accelerated social
change and to defend their gains. The opposition began openly knocking
on the doors of the barracks in hopes that the military would provide a
solution.
The regular armed forces halted an attempted coup by tank commanders
in June 1973, but that incident warned the nation that the military was
getting restless. Thereafter, the armed forces prepared for a massive
coup by stepping up raids to search for arms among Popular Unity's
supporters. Conditions worsened in June, July, and August, as middle-
and upper-class business proprietors and professionals launched another
wave of workplace shutdowns and lockouts, as they had in late 1972.
Their 1973 protests against the government coincided with strikes by the
trucking industry and by the left's erstwhile allies among the copper
workers. The Nationalists, the Christian Democrats, and conservative
students backed the increasingly subversive strikers. They called for
Allende's resignation or military intervention. Attempts by the Catholic
Church to get the PDC and Popular Unity to negotiate a compromise came
to naught. Meanwhile, inflation reached an annual rate of more than 500
percent. By mid-1973 the economy and the government were paralyzed.
In August 1973, the rightist and centrist representatives in the
Chamber of Deputies undermined the president's legitimacy by accusing
him of systematically violating the constitution and by urging the armed
forces to intervene. In early September, Allende was preparing to call
for a rare national plebiscite to resolve the impasse between Popular
Unity and the opposition. The military obviated that strategy by
launching its attack on civilian authority on the morning of September
11. Just prior to the assault, the commanders in chief, headed by the
newly appointed army commander, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, had
purged officers sympathetic to the president or the constitution.
Allende committed suicide while defending (with an assault rifle) his
socialist government against the coup d'�tat. Although sporadic
resistance to the coup erupted, the military consolidated control much
more quickly than it had believed possible. Many Chileans had predicted
that a coup would unleash a civil war, but instead it ushered in a long
period of repression.
Debate continues over the reasons for Allende's downfall. Why did he
fail to preserve democracy or achieve socialism? Critics of the left
blamed Allende for going to extremes, destroying the economy, violating
the constitution, and undermining the spirit if not the letter of
democracy. Right-wing critics in particular accused the left of even
plotting an armed takeover, a charge that was never proved. Critics also
assailed the UP for being unclear about the limits of its reforms and
thus frightening the middle class into the arms of the opposition.
Critics of the right accused Popular Unity, in conjunction with the
United States, of ruining the economy and of calling out the armed
forces to protect its property and privileges. Observers in general
scolded the far left for its adventurous excesses. The far left retorted
that Popular Unity failed because it was too timid to arm the masses.
Critics of the Christian Democrats chastised them for refusing to
compromise, locking arms with the rightist opposition, and failing to
defend democracy.
Many analysts would concur that there was ample blame to go around.
In the view of many Chileans, groups at all points on the political
spectrum helped destroy the democratic order by being too ideological
and too intransigent. Many observers agree that a minority president
facing adamant domestic and foreign opposition was extremely unlikely to
be able to uphold democracy and create socialism at the same time. In
the late 1980s, polls also showed that most Chileans did not want to try
the Popular Unity experiment again, especially in light of its
aftermath.
Chile - MILITARY RULE, 1973-90
The armed forces justified the coup as necessary to stamp out
Marxism, avert class warfare, restore order, and salvage the economy.
They enshrined the National Security Doctrine, which defined their
primary task as the defeat of domestic enemies who had infiltrated
national institutions, including schools, churches, political parties,
unions, and the media. Although civilians filled prominent economic
posts, military officers took most government positions at the national
and local levels. Immediately on seizing power, the military
junta--composed of the commanders in chief of the army, navy, air force,
and national police--issued a barrage of decrees to restore order on its
own terms.
The first phase of the dictatorship (1973-75) was mainly destructive,
aimed at rapid demobilization, depoliticization, and stabilization. The
armed forces treated the members of the UP as an enemy to be
obliterated, not just as an errant political movement to be booted from
office. The military commanders closed Congress, censored the media,
purged the universities, burned books, declared political parties
outlawed if Marxist or in recess otherwise, and banned union activities.
The worst human rights abuses occurred in the first four years of the
junta, when thousands of civilians were murdered, jailed, tortured,
brutalized, or exiled, especially those linked with the Popular Unity
parties. The secret police, reporting to Pinochet through the National
Intelligence Directorate (Direcci�n Nacional de Inteligencia--DINA),
replaced in 1977 by the National Information Center (Centro Nacional de
Informaci�n--CNI), kept dissidents living in fear of arrest, torture,
murder, or "disappearance."
Throughout the second half of the 1970s, the Roman Catholic Church
and international organizations concerned with human rights denounced
the widespread violations of decency in Chile. Although officially
neutral, the Roman Catholic Church became the primary sanctuary for the
persecuted in Chile from 1975 to 1985 and so came into increasing
conflict with the junta.
The former members of Popular Unity went underground or into exile.
In the early years of the dictatorship, their main goal was simply to
survive. Although the Communists suffered brutal persecution, they
managed to preserve their organization fairly intact. The Socialists
splintered so badly that their party nearly disappeared by the end of
the 1970s. Draconian repression left the Marxists with no capacity to
resist or counterattack. They did, however, manage to rally world
opinion against the regime and keep it diplomatically isolated. By the
end of the 1970s, most Christian Democrats, after initially cooperating
with the junta, had also joined the opposition, although not in any
formal coalition with any coherent strategy for restoring democracy.
Pinochet soon emerged as the dominant figure and very shortly
afterward as president. After a brief flirtation with corporatist ideas,
the government evolved into a one-man dictatorship, with the rest of the
junta acting as a sort of legislature. In 1977 Pinochet dashed the hopes
of those Chileans still dreaming of an early return to democracy when he
announced his intention to institutionalize an authoritarian regime to
preside over a protracted return to civilian rule in a
"protected" democracy.
Pinochet established iron control over the armed forces as well as
the government, although insisting that they were separate entities. He
made himself not only the chief executive of the state but also the
commander in chief of the military. He shuffled commands to ensure that
loyalists controlled all the key posts. He appointed many new generals
and had others retire, so that by the 1980s all active-duty generals
owed their rank to Pinochet. He also improved the pay and benefits of
the services. The isolation of the armed forces from civil society had
been a virtue under the democracy, inhibiting their involvement in
political disputes; now that erstwhile virtue became an impediment to
redemocratization, as the military remained loyal to Pinochet and
resisted politicization by civilians.
Although aid and loans from the United States increased spectacularly
during the first three years of the regime, while presidents Nixon and
Gerald R. Ford were in office, relations soured after Jimmy Carter was
elected president in 1976 on a platform promising vigorous pursuit of
human rights as a major component of his foreign policy. During the
Carter administration, a significant source of contention was the 1976
assassination in Washington of the former Chilean ambassador to the
United States by agents of Pinochet's secret police. The victim, Orlando
Letelier, had served under Allende. In response to United States
criticism, General Pinochet held his first national plebiscite in 1978,
calling for a yes or no vote on his defense of Chile's sovereignty and
the institutionalization of his regime. The government claimed that more
than 75 percent of the voters in the tightly controlled referendum
endorsed Pinochet's rule.
Chile - Neoliberal Economics
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILEAN SOCIETY since the country broke away from
Spain early in the nineteenth century reflects in many ways a
significant incongruity. On the one hand, the nation's political
institutions and many of its social institutions developed much like
their counterparts in the United States and Western Europe. On the other
hand, the economy had a history of insufficient and erratic growth that
left Chile among the less developed nations of the world. Given the
first of these characteristics, Chilean society, culture, and politics
have struck generations of observers from more developed nations as
having what can be described, for want of a better expression, as a
familiar "modernity." Yet this impression always seemed at
odds with the lack of resources at all levels, the highly visible and
extensive urban and rural poverty, and the considerable social
inequalities.
Chile's location on the far southern shores of the Americas' Pacific
coast made international contacts difficult until the great advance in
global air travel and communications of the post-World War II period.
This relative isolation of a people whose main cultural roots lay in the
Iberian-Catholic variant of Western civilization probably had the
paradoxical effect of making Chileans more receptive to outside
influences than would otherwise have been the case. The small numbers of
foreign travelers reaching the country in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries usually found a warm welcome from people eager to
hear of the latest trends in leading nations. The immigrants to the
country were similarly accepted quite readily, and those who were
successful rapidly gained entry into the highest social circles. One
result was a disproportionate number of non-Iberian names among the
Chilean upper classes. Moreover, many Chileans, the wealthy as well as
artists, writers, scientists, and politicians, found it virtually
obligatory to make the long voyage to experience firsthand the major
cities of Europe and the United States, and they rapidly absorbed
whatever new notions were emerging in more advanced nations.
At the same time, Chile's physical isolation probably buttressed the
commitment of the nation's leaders in all walks of life to building
strong national institutions, which then developed their peculiarly
Chilean modalities. For example, the rich could not easily envision
sending their children to universities in Europe or the United States,
and this created a demand that would not otherwise have existed for
strong domestic centers of higher learning. A feeling of pride in these
various institutions soon developed that contributed to Chile's strong
sense of national identity.
This combination of openness to outside influences and commitment to
the nation is undoubtedly related to the relative "modernity"
that has been a feature of Chilean life since independence from Spain.
From the very first national administrations, there was a strong
expression of commitment to expanding the availability of education to
both boys and girls, principally at the primary level. The University of
Chile was established by the national government in 1842 and soon had a
large, centrally located building in Santiago. In a matter of decades,
the University of Chile became one of the most respected institutions of
higher learning in Latin America. Women were admitted to the University
of Chile beginning in 1877, making it a world pioneer coeducational
instruction; by 1932 about a third of the university's enrollment was
female.
In the Americas, Chile was second only to Uruguay in creating
state-run welfare institutions, adopting a relatively comprehensive
social security system in 1924, more than a decade before the United
States. A national health system was created by pooling existing
state-founded institutions into a comprehensive organization in 1952.
Under this program, curative and emergency care were provided free of
charge to workers and poor people; in the early 1960s, preventive care
became available to all infants and mothers.
However, inadequate development of the economy undermined Chile's
relatively modern institutional edifice. The lack of resources often led
to sharp conflicts between different groups trying to obtain larger
pieces of a meager pie. As better placed and politically more
influential groups were able to draw disproportionate benefits for
themselves, inequalities were generated, as was made apparent by the
wide disparities in the pension benefits that were paid by the state-run
system. Despite the government's early commitment to public education,
budgetary limitations meant that illiteracy decreased very slowly. By
1930 about a quarter of the adult population still could not read or
write, a low proportion by Latin American standards but a far cry from
the universal literacy existing at the time in France, Germany, and
Belgium, whose educational systems had served as models for Chilean
public education. Primary school attendance only approached universal
levels in the 1960s, and full adult literacy was not achieved until the
1980s. The lack of educational opportunities limited social mobility,
and investments in new technologies often ran into the difficulty of not
having properly trained workers. The nation's industries, mines, and
farms had at their disposal a large pool of unskilled or semiskilled
workers, and for most jobs the wages, benefits, and working conditions
were generally deplorable. On numerous occasions, worker demands met
with heavy-handed repression, and class divisions became deep fault
lines in Chilean society.
The military government that took over after the bloody coup of 1973
embarked on a different course from that followed by the country's
governments over the previous half-century. Based on economic
neoliberalism, the military regime's primary objectives were to reduce
the size of the state and limit its intervention in national
institutions. Most state-owned industries and the staterun social
security system were privatized, private education at all levels was
encouraged, and labor laws limiting union rights were enacted. Although
new programs enhancing prior efforts to deal with the poorest segments
of the population were successfully put into place, the authoritarian
regime's overall social and economic policies led to increased
inequalities.
At the start of the 1990s, Chile began to recover its democratic
institutions under the elected government of Patricio Aylwin Az�car
(president, 1990-94). Committed to redressing the social inequalities
that had developed under the military regime, the new government
redirected more resources to programs and institutions in education and
health in order to improve their quality and the population's access to
them. Although the Aylwin administration made some changes in these
institutions, there was no attempt to undo the privatization of the
social security system, which was now based on individual capitalization
schemes rather than on the old state-run, pay-as-you-go system.
In 1993 and early 1994, there was a sharp sense of optimism regarding
the Chilean economy. High rates of economic growth were expected to last
through the 1990s. With its newfound economic dynamism, Chile seemed
poised in the early 1990s to begin resolving the long-standing
incongruity of a relatively advanced social and political system
coexisting with a scarcity of means.
Chile - GEOGRAPHY
In a classic book on the natural setting and people of Chile, Benjam�n
Subercaseaux Za�artu, a Chilean writer, describes the country's
geography as loca (crazy). The book's English translator
renders this term as "extravagant." Whether crazy or
extravagant, there is little question that Chile's territorial shape is
certainly among the world's most unusual. From north to south, Chile
extends 4,270 kilometers, and yet it only averages 177 kilometers east
to west. On a map, Chile looks like a long ribbon reaching from the
middle of South America's west coast straight down to the southern tip
of the continent, where it curves slightly eastward. Cape Horn, the
southernmost point in the Americas, where the Pacific and Atlantic
oceans turbulently meet, is Chilean territory. Chile's northern
neighbors are Peru and Bolivia, and its border with Argentina to the
east, at 5,150 kilometers, is one of the world's longest.
Chile's shape was determined by the fact that it began as a Spanish
settlement on the western side of the mighty cordillera of the Andes, in
the central part of the country. This range, which includes the two
tallest peaks in the Americas--Aconcagua (6,959 meters) and Nevado Ojos
del Salado (6,880 meters)--is a formidable barrier, whose passes to the
Argentine side are covered by a heavy blanket of snow during the winter
months. As a result, Chile could expand beyond its original colonial
territory only to the south and north. The colony grew southward by
occupying lands populated by indigenous groups, and it grew northward by
occupying sections of both Peru and Bolivia that were eventually awarded
to Chile in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific (1879-83).
The northern two-thirds of Chile lie on top of the telluric Nazca
Plate, which, moving eastward about ten centimeters a year, is forcing
its way under the continental plate of South America. This movement has
resulted in the formation of the Peru-Chile Trench, which lies beyond a
narrow band of coastal waters off the northern two-thirds of the
country. The trench is about 150 kilometers wide and averages about
5,000 meters in depth. At its deepest point, just north of the port of
Antofagasta, it plunges to 8,066 meters. Although the ocean's surface
obscures this fact, most of Chile lies at the edge of a profound
precipice.
The same telluric displacements that created the Peru-Chile Trench
make the country highly prone to earthquakes. During the twentieth
century, Chile has been struck by twenty-eight major earthquakes, all
with a force greater than 6.9 on the Richter scale. The strongest of
these occurred in 1906 (registering an estimated 8.4 on the Richter
scale) and in 1960 (reaching 8.75). This latter earthquake occurred on
May 22, the day after another major quake measuring 7.25 on the Richter
scale, and covered an extensive section of south-central Chile. It
caused a tidal wave that decimated several fishing villages in the south
and raised or lowered sections of the coast as much as two meters. The
clash between the earth's surface plates has also generated the Andes, a
geologically young mountain range that, in Chilean territory alone,
includes about 620 volcanoes, many of them active. Almost sixty of these
had erupted in the twentieth century by the early 1990s. More than half
of Chile's land surface is volcanic in origin.
About 80 percent of the land in Chile is made up of mountains of some
form or other. Most Chileans live near or on these mountains. The
majestically snowcapped Andes and their precordillera elevations provide
an ever-present backdrop to much of the scenery, but there are other,
albeit less formidable, mountains as well. Although they seemingly can
appear anywhere, the non-Andean mountains usually form part of
transverse and coastal ranges. The former, located most
characteristically in the near north and the far north natural regions,
extend with various shapes from the Andes to the ocean, creating valleys
with an east-west direction. The latter are evident mainly in the center
of the country and create what is commonly called the Central Valley
(Valle Central) between them and the Andes. In the far south, the
Central Valley runs into the ocean's waters. At this location, the
higher elevations of the coastal range facing the Andes become a
multiplicity of islands, forming an intricate labyrinth of channels and
fjords that have been an enduring challenge to maritime navigators.
Much of Chile's coastline is rugged, with surf that seems to explode
against the rocks lying at the feet of high bluffs. This collision of
land and sea gives way every so often to lovely beaches of various
lengths, some of them encased by the bluffs. The Humboldt current, which
originates northwest of the Antarctic Peninsula (which just into the
Bellingshausen Sea) and runs the full length of the Chilean coast, makes
the water frigid. Swimming at Chile's popular beaches in the central
part of the country, where the water gets no warmer than 15� C in the
summer, requires more than a bit of fortitude.
Chilean territory extends as far west as Polynesia. The best known of
Chile's Pacific Islands is Easter Island (Isla de Pascua, also known by
its Polynesian name of Rapa Nui), with a population of 2,800 people.
Located 3,600 kilometers west of Chile's mainland port of Caldera, just
below the Tropic of Capricorn, Easter Island provides Chile a gateway to
the Pacific. It is noted for its 867 monoliths (Moais), which are huge
(up to twenty meters high) and mysterious, expressionless faces sculpted
of volcanic stone. The Islas Juan Fern�ndez, located 587 kilometers
west of Valpara�so, are the locale of a small fishing settlement. They
are famous for their lobster and the fact that one of the islands, Isla
Robinson Crusoe, is where Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Daniel
Defoe's novel, was marooned for about four years.
<>Natural Regions
Chile may have a "crazy" geography, but it is also a land
of unparalleled beauty, with an incredible variety that has fascinated
visitors since the Spanish conquest. Because Chile extends from a point
about 625 kilometers north of the Tropic of Capricorn to a point hardly
more than 1,400 kilometers north of the Antarctic Circle, within its
territory can be found a broad selection of the earth's climates. For
this reason, geographically it is possible to speak of several Chiles.
The country usually is divided by geographers into five regions: the far
north, the near north, central Chile, the south, and the far south. Each
has its own characteristic vegetation, fauna, climate, and, despite the
omnipresence of both the Andes and the Pacific, its own distinct
topography.
The Far North
The far north (Norte Grande), which extends from the Peruvian border
to about 27� south latitude, a line roughly paralleled by the R�o
Copiap�, is extremely arid. It contains the Atacama Desert, one of the
driest areas in the world; in certain sections, this desert does not
register any rainfall at all. Average monthly temperatures range at sea
level between about 20.5� C during the summer and about 14� C during
the winter. Most of the population lives in the coastal area, where the
temperatures are more moderate and the humidity higher. Contrary to the
image of monochrome barrenness that most people associate with deserts,
the landscape is spectacular, with its crisscrossing hills and mountains
of all shapes and sizes, each with a unique color and hue depending on
its mineral composition, its distance from the observer, and the time of
day.
In the far north, the land generally rises vertically from the ocean,
sometimes to elevations well over 1,000 meters. The Cordillera Domeyko
in the north runs along the coast parallel to the Andes. This topography
generates coastal microclimates because the fog that frequently forms
over the cold ocean waters, as well as any low clouds, is trapped by the
high bluffs. This airborne moisture condenses in the spines and leaves
of the vegetation, droplets that fall to the ground and irrigate the
plants' roots. Beyond the coastal bluffs, there is an area of rolling
hills that encompasses the driest desert land; this area ends to the
east with the Andes towering over it. The edges of the desert in some
sections have subterranean aquifers that have permitted the development
of forests made up mainly of tamarugos, spiny trees native to
the area that grow to a height of about twenty-five meters. Most of
those forests were cut down to fuel the fires of the many foundries
established since colonial times to exploit the abundant deposits of
copper, silver, and nitrate found in the area. The result was the
creation of even drier surface conditions.
The far north is the only part of the country in which there is a
large section of the Andean (plateau). The area receives considerable
rainfall during the summer months in what is commonly known as the
"Bolivian winter," forming shallow lakes of mostly saline
waters that are home to a number of bird species, including the Chilean
flamingo. Some of the water from the plateau trickles down the Andes in
the form of narrow rivers, many of which form oases before being lost to
evaporation or absorption into the desert sands, salt beds, and
aquifers. However, some rivers do manage to reach into the Pacific,
including the R�o Loa, whose U-shaped course across the desert makes it
Chile's longest river. The water rights for one of the rivers, the R�o
Lauca, remain a source of dispute between Bolivia and Chile. These
narrow rivers have carved fertile valleys in which an exuberant
vegetation creates a stark contrast to the bone-dry hills. In such
areas, roads usually are built half way up the arid elevations in order
to maximize the intensive agricultural use of the irrigated land. They
offer spectacular panoramic vistas, along with the harrowing experience
of driving along the edges of cliffs.
In the far north, the kinds of fruits that grow well in the arid
tropics thrive, and all kinds of vegetables can be grown year-round.
However, the region's main economic foundation is its great mineral
wealth. For instance, Chuquicamata, the world's largest open-pit copper
mine, is located in the far north. Since the early 1970s, the fishing
industry has also developed enormously in the main ports of the area,
most notably Iquique and Antofagasta.
The Near North
The near north (Norte Chico) extends from the R�o Copiap� to about
32� south latitude, or just north of Santiago. It is a semiarid region
whose central area receives an average of about twenty-five millimeters
of rain during each of the four winter months, with trace amounts the
rest of the year. The near north is also subject to droughts. The
temperatures are moderate, with an average of 18.5� C during the summer
and about 12� C during the winter at sea level. The winter rains and
the melting of the snow that accumulates on the Andes produce rivers
whose flow varies with the seasons, but which carry water year round.
Their deep transverse valleys provide broad areas for cattle raising
and, most important, fruit growing, an activity that has developed
greatly since the mid-1970s.
As in the for north, the coastal areas of the near north have a
distinct microclimate. In those sections where the airborne moisture of
the sea is trapped by high bluffs overlooking the ocean, temperate rain
forests develop as the vegetation precipitates the vapor in the form of
a misty rain. Because the river valleys provide breaks in the coastal
elevations, maritime moisture can penetrate inland and further decrease
the generally arid climate in those valleys. The higher elevations in
the interior sections are covered with shrubs and cacti of various
kinds.
Central Chile
Central Chile (Chile Central), home to a majority of the population,
includes the three largest metropolitan areas-- Santiago, Valpara�so,
and Concepci�n. It extends from about 32� south latitude to about 38�
south latitude. The climate is of the temperate Mediterranean type, with
the amount of rainfall increasing considerably and progressively from
north to south. In the Santiago area, the average monthly temperatures
are about 19.5� C in the summer months of January and February and 7.5�
C in the winter months of June and July. The average monthly
precipitation is no more than a trace in January and February and 69.7
millimeters in June and July. By contrast, in Concepci�n the average
monthly temperatures are somewhat lower in the summer at 17.6� C but
higher in the winter at 9.3� C, and the amount of rain is much greater.
In the summer, Concepci�n receives an average of twenty millimeters of
rain per month; in June and July, the city is pounded by an average of
253 millimeters per month. The numerous rivers greatly increase their
flow as a result of the winter rains and the spring melting of the
Andean snows, and they contract considerably in the summer. The
combination of abundant snow in the Andes and relatively moderate winter
temperatures creates excellent conditions for Alpine skiing.
The topography of central Chile includes a coastal range of mountains
running parallel to the Andes. Lying between the two mountain ranges is
the so-called Central Valley, which contains some of the richest
agricultural land in the country, especially in its northern portion.
The area just north and south of Santiago is a large producer of fruits,
including the grapes from which the best Chilean wines are made. Exports
of fresh fruit began to rise dramatically in the mid-1970s because
Chilean growers had the advantage of being able to reach markets in the
Northern Hemisphere during that part of the world's winter. Most of
these exports, such as grapes, apples, and peaches, go by refrigerator
ships, but some, such as berries, go by air freight.
The southern portion of central Chile contains a mixture of some
excellent agricultural lands, many of which were covered originally with
old-growth forests. They were cleared for agriculture but were soon
exhausted of their organic matter and left to erode. Large tracts of
this worn-out land, many of them on hilly terrain, have been reforested
for the lumber, especially for the cellulose and paper industries. New
investments during the 1980s in these industries transformed the rural
economy of the region. The pre-Andean highlands and some of the taller
and more massive mountains in the coastal range (principally the
Cordillera de Nahuelbuta) still contain large tracts of old-growth
forests of remarkable beauty, some of which have been set aside as
national parks. Between the coastal mountains and the ocean, many areas
of central Chile contain stretches of land that are lower than the
Central Valley and are generally quite flat. The longest beaches can be
found in such sections.
The South
Although many lovely lakes can be found in the Andean and coastal
regions of central Chile, the south (Sur de Chile) is definitely the
country's most lacustrine area. Southern Chile stretches from below the
R�o B�o-B�o at about 38� south latitude to below Isla de Chilo� at
about 43.4� south latitude. In this lake district of Chile, the valley
between the Andes and the coastal range is closer to sea level, and the
hundreds of rivers that descend from the Andes form lakes, some quite
large, as they reach the lower elevations. They drain into the ocean
through other rivers, some of which (principally the R�o Calle Calle,
which flows by the city of Valdivia) are the only ones in the whole
country that are navigable for any stretch. The Central Valley's
southernmost portion is submerged in the ocean and forms the Golfo de
Ancud. Isla de Chilo�, with its rolling hills, is the last important
elevation of the coastal range of mountains.
The south is one of the rainiest areas in the world. One of the
wettest spots in the region is Valdivia, with an annual rainfall of
2,535.4 millimeters. The summer months of January and February are the
driest, with a monthly average precipitation of sixty-seven millimeters.
The winter months of June and July each produce on average a deluge of
410.6 millimeters. Temperatures in the area are moderate. In Valdivia,
the two summer months average 16.7� C, whereas the winter months
average 7.9� C.
The lakes in this region are remarkably beautiful. The snowcovered
Andes form a constant backdrop to vistas of clear blue or even turquoise
waters, as at Lago Todos los Santos. The rivers that descend from the
Andes rush over volcanic rocks, forming numerous white-water sections
and waterfalls. The vegetation, including many ferns in the shady areas,
is a lush green. Some sections still consist of old-growth forests, and
in all seasons, but especially in the spring and summer, there are
plenty of wildflowers and flowering trees. The pastures in the
northernmost section, around Osorno, are well suited for raising cattle;
milk, cheese, and butter are important products of that area. All kinds
of berries grow in the area, some of which are exported, and freshwater
farming of various species of trout and salmon has developed, with
cultivators taking advantage of the abundant supply of clear running
water. The lumber industry is also important. A number of tourists,
mainly Chileans and Argentines, visit the area during the summer.
Many of Chile's distinctive animal species have been decimated as
they have been pushed farther and farther into the remaining wilderness
areas by human occupation of the land. This is the case with the huemul,
a large deer, and the Chilean condor, the largest bird of its kind; both
animals are on the national coat of arms. The remaining Chilean pumas,
which are bigger than their California cousins, have been driven to
isolated national parks in the south by farmers who continue to hunt
them because they occasionally kill sheep and goats.
The Far South
In the far south (Chile Austral), which extends from between 43�
south latitude and 44� south latitude to Cape Horn, the Andes and the
South Pacific meet. The continental coastline features numerous inlets
and fjords, from which the mountains seem to rise straight up to great
elevations; this is, for example, the case with the Cerro Mac� (2,960
meters) near Puerto Ais�n. The rest of the land consists of literally
thousands of islands forming numerous archipelagos interwoven with
sometimes-narrow channels, which provide the main routes of navigation.
In the northern part of the far south, there is still plenty of
rainfall. For instance, Puerto Ais�n, at 45�24' south latitude,
receives 2,973.3 millimeters of rain per year. However, unlike in
Valdivia, the rain falls more or less evenly throughout the year in
Puerto Ais�n. The summer months average 206.1 millimeters, whereas the
winter months average 300 millimeters. The temperatures at sea level in
Puerto Ais�n average 13.6� C in the summer months and 4.7� C in the
winter months. Although the area generally is chilly and wet, the
combination of channels, fjords, snowcapped mountains, and islands of
all shapes and sizes within such a narrow space makes for breathtaking
views. The area is still heavily forested, although some of the native
species of trees that grow in the central and southern parts of the
country have given way to others better adapted to a generally colder
climate.
The southern part of the far south includes the city of Punta Arenas,
which, with about 125,000 inhabitants, is the southernmost city of any
appreciable size in the world. It receives much less precipitation; its
annual total is only 438.5 millimeters, or a little more than what
Valdivia receives in the month of June alone. This precipitation is
distributed more or less evenly throughout the year, with the two main
summer months receiving a monthly average of thirty-one millimeters and
the winter months 38.9 millimeters, some of it in the form of snow.
Temperatures are colder than in the rest of the country. The summer
months average 11.1� C, and the winter months average 2.5� C. The
virtually constant wind from the South Pacific Ocean makes the air feel
much colder.
The far south contains large expanses of pastures that are best
suited for raising sheep. The area's other main economic activity is oil
and natural gas extraction from the areas around the Strait of Magellan.
This strait is one of the world's important sea-lanes because it unites
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through a channel that avoids the rough
open waters off Cape Horn. The channel is perilous, however, and Chilean
pilots guide all vessels through it.
More about the <>Geography
of Chile
.
To a traveler arriving in Santiago from Lima, Chileans will in
general seem more Latin European-looking than Peruvians. By contrast, to
a visitor arriving from Buenos Aires, certain native American features
will seem apparent in large numbers of Chileans in contrast to
Argentines. These differing perspectives can be explained by tracing the
distinctive historical roots of the Chilean people.
The Spaniards who settled in the pleasant Central Valley of what is
now Chile beginning in the late sixteenth century found no rich lodes of
gold or silver to exploit, and therefore saw no need for employing
masses of indigenous forced laborers such as those who were put to work
in the Andean highlands and in the mines of Mexico. Although copper
mining became an important part of the late colonial economy, even the
most successful of operations employed no more than a few salaried
workers. Settlers took to developing the agricultural potential of the
land, which, given Chile's climate, was well suited for growing the
crops they knew from the Old World. This seasonal form of farming was
different from that practiced in semitropical plantations in that it
required few workers except during the harvest. As a result, the Spanish
settlers in Chile did not seek to force large numbers of native
Americans to toil for them, and they had little use for slaves.
Relatively few enslaved Africans were brought into Chile and slavery was
abolished soon after the country declared its independence from Spain in
1818.
The Spaniards encountered fierce resistance to their occupation
efforts from one of the main indigenous groups, the Araucanians, who
lived in the south-central part of the country. The settlers managed to
take control of the land down to the R�o B�o-B�o and to establish
strongholds farther south, but throughout the colonial period the area
that is now Chile consisted of two distinct nations: one a poor outpost
of the Spanish Empire and the other an independent territory, Arauco,
occupied by the Araucanians, whose territory consisted of most of
south-central Chile between the R�o B�o-B�o and the coastal areas
around Temuco. By the end of the colonial period, the Araucanian
territories had been reduced, but they had not been fully incorporated
into Spanish rule. The indigenous wars lasted for more than three
centuries, with a final skirmish in 1882.
Although warfare and the diseases brought by the Spaniards decimated
the native population, Spain found it necessary to keep sending soldiers
to protect its distant colony. They came from all regions of Spain,
including the Basque country, and many of them ended up settling in
Chile. The combination of an economy based on temperate-zone
agriculture, native American resistance to Spanish occupation, and a
continuous influx of Spaniards from the midsixteenth century to the end
of the colonial period defined the main body of the Chilean
population--a mixture of native American and Spanish blood, but one in
which the Spanish element is greater than in the other Andean mestizo
populations.
During the nineteenth century, the newly independent government
sought to stimulate European immigration. Beginning in 1845, it had some
success in attracting primarily German migrants to the Chilean south,
principally to the lake district. For this reason, that area of the
country still shows a German influence in its architecture and cuisine,
and German (peppered with archaic expressions and intonations) is still
spoken by some descendants of these migrants. People from England and
Scotland also came to Chile, and some established export-import
businesses of the kind that the Spanish crown previously had kept at
bay. Other European immigrants, especially northern Italians, French,
Swiss, and Croats, came at the end of the nineteenth century. More
Spaniards and Italians, East European Jews, and mainly Christian
Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians came in the decades before World War
II. Many of these immigrants became prominent entrepreneurs or
professionals, and their numbers never exceeded 10 percent of the total
population at any given time. Thus, in contrast to Argentina, whose
population was transformed around the turn of the century by numerous
European immigrants, especially Italians, the Chilean population
continued to be defined by the original Spanish and native American
mixture. Acculturation was fairly rapid for all immigrant groups.
Because second-generation residents saw themselves primarily as
Chileans, ethnic identities had little impact on national society.
Chileans of all color gradations between the fair northern European
and the darker native American complexion can be found, although most
have brown hair or dark brown hair and brown eyes. There have been no
really salient racial distinctions affecting daily life and politics in
Chile, but there is unquestionably a strong correlation between high
socioeconomic status and light skin.
The social definition of who is a native has not depended so much on
phenotypical characteristics as on cultural ones. This means that
Chileans generally have considered someone to be a native only if, in
addition to native American features, he or she has an indigenous last
name, wears native clothing, speak a native language, or resides in a
native community. Consequently, the native Americans who wish to
assimilate fully into Chilean society often take Spanish surnames after
moving out of reservations.
The term Mapuche ("people of the land") now encompasses
most of the native Chilean groups. The number of Mapuche residing on the
reservations that were set up beginning in the late 1880s has declined
in recent years. About 300,000 were counted as living in the
reservations by the 1982 census. The 1992 census asked respondents to
identify themselves ethnically as Mapuche, Aymara (the native population
of northern Chile whose main trunk lies in Bolivia), Rapa Nui (the
Polynesian group that lives in or originates from Easter Island), and
other. The results showed that 9.6 percent of the population over age
fourteen self-identified as Mapuche, 0.5 percent as Aymara, and less
than 0.25 percent as Rapa Nui. This means that about 1.3 million
Chileans are native Americans, mainly Mapuche, or the descendants of one
of the fourteen or so different tribal groups that occupied what is now
Chile before the Spanish conquest.
Although indigenous culture was most strongly retained on the
reservations, penetration by Chilean national culture was also
extensive. For example, research on a sample of Mapuche living on four
reservations in the south showed that only 8.5 percent of them were
monolingual Mapuche (sometimes call Mapudungu) speakers; 50.7 percent
lived in homes where both Spanish and Mapuche were spoken, and 40.8
percent lived in homes where only Spanish was spoken. This situation was
largely a result of the extension of primary rural education. Of all
Mapuche over fifteen years of age living on the same reservations that
were studied, 81 percent had gone to school for at least one year (85.5
percent of the men and 76.2 percent of the women). Significant
differences in schooling by age among the Mapuche reveal how wide the
reach of rural education has been in recent years. In the sampled
reservation communities, the literacy rate was 81.2 percent for all
residents over five years of age, and yet the rate was more than 96.2
percent for the age-group between ages ten and thirty-four. The
acquisition of language and literacy skills is, of course, a principal
means of acculturation.
With the partial exception of the indigenous groups, the Chilean
population perceives itself as essentially homogeneous. Despite the
configuration of the national territory, regional differences and
sentiments are remarkably muted. Even the Spanish accent of Chileans
varies only very slightly from north to south; more noticeable are the
small differences in accent based on social class or whether one lives
in the city or the country. The fact that the Chilean population
essentially was formed in a relatively small section of the center of
the country and then migrated in modest numbers to the north and south
helps explain this relative lack of differentiation, which is now
maintained by the national reach of radio and especially of television.
The media diffuse and homogenize colloquial expressions.
<>Demographic Profile
For recent population estimates, see <"http://worldfacts.us/Chile..html">Updated population figures for Chile.
Despite being continually populated for more than four centuries,
Chilean cities have--unlike Lima or Cartagena, for instance--few
architectural monuments from the past. This is explained in part by the
poverty of the country in colonial times but also by the devastating
action of the frequent earthquakes. Following the usual Spanish colonial
practice, Chilean cities were planned with a central plaza surrounded by
a grid of streets forming square blocks. The plazas invariably were the
site of both municipal or regional government buildings and churches.
Communications between urban centers were facilitated during the
colonial period by the relative proximity to the ocean of even the most
Andean of locations. Except for cities in the Central Valley, between
Santiago and Chill�n, ocean transportation and shipping were vital to
the north-south movement of people and goods until the building of
railroads from the second half of the nineteenth century until the first
decades of the twentieth century. Even then, the railroads only served
the central and southern parts of the country to Puerto Montt, leaving
sea-lanes as the main links to the extreme north and south.
The most significant feature of the development of urban centers in
Chile has been the imbalance represented by the growth of Santiago,
which has far exceeded that of other cities. According to the 1992
census figures, the Metropolitan Region of Santiago had about 5,170,300
inhabitants, a total equal to about 39 percent of the Chilean
population. In 1865, with a population of about 115,400, Santiago was
the residence of only 6.3 percent of the nation's inhabitants. From
about 1885 onward, the capital city grew at a rate between about 30
percent and 50 percent every ten to twelve years. The 1992 census figure showed a slight moderation of
this pace, which was, nonetheless, at 3.3 percent per year significantly
higher than the average national population increase.
Santiago's population growth occurred mainly as a result of migration
from rural areas and provincial urban centers. Almost 30 percent of the
population of the capital in 1970 was born in areas of Chile other than
Santiago, a percentage that has probably not changed much since. The
only other areas of the country that have greatly increased their
population in recent years are the extreme south and the extreme north.
This growth has resulted from internal migration prompted by economic
expansion associated with fishing and mining. However, given the much
smaller populations in those areas to begin with, the fact that between
30 percent and 40 percent of their inhabitants were born elsewhere does
not signify much in terms of the absolute numbers of people migrating.
Santiago is not only the seat of the national government (except for
the National Congress, hereafter Congress, now located in Valpara�so)
but also the nation's main financial and commercial center, the most
important location for educational, cultural, and scientific
institutions, and the leading city for manufacturing in terms of the
total volume of production. Although sprawling Santiago has continued to
absorb formerly prime agricultural areas, there are sections of town
where wineries still cultivate grapes.
Historically, Santiago has been the main area of residence for the
nation's wealthiest citizens, even for those with property elsewhere in
the country. Unlike other Chilean cities, Santiago has always had an
extensive upper- and upper-middle class residential area. Originally
near the main plaza in the center of town, this area developed toward
the south and west at the end of the nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth century. Although neighborhoods in these
areas retained some samples of the architecture of that period, by the
1990s they were occupied mainly by lower-middle-class residents.
Beginning in the 1930s, Santiago's upper-class residents moved east of
the center of town, toward the Andes. This transition was accompanied by
an increase in the commercial use of downtown as larger and larger
buildings were constructed and the public transportation system was
enhanced. As use of the automobile became more common, the upper-class
and upper-middle-class residential areas expanded farther up the
foothills of the Andes. This process of suburbanization, complete with
shopping malls and supermarkets with large parking lots, also has led to
the development of new and faster roads to the center of the city and to
the principal airport. New bus lines also were established to serve the
suburbs. All of this increased motor- vehicle traffic in the Santiago
Valley, whose surrounding mountains trap particulate matter, generating
levels of air pollution that are among the worst in the world. In the
early 1990s, emergency restrictions on the use of motor vehicles have
become a routine feature of the city's life during all but the summer
months, when there is more wind and the thermal inversion that traps the
dirty air in the colder months no longer prevents its venting.
The large number of people migrating to Santiago and, to a lesser
extent, to other major cities, led to a severe shortage of housing,
especially of affordable housing for low-income people. Estimates in
1990 were that the nation as a whole needed a million more housing units
to accommodate all those living in crowded conditions with relatives or
friends, those with housing in poor condition, or those living in
emergency housing. Since the 1960s, extensive portions of the Santiago
area, especially to the south, east, and north of the center, had been
occupied by people who built precarious makeshift housing on lots that
were often used illegally. As these areas aged, the municipal
authorities extended city services to them and tried to redesign, where
need be, their haphazard layout. Moreover, many people--about 28,000
between 1979 and 1984--were moved out of illegal settlements by the
authorities and into low-income housing. The result was a further
expansion of urbanization and an increase in the distances that people
had to travel to work, look for work, or attend school. Nonetheless, by
1990 virtually all of the poorer areas of Santiago had access to
electricity, running water, refuse collection, and sewerage. In fact,
the country's urban population as a whole had good access to city
services. By 1987, 98 percent of the population in towns and cities had
running water (the great majority in their homes), 98 percent had
garbage collection, and 79 percent had sewer connections.
The segregation within Chilean cities by income level has made
residential areas very different from one another. In Santiago, where
the differences are more sharply drawn than elsewhere, some
neighborhoods are worlds apart. The upper-class areas in the eastern
foothills of the Andes offer comfortable houses with neat, fenced-in
gardens, or spacious apartments in sometimes attractively designed
buildings, all on tree-lined streets. Restaurants, supermarkets,
shopping malls, boutiques, bookstores, cinemas, and theaters add to the
appeal of what is a very comfortable urban life. The area is well
connected by public transportation, including the major east-west line
of an excellent subway and its feeder buses. The best hospitals and
clinics are within easy reach, as are the best private schools.
The poor areas of the city are not as well served. There are few
supermarkets, and the usually poorly stocked corner groceries often sell
their goods at higher prices. Some streets are not paved, and this,
together with the lack of grass cover in the open spaces, creates dusty
conditions during much of the year. Trees have been planted extensively
in Santiago's poorer areas since the 1960s, but many streets are still
devoid of them. Getting to the city center and to clinics and hospitals
is more difficult for residents of the poorer areas. However, access to
preprimary schooling and to sport facilities, especially to soccer
fields, has expanded significantly since the early 1970s. Except for
some very plain-looking buildings with apartments for low-income
families, most housing consists of one floor. The poorest houses are
made of a variety of materials, including pine boards and cardboard.
Houses are generally built with brick and poured-concrete braces, and
most poor people eventually try to build with such materials as well. As
communities begun by land-squatters have become more settled, it has
been possible to see the gradual transformation of squatter
construction.
However, in part because of this pattern, Chile had a large
proportion of homeowners. About 60 percent of housing units were owned
by their occupants. As the housing developments aged and many of the
original occupants sold their houses and moved elsewhere, the
developments became more socially heterogeneous. People also began to
modify and remodel their houses; and new corner groceries, hairstyling
salons, tailor shops, schools, churches, and other establishments
emerged, giving the developments a more settled, urban look.
Because of a lack of jobs in the formal economy, many people need to
make a living selling odds and ends on the streets. These people have
not been counted as unemployed in official statistics because they are
engaged in income-producing activities. During the military regime, the
authorities attempted to organize this form of commerce by licensing
stalls on the sidewalks of designated streets and by prohibiting sales
elsewhere. However, there was greater demand for such stalls than there
were available spaces, and they could not be erected in the most
important commercial streets. Hence, many people defied the regulations
and attempted to sell their goods where these activities were
prohibited, risking confiscation of their wares by the police. The
Aylwin government continued the policy in slightly modified form.
Although mining, banking, and industry have been the source of the
greatest Chilean fortunes since the early nineteenth century, rural
society has occupied a much more central place in the nation's history.
Until the 1930s, most of the population lived in rural areas, and most
upper-class families, whatever the origin of their wealth, owned rural
land.
Until recently, large landholdings ( latifundios) were a
characteristic feature of rural society. The latifundia pattern
of landownership originated in the Spanish crown's early colonial
practice of giving land grants, some of them huge, to soldiers involved
in the conquest and to the Roman Catholic Church. By the late eighteenth
century, the most important lands of the Central Valley were held in
large haciendas by families with noble titles that were all inherited by
the elder son under the mayorazgo system. All such titles were
abolished with Chile's adoption of a republican form of government after
independence, and new laws of inheritance eventually ended the practice
of primogeniture. This led to the creation of a market for rural
properties and to their division as they were inherited by family
members. However, by the midtwentieth century land transfers and
divisions still had not put an end to ownership of large properties.
The typical large landholding was a complex minisociety. Some of its
laborers lived on the estate year-round, and they or their family
members worked as needed in exchange for the right to cultivate a
portion of the land for themselves and to graze their animals in
specified fields. Among the rural poor, their families enjoyed better
living conditions. Other workers, a majority in times of strong demand
for labor, especially during the harvest, lived in rural towns and
villages or on small properties they held independently (whether legally
or not) at the edges of the large farms. These holdings were usually
insufficient to maintain a family adequately, and its members therefore
would seek employment in the large rural enterprises. When needed, other
rural workers were recruited from among migrants who would come during
the summer from other parts of the country. The large rural enterprises
included stores where people could buy a variety of goods, chapels where
priests would say mass, and dispensaries for primary medical attention.
In addition to the sometimes ornate houses of the proprietors, which
generally were occupied only during the summer months, there were houses
for the administrators, mechanics, accountants, enologists (if wine was
produced), blacksmiths, and others who constituted the professional and
skilled labor forces of the enterprise.
Beginning in the 1950s, the large rural properties became the target
of heightened criticism by reformist politicians and economists. They
noted that the uneven distribution of land contributed to social
inequality and that the large landholdings were highly inefficient
agricultural producers. During the governments of presidents Eduardo
Frei Montalva (1964-70), who established a reformed sector, and Salvador
Allende Gossens (1970-73), an extensive land reform program was carried
out. It basically did away with the large rural properties on prime
agricultural (nonforested) lands. Thus, whereas in 1965 fully 55 percent
of all agricultural lands (measured as basic irrigated hectares--BIH)
were held in 4,876 properties of more than eighty hectares each, by 1973
there were only 260 such properties left, covering only 2.7 percent of
all BIH. The expropriations covered 40 percent of all the nation's BIH.
The military government put an end to the agrarian reform program, as
well as to the technical assistance given to the beneficiaries of the
expropriations. It also returned to previous owners some of the land
that had not yet been formally transferred. In addition, it distributed
individual titles among residents of the peasant communities sponsored
by the Allende government's agrarian reform program. Moreover, the
military government permitted the sale of any rural property, including
the small family farms created by the agrarian reform. This policy led
to new changes in land tenancy, which did not, however, reconstitute the
large landholdings to the same extent as before the agrarian reform.
Instead, it favored an expansion of medium-sized holdings. After all the
changes, very small holdings of less than five hectares still accounted
for about 10 percent of agricultural area. The largest holdings, of more
than eighty hectares, were far from restored to their prior importance,
at only 18 percent of the total area. If a primary purpose of the
agrarian reform had been to create a better distribution of the
agricultural land, after much turmoil and change the data indicate that
this had been achieved.
The remarkable transformations in land tenancy that started in the
mid-1960s were accompanied by other great changes in agriculture. These
led to much more intensive land use, with the accelerated incorporation
of modern technologies. Labor-service tenancy and share-cropping
arrangements as a source of agricultural labor have disappeared from
commercial farming, substituted by wage-earning workers living mainly in
towns or small rural properties. The number of self-employed workers in
agriculture has also increased with the land tenancy changes.
The rural network of mainly dirt roads was expanded to permit access
to new farms and logging areas. Concurrently, small-town entrepreneurs
were quick to respond to new opportunities by establishing bus routes
along these expanded roads, thereby facilitating the rural population's
access to schools and sources of employment. By the 1980s, the peasantry
was for the first time overwhelmingly literate, with attendance at
primary schools by its children virtually universal.
Chile.
With a lower rate of population growth, Chile's working- age
population, which includes all those individuals more than fifteen and
less than sixty-five years of age, represented 64 percent of the total
population in 1992. The laborforce participation rate, or the ratio of
those in the labor force over the working-age population, was 59 percent
in August 1993; of the total population, 37 percent were employed or
were seeking a job. Participation rates typically differ by age and
gender. The young participate in smaller proportions and join the labor
force as they leave the education system. Women have traditionally
participated at lower rates also. The participation rate for men was
estimated at 76 percent and that for women at 32 percent in 1992. These
figures had increased since the early 1980s because of the relative
aging of the overall population and a proportionately greater entry of
women into the labor force. In the 1980-85 period, 74 percent of men and
26 percent of women over fifteen years of age had been active in the
work force.
The rate of unemployment declined steadily throughout the 1987- 91
period. The overall rate of growth in employment for the 1987-91 period
was 3 percent per year. The rate was higher from 1987 to 1989 (5
percent), the period of fast recovery after the economic crisis of
1982-83. The most dynamic sectors during the 1987-89 period were
construction and manufacturing, with average rates of employment growth
of 20 percent and 11 percent per year, respectively. Employment creation
increased by 5 percent again in 1992, and by the end of the year
unemployment stood at 4.4 percent. A greater than expected increase in
the size of the labor force, mainly from women seeking employment, led
to a slight increase in unemployment to 4.9 percent by late 1993.
The largest single component of the Chilean employment structure was
services, a category that includes health workers, teachers, and
government and domestic employees. Next was trade and financial
services, including the real estate, banking, and insurance industries.
Together with transportation and communications, these categories of the
services sector of the economy employed 55.6 percent of the labor force.
The most important of the productive activities in terms of employment
was agriculture, forestry, and fishing, which employed 19.2 percent of
the labor force. If mining is included, this means that 21.5 percent of
the labor force was employed in what is typically considered the
economy's primary sector. The manufacturing sector employed 16 percent
of the labor force, roughly the same percentage as in the mid-1960s;
manufacturing's share had declined to about 12 percent during the
economic crisis of 1982-83. Employment in what is often considered the
secondary sector of the economy amounted to 23 percent, if the
percentages engaged in construction and in electricity, gas, and water
were added to that in manufacturing.
In 1991 incomes had also almost recovered, for the first time in
twenty years, to their 1970 average levels. During 1990 and the first
months of 1991, workers' wages increased more rapidly than the national
average. This probably resulted in some measure from the return to
democracy that had enabled workers to exercise their rights more freely
and from labor market conditions closer to full employment. Real incomes
continued to rise during 1992 and 1993, reaching levels that surpassed
the previous, but then unsustainable, peak established in 1971.
Nonetheless, the monthly wages of Chileans are, when expressed in
dollars, much lower than incomes in the United States. According to
these figures, which probably understate high incomes and overstate
lower ones, an unskilled worker made less than one-tenth the amount an
executive-Qoran administrator-director made. The purchasing power of
these incomes for daily necessities was, however, higher than their
dollardenominated equivalents suggest.
During the military government, unemployment rose well above its
historical levels for the Chilean economy. There were two distinct
shocks to the labor market. The first one took place around 1975 and can
be related to the recessionary conditions created by anti-inflationary
policies and to employment reduction in the public sector. The
adjustment that followed was very slow. The second shock took place with
the financial and economic crisis of 1982-83 and affected private-sector
employment. From 1979 to 1981, the economy had entered into a recovery
increasingly oriented toward production of nontradable goods, a pattern
that was not sustainable given the speed at which international debt was
being accumulated. In response to the devaluation of the Chilean peso in
1982 and the macroeconomic management that followed, the economy shifted
gears and reoriented production to tradable goods and services. In 1982
the unemployment rate for the country climbed to 19.4 percent, or 26.4
percent if those participating in state-financed makeshift work programs
are included. Yet the adjustment that followed took place at a faster
pace. By 1986 the unemployment rate was 8.8 and 13.9 percent,
respectively. Chile's unemployment rate returned in the early 1990s to
levels that characterized the country in the 1960s.
The distribution of personal income is quite regressive in Chile in
general and Santiago in particular, a tendency that became more
pronounced during the military government. The data reveal that personal income in Santiago is
strongly concentrated in the highest decile, which enjoys about 40
percent of the total income. They also show that despite the great
changes in the Chilean economy during this period, the distribution of
personal income remains rather stable, even though a somewhat greater
concentration can be seen in 1989 than in previous years. The new
policies on income and taxes of the Aylwin government were expected to
slightly reverse this trend.
The distribution of consumption by household in Santiago showed a
strong tendency toward the concentration of expenditures in the
higher-income groups during the military government. The figures for the
first two years of the Aylwin government show a small change in
direction toward a more equitable distribution of consumption, although
it is still significantly more concentrated in the richest quintile than
in 1969. The data show that the richest quintile of households increased
its consumption steadily from 1969 to 1989 but that it declined in 1990
and 1991. Moreover, by 1991 the bottom two quintiles had increased their
share of consumption slightly at the expense of the fourth quintile.
Hence, the distribution of household consumption was a bit more equal in
1991 than in 1988.
These results must be interpreted with caution. The distribution of
household incomes is affected by the average number of income earners by
household income levels, and in times of economic crisis the poorer
segments may be forced to rely on the income of fewer household members.
This apparently happened in Chile in 1983, when there were only 1.1
income earners in the poorest 20 percent of families; in the 30 percent
of families with middle- to lower-middle incomes, there were 1.4 income
earners; in the 30 percent of households in the middle- to high-income
group, there were 1.7 income earners; and in the top 20 percent, there
were two income earners per household. Because their incomes were also
higher, the concentration of consumption in the high-income families was
magnified. Similarly, the expansion of secondary school enrollments
during the 1980s benefited the children of poorer households, but it may
have deprived them of the income derived from youth employment.
Chile - SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS
Chileans have a remarkable facility for forming organizations and
associations. This propensity perhaps has something to do with the fact
that for more than three centuries both the Spanish-Chilean and the
indigenous components of the country led a precarious life of conflict
with each other, a situation that forced people to rely more than usual
on collective organizing, especially, as was the case for both sides,
given the weakness of the state. In contrast to North Americans,
however, Chileans usually take a formal approach to creating
organizations. In addition to electing a president, a treasurer, a
secretary, and perhaps a few officers, they prefer to discuss and
approve a statement of purpose and some statutes. This is a ritual even
for organizations that need not register legally, obtaining what is
called a "juridical personality" that will enable them to open
bank accounts and to buy and sell properties. It is not known for
certain where and how this formalism originated; it perhaps could be
traced back to the densely legalistic approach adopted by Spain toward
the governance of its faraway colonies and to the legalism of Roman
Catholic canonical law, which applied to many aspects of society.
Whatever grain of truth there is to these speculations, observers of
Chilean society are rapidly struck by the density of its organizational
life and the relatively high degree of continuity of its organizations
and associations.
In any Chilean community of appreciable size can be found sports
clubs, mothers' clubs, neighborhood associations, parent centers linked
to schools, church-related organizations, youth groups, and cultural
clubs, as well as Masonic lodges and Rotary and Lions' clubs. Virtually
all of the nation's fire fighters are volunteers, with the exception of
members of a few fire departments in the largest cities. Government
statistics greatly understate the number of community organizations
because they refer mainly to those having some contact with one or
another state office. According to the official estimate for 1991, there
were about 22,000 such organizations, the main ones being sports clubs
(6,939), neighborhood councils (6,289), mothers' clubs (4,243), and
parent centers (1,362). Government publications do not report membership
figures for these organizations.
Most of the important urban areas in Chile also include a broad
sample of the local chapters of a wide variety of occupational
associations. These include labor unions and federations, public
employee and health worker organizations, business and employers'
associations, and professional societies of teachers, lawyers, doctors,
engineers, dentists, nurses, social workers, and other occupational
groups. Membership in labor unions, which declined significantly under
the military government, has been growing rapidly since the late 1980s,
a change directly related to the transition to democracy. Affiliation
with organizations recognized as unions in labor legislation was
officially estimated in 1990 at 606,800, a 20 percent increase over
1989. That figure did not include individuals affiliated with public
employee associations (including health workers), who were estimated to
number about 140,000, nor the members of the primary and secondary
teachers' association, who numbered about 105,000. But these two groups
usually have been closely tied to the labor movement through the
national confederations of labor. Thus, about 19 percent of a total
labor force of 4,459,600 was linked to unions or union-like associations
in 1990. With the continuing increases in union affiliations, which are
especially significant in rural areas, a conservative estimate is that
the unionized population (in legal as well as de facto organizations)
stood in 1992 at between 22 percent and 24 percent of the labor force.
The most important union confederation, which encompasses the great
majority of the nation's unions and union-like organizations, is the
United Labor Federation (Central �nica de Trabajadores--CUT). CUT is
the heir to a line of top labor confederations that can be traced back
through various reorganizations and name changes to at least 1936, and
perhaps to 1917.
There are numerous business and employer associations in Chile. Their
total membership is about 190,000, although they collectively claim to
speak for about 540,000 proprietors of businesses of all sizes. The most
important business organization, the Business and Production
Confederation (Confederaci�n de la Producci�n y del
Comercio--Coproco), encompasses some of the very oldest ongoing
associations in Chile: the National Agricultural Association (Sociedad
Nacional de Agricultura--SNA), founded in 1838, groups the most
important agricultural enterprises; the Central Chamber of Commerce (C�mara
Central de Comercio), founded in 1858, includes large wholesale and
retail commercial enterprises; the National Association of Mining
(Sociedad Nacional de Miner�a), founded in 1883, affiliates the main
private mining companies; the Industrial Development Association
(Sociedad de Fomento Fabril--Sofofa), founded in 1883, organizes the
principal manufacturing industries; the Association of Banks and
Financial Institutions (Asociaci�n de Bancos e Instituciones
Financieras), founded in 1943, is the main banking-industry group; and
the Chilean Construction Board (C�mara Chilena de la Construcci�n),
founded in 1951, organizes construction companies.
Another important confederation of business groups is the Council of
Production, Transport, and Commerce (Consejo de Producci�n, Transporte
y Comercio). In contrast to Coproco, this organization groups primarily
medium-sized to small businesses, including many self-employed
individuals who do not hire nonfamily members on a regular basis. Its
main components are the 120,000- member Trade Union Confederation of
Business Retailers and Small Industry of Chile (Confederaci�n Gremial
del Comercio Detallista y de la Peque�a Industria de Chile), founded in
1938, and the 24,000- member Confederation of Truck Owners of Chile
(Confederaci�n de Due�os de Camiones de Chile), founded in 1953.
Professional societies are also well established. The largest ones,
aside from the teachers' organization noted previously, are those for
lawyers (about 12,000 members), physicians (about 14,500), and engineers
(about 11,500). Affiliation figures for most of the more than thirty
professional societies were unavailable, but there are at least 100,000
members in such associations aside from teachers. If these figures are
added to those for membership in business groups and unions, it appears
that about a third of the labor force is involved in occupationally
based associations.
The organized groups of Chilean society have long played an important
role in the nation's political life. The elections in some of them--for
example, in major labor federations, among university students, or in
the principal professional societies-- usually have been examined
carefully for clues to the strength of the various national political
parties. Most of the nation's university and professional institute
students, totaling 153,100 in 1989, belong to student federations. The
various associations also make their views known to state or
congressional officials when issues of policy that affect them are
debated.
Some associations traditionally have been identified with particular
political parties. This was the case, to a greater or lesser
extent, with Masons, fire fighters, teachers' federations, and the
Radical Party (Partido Radical); union confederations and the parties of
the left; employer associations and the parties of the right; the Roman
Catholic Church, as well as its related organizations with the
Conservative Party (Partido Conservador); and, in recent decades, the
Christian Democratic Party (Partido Dem�crata Cristiano--PDC). Many of
the most militant party members have also been active in social
organizations. In addition, party headquarters in local communities
often have served as meeting places for all kinds of activities. The
Radical clubs of small towns in the central south are especially active,
often sponsoring sports clubs as well as the formation of fire
departments.
Chilean social life also has definite subcultures, with the main
lines of cleavage being proximity to or distance from the Roman Catholic
Church and social class. The schools that parents select for their
children closely reflect these subcultural divisions. The latter are
also strongly mirrored in associational life, as Chileans tend to
channel their sports and leisure activities into organizations within
their subculture. Schools, churches, and unions contribute to this
pattern by being foci for such organizing. In addition, there are some
clubs and centers related to specific ethnicities, such as Arab,
Italian, or Spanish clubs, even though, as noted previously, such
identities traditionally have been much less salient than religion and
class. Occupational associations have been an important component of
class and social status identities in Chilean society, with most of them
affiliating people of like occupations regardless of their religious
identities or preferences. Although this has helped diminish the
significance of religiously based identities, the leadership divisions
and conflicts within the nation's associations can often be traced back
to those subcultural differences. People's political preferences follow
the subcultural lines of cleavage as well in most cases.
Social organizations did not fare well under the military government.
Those that were perceived to be linked, however loosely, to the parties
of the left were subjected to sometimes severe repressive measures. This
was particularly the case with labor unions, whose activities were
suspended for more than six years. They were only permitted to
reorganize under new legislation beginning in 1979. Moreover, most
associations, including those of business groups, were hardly ever
consulted on policy matters, and, in the absence of normal democratic
channels for exerting influence, they found their opinions and petitions
falling on deaf ears. Eventually, the most prominent social
organizations joined in voicing their discontent with the military
government through what was called the Assembly of Civility (Asamblea de
la Civilidad), and their efforts contributed to the defeat of President
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-90) in the 1988 plebiscite. The only
organizations that thrived under the military government were the
women's aid and mothers' clubs, which were supported by government
largesse and headed at the national level by Pinochet's wife, Luc�a
Hiriart.
With the return to democracy, social organizations recovered the
ability to pressure Congress and the national government. The new
government opted for explicit solicitation of the opinions of important
interest associations on some of the policies it was considering. It
also fostered negotiations between top labor and business leaders over
issues such as labor law reforms, minimum wage and pension levels, and
overall wage increases for public employees. These negotiations led to
several national agreements between state officials and business and
labor leaders, thereby inaugurating a new form of top-level bargaining
previously unknown in Chile.
Chile - WELFARE INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Chile was one of the first countries in the Americas to establish
state-sponsored social security coverage. In 1898 the government set up
a retirement pension system for public employees. In 1924 the government
approved a comprehensive set of labor laws and established a national
social insurance system for workers. In large part, the authorities were
responding to pressure exerted by the growing number of worker
organizations and strikes. At the same time, a separate social-insurance
system was set up for private white-collar employees, and the one for
public employees was reorganized. The pension system for workers was
known as the Workers' Security Fund (Caja del Seguro Obrero) and was
modeled partly on the system pioneered by Otto von Bismarck, first
chancellor of the German Empire (1871-90). The fund (caja) was
established administratively as a semiautonomous state agency that
received income from employer and worker contributions, as well as from
state coffers. The systems for private and public employees provided
higher benefits than the workers' caja, and they were financed
in the same manner, except that the state acted as the employer for
public employees as well. The armed forces had a separate pension
system.
The Workers' Security Fund was reorganized in 1952, becoming the
Social Insurance Service (Servicio de Seguro Social--SSS). Until its
demise under the military government, the SSS served as the primary
agency for the state-run social security system. SSS coverage expanded
over the years. By the 1960s, in addition to providing old-age pensions
to its main beneficiaries, it gave, at their death, pensions to their
widows (but not their widowers) and to minor children, if any. It also
paid flat monthly sums for each immediate family dependent, income
payments for qualified illnesses and disabilities, and several months of
unemployment insurance, albeit all at very low levels.
Although the fund originally was meant to meet the needs of miners
and urban blue-collar and service workers, including domestics, over the
years the number of occupational groups that participated in what became
a system of different semiautonomous state funds increased greatly. By
the early 1970s, there were thirty-five different pension funds
(although three of them served 90 percent of contributors) and more than
150 social security regimes for the various occupational groups. This
expansion led to many inequities because the newly incorporated groups
demanded and obtained by law special treatments and new benefits that
had been denied to original participants, even when these new groups'
programs were added to existing funds. There was not even a standard
retirement age for all groups. Funding for the various pension programs
became extremely complex because the state's contributions were drawn by
law from different tax bases. This pattern of growth of social security
institutions is typical of countries in which the system is not
conceived from the very beginning on a universal basis but rather is
established for particular categories of employment. Because coverage
continued to be conditioned on the employment history of the main
beneficiary, it was never extended to all Chileans, even during its
heyday in the early 1970s.
The military government initially hoped to rationalize what had
become an unwieldy system, but eventually it changed the whole system
completely. It decided not to continue with a basic organizational
principle of most social security systems, the payas -you-go system,
whereby benefits are paid out of funds collected from those who are
still contributing. In addition, the government decided to privatize the
organization and management of pension funds and to discontinue the
state's own contributions to them. Thus, the military regime enacted the
legal basis for the creation of privately run pension-fund companies,
stipulating that all new workers entering the labor force had to
establish their accounts in the new pension companies. Moreover, the
government also created incentives for people in the semiautonomous,
state-run system to transfer out of that system by reducing the
proportion of each employee's paycheck that would be deducted under the
new system to about 15 percent of gross income, instead of the prior 20
percent or 25 percent, and by permitting a transfer of funds based on
the number of years individuals had paid into the system.
The new privately run pension funds are based on the notion of
individual capitalization accounts. Pension amounts are set by how much
there is in the individual account, which is determined by the total
that has been contributed plus a proportional share of the pension
fund's investments. In any event, by law no pension is allowed to fall
below 70 percent of an individual's last monthly salary. If there are
insufficient funds to generate the required pension levels in the
account, the pension fund company must make up the difference. If the
company is unable to meet its obligations, the state, which guarantees
the system, has to cover the shortfall.
Employees are allowed to choose the pension-fund company that will
handle their account, and those who are self-employed may also elect to
establish individual accounts. This choice is intended to stimulate
competition among pension-fund companies in order to keep the
administrative fees charged to account holders at a reasonable level,
and to encourage the companies to invest the money they accumulate so as
to generate the highest yields. Employers no longer contribute to
employees' pensions under the new system. Disability and survival
pensions are paid out of an account funded by a 3.8 percent share of the
15 percent the account holders contribute, leaving the remaining 11.2
percent to build up the pension-generating account. The 3.8 percent
share is contracted out by the pension funds to life insurance
companies, many of them newly created to meet the enormous increase in
demand for their services. Individual account holders are also permitted
to make payments in excess of the obligatory minimum. The retirement age
is set at sixty-five years for men and sixty years for women, although
individuals who accumulate enough funds to obtain a pension equal to 110
percent of the minimum pension may retire earlier.
The new system took effect in 1981, and the great majority of the
contributing population opted to change to it. Deciding not to make
substantial changes in the social security system, the Aylwin government
increased the minimum pension paid by what remained of the state-run
social security system by about 30 percent in real terms. By December
1990, there were about 3.7 million people, or 79 percent of the labor
force, with accounts in fourteen pension-fund companies, called Pension
Fund Administrators (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones--AFPs). A
large proportion of the uncovered population consisted of self-employed
people; only 3 percent of the total accounts came from that group. The
funds gathered large sums of money relative to the size of the national
economy. By the end of 1992, the pension and life insurance companies
had accumulated an estimated US$15 billion. The state regulates and
oversees the pension-fund companies through a newly created office that
issues strict investment guidelines.
This radical departure from past institutional practices in the
pension system is unique, and it drew considerable attention from
experts in other Latin America countries also facing looming financial
crises in their own social security systems. By generating large amounts
of capital in the private sector, the new system energized the
previously anemic Chilean capital markets. Because it has operated only
for about a decade, however, it has yet to meet the test that will occur
when the new pension funds have to pay out in benefits what would
correspond to an actuarially normal load. Most of the nation's retirees
and older workers have stayed in the state-run social security system,
now called the Institute of Pension Fund Normalization (Instituto de
Normalizaci�n Previsional--INP). By the end of 1990, the private
pension companies were only paying out benefits to 2.3 percent of their
affiliates.
Chile - Health Programs
The state's efforts in the health field began in 1890 with the
creation of an agency in charge of public hygiene and sanitation.
Despite some subsequent initiatives to prevent and treat work- related
accidents, it was not until 1924, with the establishment of the social
security system, that the state assumed an active role in providing
health care to the population. Between the mid-1920s and the early
1950s, state-run programs for health care were organized around the
pension funds. During the 1940s, public health experts argued that the
individual pension funds could not organize health delivery systems for
their affiliates in a rational way. It was also argued that a system was
needed that would provide more comprehensive coverage to the whole
population, not only those who had accounts in the pension funds, if the
country were to improve its overall health indexes. The eventual
acceptance of these arguments by policy makers led in 1952 to the
creation of the National Health Service (Servicio Nacional de
Salud--SNS).
The SNS continued to provide care to all those who held accounts in
the various funds, free of charge to workers and their families in the
social security system and for a variable fee to others. In addition, it
extended health care to the population at large regardless of ability to
pay. Services to those who were poor could be slow and often inadequate
if a condition was not life- threatening, but accidents and other
emergencies normally were given immediate attention. Moreover, the SNS
tried to identify specific health problems and focus on providing care
in these areas, such as giving all women primary prenated and postpartum
care (and access since the 1960s to contraception), inoculating the
population against certain diseases, and working to improve nutrition
and hygiene through extension programs and publicity. It is estimated
that 65 percent of the national population used the state-run system for
curative medicine without paying fees. The SNS coexisted with private
medical practices and hospitals, which were preferred by people who
could afford them. The military developed its own system of clinics and
hospitals. In the late 1960s, the government took the initiative to
develop a new program for white- collar employees, permitting users to
select their physicians. The program was funded by payroll deductions
but required users to pay a fee equal to 50 percent of the cost of their
care. The program developed its own primary- and preventive-care clinics
and laboratories, although it relied on the hospitals of the SNS for
backup care of the more serious cases and for hospitalizations. All but
15 percent of hospitalizations took place in SNS hospitals.
All physicians were obligated to work for the SNS for two years after
graduation; they were usually sent to rural areas and small towns where
there were chronic shortages of doctors. During the rest of their
professional lives, physicians were also obligated to work a certain
number of hours a week for the SNS, for which they received relatively
small honoraria; in exchange, physicians took advantage of many of the
facilities of the state system to treat and test their private patients.
By the early 1970s, the state-run health programs faced a financial
crisis. Given that the SNS was intimately tied to the social security
system, the military government could not change the latter without
altering the former. Thus, in 1980 and 1981 policy makers redesigned the
nation's health care institutions.
As a result, the Chilean health system in the early 1990s contained
essentially five components. The first is the main successor of the SNS,
now called the National System of Health Services (Sistema Nacional de
Servicios de Salud--SNSS). In 1988 the SNSS employed about 62,000
professionals, including about 43 percent of the nation's 13,000
physicians, many fewer than had worked for the SNS because physicians no
longer had any obligation to serve the public health system. The SNSS's
administration was decentralized into twenty-seven regional units, and
control over its clinics and primary-care centers was transferred to the
nation's 340 municipal governments. However, the national government
remained the main source of funding for these various units, and it
continued to control their basic design, including staff size and
equipment. The SNSS's funding comes from general state revenues and from
a contribution of 7 percent of taxable income (up from the original 4
percent in 1981) from the employed population. Access to the SNSS is
open to everyone, free of charge in the case of indigents and of those
whose income falls below a certain level; a variable percentage of the
cost up to 50 percent is paid by those with higher incomes.
The SNSS organizes and implements the broad public health programs in
areas such as inoculations and maternal-infant care. It provides
periodic preventive medical care to all children under six years of age
not enrolled in alternative medical plans. Through this program, which
has broad national coverage, low-income mothers can receive supplemental
nutritional assistance for their children and for themselves as well if
they are pregnant or nursing. As a result, the incidence of moderate to
severe childhood malnutrition among those participating in the program
has been reduced to negligible levels in Chile, while only about 8
percent of all children suffered mild malnutrition in 1989. The SNSS is
the largest health care provider in the country. In the late 1980s, it
served 8.2 million people, or about 64 percent of the total population,
and its total expenditures on its participants in 1987 equaled about
US$22 per person.
The second component of the health system is the National Health Fund
(Fondo Nacional de Salud--Fonasa). Fonasa is part of the SNSS, except
that those who register in the program may select their own primary-care
physicians, as well as specialists. In this sense, Fonasa continues the
modus operandi of the program initiated in the late 1960s for
white-collar employees, except that anyone can register in it. Fonasa
affiliates direct their payroll or self- employment contributions to the
fund. Pensioners of the state-run system, the INP, may also choose to
participate in Fonasa. The fund reimburses its users a variable portion
of the cost of medical attention on presentation of vouchers for
services that have been performed (an average 36 percent reimbursement
in 1989). In 1987 Fonasa served 2.5 million people, and health
expenditures in it amounted to US$79 per affiliate.
The Security Assistance Institutions (Mutuales de Seguridad-- MS)
constitute the third element in the health system. These consist of
hospitals that deal primarily with treatment of the victims of
work-related accidents. These institutions house some of the best trauma
and burn centers in the country. The MS are financed out of employer
contributions equivalent to about 2.5 percent of their total payrolls
and completely cover the medical expenses of employees of the affiliated
enterprises who are injured at work. In addition, the MS pay a temporary
disability pension. The 1.96 million employees who have access to these
institutions work for 52,000 different enterprises. This program is
among the better funded, given that its income of US$123 million
amounted to about US$62 per covered worker, while the rate of
work-related accidents was only about 10.8 percent per year for all
incidents, however minor. Safety experts hired by the MS system are also
in charge of inspecting workplaces and suggesting improvements to
prevent accidents. The MS are composed of numerous institutions
administered by boards with employer and employee representatives. In
1987 they ran eight hospitals and nineteen clinics, mainly in Chile's
most important urban centers. The product of initiatives taken by some
of the country's largest employers in the late 1950s, the MS expanded
greatly in the 1980s.
Private insurance companies belonging to the Institute of Public
Health and Preventive Medicine (Instituto de Salud y Previsional
Prevenci�n--Isapre) constitute the fourth element in the health system.
People enroll by asking their employers to direct their health deduction
to these companies, and they pay an additional premium depending on the
specific insurance policy. Medical services are reimbursed to users at a
percentage of cost. In 1987 about 1.5 million people were enrolled in
the Isapre, with expenditures of about US$166 per enrollee. Critics of
the Isapre insurance companies noted that they did not help mitigate the
nation's highly regressive distribution of income because they channeled
the deductions of many people with higher incomes out of the SNSS.
Moreover, as private carriers, the Isapre companies may deny enrollment
to those who are at higher risk (as a result of serious illness or age),
and they are prone to drop those who become excessive risks.
Consequently, the SNSS must take up the burden of covering the health
care of high-risk individuals.
The fifth component of the health care system is private medicine,
which includes private hospitals and clinics. Most physicians, dentists,
and ophthalmologists maintain a private practice even if they work for
the SNSS or other systems. There are also private health insurers who do
not form part of the Isapre structure because they do not collect their
premiums from payroll deductions. In 1987 they insured 500,000 people
drawn from the population with the highest incomes.
In 1992 Chilean health indicators were much closer to those of
industrial nations than to those of the developing world. The four
leading causes of death in Chile are circulatory diseases (27 percent),
cancer (18 percent), accidents (13 percent), and respiratory illnesses
(11 percent). Medical visits average about 3.5 per person per year, or
about 2 to 2.5 for the general population and 1 to 1.5 for maternity and
child check- ups. The SNSS handles 89.1 percent of all these visits
(16.3 percent of them through Fonasa). Fully 98.4 percent of all births
occur with professional assistance in hospitals or maternity clinics. In
rural areas, where women might need to travel longer distances to give
birth, they can spend the last ten to fifteen days of pregnancy in
special hostels. Inoculations of infants and children are virtually
universal for tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus,
poliomyelitis, and measles.
According to the Pan American Health Organization, the number of
cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was gradually
rising, with 3.8 per million population in 1987, 5.4 per million in
1988, 6.3 per million in 1989, 8.9 per million in 1990, and 11 per
million in 1991. As of the end of 1991 in Chile, 196 individuals with
AIDS in Chile had died. According to Health Under Secretary Patricio
Silva and the National AIDS Commission, of the 990 individuals who were
registered as having been infected with the AIDS virus in the country,
630 had become sick and half of them had died by the end of 1992. The
report stated that 93 percent of those diagnosed were men and 7 percent
were women.
Although the government of President Patricio Aylwin did not make
structural changes to the health system, it increased funding for the
portions of the system that most benefited the poor, especially primary
care services. The salaries of health workers in the public sector were
increased. The government also enhanced the decentralization of
authority in the public health sector by giving local and regional
governments more decision-making power over the distribution and
equipment of health-care resources and provisions within the limits of
national government funding allotments.
Chile - Housing Policies
Enrollments
Despite plans dating back to 1812 to establish widespread primary
education, elementary school attendance did not become compulsory until
1920. However, the government did not provide effective means to enforce
this policy fully. There was considerable progress, especially in the
1920s and the 1940s, but by mid-century children of primary school age
were still not universally enrolled. The principal difficulty lay in the
incomplete matriculation and high dropout rate of the nation's poorest
children. For this reason, in 1953 the government created the National
Council for School Aid and Grants (Junta Nacional de Aux�lio Escolar y
Becas), which was charged with providing scholarships and with making
school breakfasts and lunches available to all children in the
tuition-free private and public schools. Through these means, policy
makers hoped to encourage the very poorest parents to send their
children to school and keep them there. By the early 1970s, school
breakfasts were reaching 64 percent of all primary school students, and
lunches were being provided to 30 percent. This strategy was apparently
successful, and in the mid-1960s, primary education became nearly
universal. In 1966 the number of years of primary (and therefore
compulsory) education was increased from six to eight; secondary
education was thereby reduced to four years. In the mid-1980s, primary
school attendance fluctuated between 93 percent and 96 percent of the
relevant age-group--a percentage that was less than universal only
because some children advanced into secondary school at the age of
fourteen instead of the normal age of fifteen.
Beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, Chile's
governments made an effort to create secondary schools and led Latin
America in establishing high schools for girls as well as for boys. By
1931 Chile had forty-one state-run high schools for boys and
thirty-eight for girls, as well as fifty-nine private high schools for
boys and sixty for girls, with a total enrollment of 20,211 boys and
15,014 girls. Reflecting French and German influences on the nation's
secondary education, high schools were intended to provide a rigorous
preparation for university education.
Chile had other postprimary educational channels that were meant to
impart more practical or professional forms of training. Among these
were normal schools for the instruction of primary school teachers (the
first one for women was created in 1854), agricultural schools (that
taught the rudiments of agronomy, animal husbandry, and forestry),
industrial schools (with such specialties as mechanics or electricity),
commercial schools (with specialties in accounting and secretarial
training), so-called technical women's schools (that mainly taught home
economics), and schools for painting, sculpture, and music. In 1931
there were 135 of these schools, with a total enrollment of 11,420 males
and 11,391 females.
Matriculation of relevant age-groups in all forms of secondary
education remained low, as can be surmised from the 1931 figures, and
progress was slow. The most rapid advances occurred in the 1960s and
early 1970s under the governments of presidents Frei and Allende, which
increased spending for education at all levels. By 1970 about 38 percent
of all fifteen- to eighteen-year olds in the country had matriculated
from one form or another of secondary education; by 1974 that figure
increased to 51 percent. Moreover, the curriculum in schools other than
high schools had been enhanced significantly, and the graduates of such
schools could opt to continue on to university levels. During the rest
of the 1970s, under the military government's first six years in power,
secondary school enrollments as a percentage of the relevant age-group
stagnated. However, in the 1980s enrollments resumed their upward trend.
Thus, from a level of 53 percent of the relevant age-group in 1979,
secondary school matriculations rose to 75 percent in 1989.
Although the Chilean state traditionally directed about half of its
education budget to universities that were either free or charged only
nominal matriculation fees, the numbers of students in them had always
been tiny as a proportion of the national population between nineteen
and twenty-four years of age. As in other areas of education, the Frei
and Allende administrations sponsored the largest expansions in
postsecondary enrollments. The total numbers of students (including only
those in the relevant age-group) almost doubled, from 41,801 in 1965 to
70,588 in 1970, and more than doubled from that number, to 145,663 in
1973. However, these enrollment figures were only equal to about 8
percent and 13 percent of the relevant age-group in 1970 and 1973,
respectively. During the rest of the 1970s, the total number of students
in universities declined, reaching a low of around 9 percent of the
relevant age-group in 1980, including students enrolled in the so-called
Professional Institutes (Institutos Profesionales--IPs), which had been
separated from the universities by the military government. During the
1980s, the numbers of students in universities and in the IPs increased
slowly and stood at about 153,100 in 1989, or 10.3 percent of the
relevant agegroup . However, the military government fostered the
creation of Technical Training Centers (Centros de Formaci�n T�cnica--CFT)
as an alternative to postsecondary education. Enrollment in these
centers increased rapidly during the 1980s, to about 76,400 students by
1989. In 1991 a total of 245,875 students were in some form of higher or
postsecondary education.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, under the influence of
German advisers, Chile began to develop preprimary education.
Matriculation in these programs also remained very small until the
1960s. In contrast to its attitude toward higher education, the military
government took great interest in this form of education, and
enrollments increased greatly during the Pinochet years. Statefunded
programs for preschoolers, which enrolled about 59,000 children in 1970,
had increased their matriculation to about 109,600 by 1974. In 1989 they
enrolled 213,200 children, or about 12 percent of the population under
five years of age.
<>Primary and Secondary
Education
Until 1980, authority over all primary and secondary schools was
concentrated in the national government's Ministry of Public Education.
In addition to allocating funds to schools, the ministry certified the
qualifications of all teachers and employed those in the state-run
system. It developed all basic course content, even for private schools,
and approved all textbooks to be used throughout the country.
Primary school teachers were trained mainly in normal schools, most
of which were independent entities, although a few of these institutions
were attached to universities. Secondary school teachers generally were
graduates of pedagogical schools or university institutes, where
students would be trained in the different disciplines they would later
teach. Primary and secondary school teachers opting to work in the
state-run system were assigned to schools during the first three years
of their careers, a procedure that was meant to ensure that all rural
and provincial schools had the requisite staffing. The careers of
primary and secondary school teachers employed by the state were
controlled by a national statute that determined promotions according to
a point system and salaries according to a fixed scale. Salary
supplements were given to those who taught in areas that were
geographically isolated or had severe climates. Teachers also had job
tenure beyond a certain probationary period. The Ministry of Public
Education sponsored regular winter- and summer-vacation training
programs for teachers that were designed to bring them up to date with
curriculum changes and with new thinking in their disciplines. Merit
increases were given to those who participated in these programs.
The Ministry of Public Education gave subsidies to private schools
that did not charge tuition. These subsidies, amounting to about half
the per-student cost of public education, were based on calculations of
salary and other fixed costs. They were given primarily to schools
sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, as well as by Protestant
churches. The teachers of these schools (except those who were in
religious orders or in the clergy) were supposed to have the same salary
and working conditions as teachers in the public system. Many teachers
in the state-run system supplemented their salaries by taking on
additional hours in the private schools, which were supposed to follow
the national curriculum whether or not they received state subsidies,
although they were free to add supplementary courses. All state-run
primary and secondary schools were visited regularly by supervisors
employed by the Ministry of Public Education, who would observe classes
and monitor many final examinations. For purposes of certification, the
final examinations of all private secondary schools were conducted by
committees of teachers employed by the Ministry of Public Education.
Despite the successes of this education system in terms of expanding
enrollments and ensuring a uniform standard of quality across the
nation, the military regime's social and economic planners thought it
gave the government too much influence over education, stifling parents'
and local communities' freedom of choice. They also thought the
administration of the system was too bureaucratic and inefficient.
The regime's education authorities decided to decentralize the
administration of state schools by turning them over to the municipal
governments. Presumably, the schools would thus become more responsive
to local demands and needs, although the Ministry of Public Education
continued to issue the basic guidelines to be followed in the curricula,
to approve textbooks, and, in principle, to require the certification of
teachers, although the standards became more flexible. Moreover, the
national program of school breakfasts and lunches was transferred, along
with the necessary resources, to the municipalities. The authorities
committed the necessary funding to maintain universal primary
enrollments and, after 1980, to continue to increase the size of
secondary enrollments, despite the severe economic downturn of 1982-83.
With the 1980 reforms, all teachers in the state-run system became
municipal employees, effectively ending the national system controlling
teachers' careers. The result was new inequalities in terms of income
and benefits for teachers. Despite increased education subsidies from
the central government to poorer municipalities, the richer school
systems were able to afford better teacher salaries and educational
facilities. In addition, beginning in 1988 municipal authorities were
permitted to fire teachers, ending the tenure they had enjoyed in the
national career system, a measure that generated widespread
manifestations of teacher discontent, including strikes.
The military government fostered the growth of privately run schools
by further facilitating the process through which they could obtain
subsidies. Moreover, tuition-free public and private schools were put on
an equal footing in terms of access to state funding when both began to
receive amounts calculated on a similar per-student basis. This amount
was prorated on the basis of student attendance records, a measure that
put the public systems at a disadvantage because private schools could
be selective in their admissions; they could therefore draw their
student body from those with more stable family backgrounds and hence
could require more regular attendance and better behavior. As a result
of these new incentives, enrollments in the publicly funded but
privately administered system increased at the expense of the
state-owned schools. In 1980, before the beginning of the reform
program, the state-run schools had enrolled about 79 percent of primary
and secondary students, private but state-subsidized schools enrolled 14
percent, and fully private schools (those that charged tuition) enrolled
7 percent. By the end of 1988, the proportion of students in the
state-run schools (by then under municipal control) had dropped to 60
percent, the private but state-subsidized schools' proportion had
increased to 33 percent, and the fully private schools continued to
enroll 7 percent. Other data suggest that the number of primary and
secondary students in private schools increased from 27 percent in 1981
to 56 percent in 1986. The authorities also transferred administration
of the state's vocational, industrial, and agricultural schools to
employer associations, although the public funding of these schools
continued.
The Aylwin government doubled funding for education by 1992 and began
to address the new challenge the nation confronted to increase the
quality of education. As part of this effort, the government examined
with renewed interest the issues of teacher morale, training, and
careers. It decided to reinvigorate the national continuing education
programs for teachers and to reintroduce a National Statute for
Teachers. This recreated in part the previous national career system,
with a minimum starting salary of about US$250 per month for primary
school teachers and promotions and raises based on years of service,
merit, additional training, and premiums for teaching in areas that were
isolated or had harsh climates. However, because of the Aylwin
government's commitment to the decentralization of authority,
administration of the system of primary and secondary schools remained
to a significant extent in the hands of local governments, with
continued efforts to provide increased funding to the poorer
municipalities and regions. An initiative by the Aylwin government also
committed it to increasing technical training of workers and of youth
who had already left the education system. By the end of 1993, about
100,000 people, principally youth, had graduated from such training
programs.
Chile - Higher Education
Chilean universities are widely recognized as being among the best in
Latin America. Before the education reforms of 1980, Chile had eight
universities, two run by the state universities and six private ones,
although all received most of their funding from the state. The state
universities consisted of the University of Chile (Universidad de
Chile), founded in Santiago in 1842 as the successor to the University
of San Felipe (Universidad de San Felipe), founded in 1758; and the
State Technical University (Universidad T�cnica del Estado), founded in
Santiago in 1947. The private universities consisted of the Pontifical
Catholic University of Chile (Pont�fica Universidad Cat�lica de
Chile), founded in 1888; the University of Concepci�n (Universidad de
Concepci�n), founded in 1919; the Catholic University of Valpara�so
(Universidad Cat�lica de Valpara�so), founded in 1928; the Federico
Santa Mar�a Technical University (Universidad T�cnica Federico Santa
Mar�a), founded in Valpara�so in 1931; the Southern University of
Chile (Universidad Austral de Chile), founded in Valdivia in 1955; and
the University of the North (Universidad del Norte) in Antofagasta,
founded in 1956. The nation's largest and most important university, the
University of Chile has the authority to oversee the quality of
professional training programs in important fields, such as medicine, in
the other universities. The University of Chile, the Pontifical Catholic
University of Chile, the Federico Santa Mar�a Technical University,
and, to a lesser extent, the University of Concepci�n all developed
campuses in other cities during the expansion of university enrollments
in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
As noted previously, Chilean universities did not charge tuition,
aside from minimal matriculation fees that were, following changes
introduced in the mid- to late 1960s, higher for students of more
affluent parents. In effect, the state used general tax revenues to
subsidize a higher-education system whose students were drawn
disproportionately from the middle and upper classes. The regressive
impact of this policy on the nation's distribution of wealth had been
noted repeatedly by economists and sociologists since at least the
1950s.
The military government took a highly critical view of the nation's
university system. Persuaded by the notion that state funding for lower
education is more efficient in terms of generating the necessary human
capital for economic development, the military decided to give priority
in resource allocation to preprimary, primary, and secondary schools. In
addition to politically motivated purges of faculty members and
students, among the first changes the military authorities made at the
highereducation level was to charge students substantially higher
enrollment fees. Low-income students were supposed to continue to have
access to higher education through an expanded system of student loans
with generous repayment terms. Yet, as noted earlier, the expansion of
higher-education enrollments that had begun in the 1960s ceased after
these new policies were put into place.
With the 1980 education reforms, the military government split the
two state universities apart, creating separate universities out of what
had been their regional provincial campuses. In addition, taking a dim
view of increases in the numbers of training programs and degree
programs at these universities since the 1960s, the regime limited the
degrees that could be obtained in the staterun universities to twelve of
the most traditional fields, such as law, medicine, and engineering.
Degrees in other areas henceforth had to be obtained from professional
institutes; those sections of the state universities consequently were
detached, with some attrition, and transformed into freestanding
entities. The large School of Pedagogy of the University of Chile, for
example, became the Pedagogical Institute.
The Pinochet government also fostered the formation of new private
universities and professional institutes, allowing them to set tuition
at whatever level they wished and promising to give them direct
per-student subsidies, as well as funds for loans to low-income
students, on an equal footing with older institutions. The education
authorities hoped to stimulate competition among the universities and
institutes for the best students by granting the per-student subsidies
on the basis of schools' ability to attract the students with the
highest scores in a national aptitude test required of all first-year
applicants. This competition was thought to be an expeditious way to
encourage efforts to increase the quality of higher education.
Subsequently, the state subsidies did not become nearly as important as
was expected because funding for universities and for student loans
declined beginning with the economic crisis of 1982-83. The lower
funding levels led to decreases in salaries for faculty and other
personnel across the country.
As a result of the policies of breaking up the state universities and
stimulating the formation of private institutions, the number of
universities increased to forty-one by 1989. Only half of these received
state funding that year. In addition, by 1989 there were fifty-six
professional training institutes, only two of which received state
funding that year. There was also a large increase in the numbers of
centers for technical training. In 1989 there were 150 such centers,
none of which received state support. Relying entirely on tuition
payments, these centers had responded to a demand for postsecondary
education that the universities and professional institutes, despite
their increased number, had been unable to meet. However, the quality of
the training these centers provided was questionable. Most of them had
two-year training programs with few facilities other than classrooms.
The changes introduced by the military government increased the
number and variety of higher education institutions, but the reforms
also led to much greater disparities among them, as well as to a likely
decline in the overall quality of the nation's higher education system.
There was an increase in part-time faculty teaching, a decline in
full-time faculty salaries, and a much greater dispersion of resources
needed by important facilities, such as laboratories and libraries.
These changes also led to the creation of a considerable number of
research institutes with no student training programs that were
dependent on grants or research contracts from international or national
sources for their funding. These institutes developed most prominently
in the social sciences and became an important alternative source of
employment for specialists who had been or would have been engaged by
universities. Consequently, in contrast to the period before 1973, most
of the innovative thinking and writing in these areas was no longer
being done at universities, and new generations of students were having
less contact with the best specialists in these fields.
The Aylwin government did not introduce fundamental changes in the
higher education system handed down to it by the military regime. It
continued to fund higher education in part by allocating per-student
subsidies to institutions able to attract students who scored highest on
the multiple-choice examination modeled on the Scholastic Aptitude Test
used in the United States. However, the Alywin government was critical
of what it considered an excessive disaggregation and dispersion of
higher education institutions. Consequently, it concentrated more of its
direct subsidies on the traditional universities and their offshoots and
attempted to enhance their quality by making more funds available for
basic and applied research. The government also increased funding for
lowincome student loans and scholarships, for studies at any
institution.
Chile - RELIGION AND CHURCHES
Independence from Spain disrupted the church-state relationship. The
clergy was divided over the question of breaking the ties to Spain,
although the most prominent church officials were generally royalists.
As a result, the new independent governments and the leaders of the
church viewed each other with distrust. The development of what would
later be called the "black legend" (a highly unfavorable view
of the colonial administration, of which the church was an integral
part), coupled with an admiration for the progress of Protestant lands,
fueled this distrust. Despite their misgivings about church attitudes
toward independence, the new rulers insisted that they were entitled to
exercise the patronato real, the agreement between the Spanish
crown and the pope, thereby assuming this important royal power as well.
This prerogative was enshrined in the 1833 constitution, which made
Roman Catholicism the established church of the new Chilean state.
Consequently, the authorities followed the prior practice of sending
church appointments to the Vatican for its formal approval and to
oversee the governance of the church. For their part, church officials
expected that the government would continue to ban all other religions
from the country. Moreover, they hoped to retain full authority over
education, to keep all civil law subordinate to canonical law, and to
continue to function as the state's surrogate civil registry, as well as
to control all cemeteries. In addition, they increasingly asserted the
independence of the church from the interference of state authorities.
This was a church-state relationship fraught with potential for
conflict, and as the nineteenth century progressed many conflicts did
indeed emerge. By the late 1850s, a fundamental fault line in Chilean
politics and society had developed between unconditional defenders of
church prerogatives, who became the Conservatives, and those who
preferred to limit the church's role in national life, who became the
Liberals or, if they took more strongly anticlerical positions, the
Radicals. Although most Liberals and even most Radicals were also Roman
Catholics, they were in favor of allowing the existence of other
churches and of limiting canonical law to church-related matters, while
establishing the supremacy of the state's laws and courts over the
nation as a whole, even over priests and other church officials. They
also advocated the creation of non-Catholic schools and civil
cemeteries, and they pressed for the establishment of a state-managed
civil registry that would be entitled to issue the only legally valid
birth, marriage, and death certificates. By the 1880s, a decade that saw
a break in relations between the Chilean government and the Vatican, all
of these points of the more secular and anticlerical agendas had been
established. However, the Roman Catholic Church continued to be the
established church, dependent on the state for its finances and
appointments. This led periodically to new political tensions.
Emerging in the 1820s, the first source of state-church conflicts was
the issue of the right of non-Catholics to practice their religion. The
government favored allowing them to do so in private homes or other
nonpublic places, while the Roman Catholic Church opposed this notion.
The issue was a question of considerable significance for more than just
civil liberties.
Independence from Spain had permitted the legal establishment of
direct commercial links between Chile and other countries throughout the
world. These links led to the creation, especially in Valpara�so, of
wholesale commercial enterprises that brought British and other foreign
nationals who were non-Catholic to the country, and they demanded the
right to practice their religion. Denying them religious freedom not
only created diplomatic problems with the dominant economic powers of
the time but also had the potential to undermine the operations of the
export-import concerns that handled much of the emerging country's
foreign trade.
Beginning in the 1840s, the Chilean government sponsored the
immigration of German settlers to the southern lake district. Most of
them, contrary to the government's wishes, came from Protestant parts of
Germany. As a result, the first Protestant services in Chile, mainly
Anglican and Lutheran, began in immigrant communities. Initially, they
were merely tolerated by the authorities, but in 1865 a new law
interpreting the religious clause of the constitution that declared
Roman Catholicism as the official state religion permitted private
practice by non-Catholic denominations.
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Protestant
missionaries of various denominations, beginning with the Presbyterians,
came to Chile. Although they continued to serve mainly the immigrant
communities, they also made an effort to obtain Chilean converts. The
Anglicans set up missions among the Mapuche, and these are still
operating. American Methodists founded schools--the well-known Santiago
College, which was established in 1880, among them--that were open to
middle- and upper-class Chilean children, especially girls. Parents
seeking alternatives to Catholic education opted for Protestant
missionary schools. By the turn of the century, a small community of
local converts to Protestant denominations began to form. In 1909 a
segment of the new Methodist group that had adopted charismatic rituals
broke off from the main missionary body. This breakaway group became the
Pentecostal Methodist Church, which itself split in 1934 when the
Evangelical Pentecostal Church was formed. These two denominations
remained the principal Pentecostal groups in Chile, although there were
many different subdenominations.
Judaism, virtually unknown in nineteenth-century Chile, originated
with the Central European Jews who arrived in the country fleeing
persecution mainly between World War I and World War II. Both Jews and
Protestants, as religious minorities in a predominantly Catholic
country, were strongly in favor of religious freedoms and of full
separation between church and state. It was therefore natural for them
to identify more closely with the more secular and even anticlerical
segments of Chilean society and politics; and it was natural for the
latter to consider them a part of their constituency. Yet, given their
religious beliefs, strict moral upbringing, and, among Chilean
Protestants, generally, abstention from alcohol, these segments of the
non-Catholic Chilean society had little in common with the broader
anticlerical groups. In fact, on many moral issues, non-Catholics'
opinions were much closer to those of practicing Roman Catholics. For
this reason, although practicing Protestants and Jews tended to vote for
the more secular parties in greater proportions than other groups, they
generally did not have a particularly strong political identity or play
important leadership roles, exceptions aside, in political or social
life.
In 1925 President Arturo Alessandri Palma (1920-24, 1925, 1932- 38)
pressed for and obtained a separation of church and state. This resolved
most sources of church-state friction, but more than a century of
conflicts had already created subcultures in Chilean society that
continued to leave their mark on twentieth-century educational
institutions, intellectual life, social organizations, and politics. The
segments most distant from and even opposed to the Catholic Church were
receptive to positivism and, especially after the 1930s, to Marxism. In
this sense, the nineteenth-century fault line contributed indirectly to
the eventual appeal among educated Chileans of the nation's communist
and socialist parties.
During the interwar years, partly in response to the challenges of
secular intellectuals and political leaders and partly as a result of
new trends in international Catholicism, the Roman Catholic Church in
Chile slowly began to espouse socially and politically more progressive
positions. This more progressive Catholicism initially had its main
impact among university students, who, in the mid-1930s under the
leadership of Eduardo Frei, created a new party that in 1957 fused with
other groups to become the Christian Democratic Party (Partido Dem�crata
Cristiano- -PDC). This development split the subculture that was closer
to the Catholic Church into politically conservative and centrist
segments. By the early 1960s, a solid majority of the church hierarchy
favored the Christian Democrats, and there was a significant shift of
voter support from the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador--PC) to
the PDC. Following the new thinking in church circles, the hierarchy
openly embraced positions favoring land reform, much to the dismay of
the still-important minority of Catholics on the right.
The dominant consensus within Chilean Catholicism was much in tune
with the resolutions and spirit of Vatican Council II (1962- 65) in
theological, ritual, and pastoral matters. Within the Latin American
context, the Chilean Roman Catholic Church quickly became noted as a
post-Vatican Conciliar church of moderately progressive positions on
political and socioeconomic issues, and its representatives played an
important part in the reform-minded Medell�n (1968) and Puebla (1979)
conferences of Latin American bishops. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the
church fostered the establishment of Christian Base Communities
(Comunidades Eclesiales de Base-- CEBs) in poor urban neighborhoods.
However, only a minority in the Chilean church subscribed to what became
known as liberation theology.
In the wake of the military coup of September 1973, the church
established, initially in association with some leaders of the nation's
Protestant and Jewish communities, an office for the defense of human
rights. Later reorganized under exclusive sponsorship of the archdiocese
of Santiago as the Vicariate of Solidarity (Vicar�a de la Solidaridad),
this organization continued to receive funds from international
Protestant sources and valiantly collected information on human rights
violations during the nearly seventeen years of military rule. Its
lawyers presented literally thousands of writs of habeas corpus, in all
but a few cases to no avail, and provided for the legal defense of
prisoners. The church also supported popular and labor organizations and
called repeatedly for the restoration of democracy and for national
reconciliation.
As the papacy of John Paul II (1978- ) progressed, the Chilean
Catholic Church, like other national congregations around the world,
became somewhat more conservative in outlook. In the early 1990s, the
episcopal conference was about evenly split between those formed in the
spirit of Vatican Council II and those espousing more conservative
positions. However, this shifting balance did not affect the church's
advocacy of human rights and democracy during the military regime.
Chile - Forms of Popular Religiosity
Extended-family life has occupied an important place in Chilean
society. Although couples are expected to set up their own households,
they remain in close contact with the members of their larger families.
Children generally get to know their cousins well, as much adult leisure
time, generally on weekends and holidays, is spent in the company of
relatives. It is also common to find children living for extended
periods of time for educational or other reasons in households headed by
relatives, sometimes even cousins of their parents. These
extended-family ties provide a network of support in times of nuclear
family crises. It is also common for close friendships among adults to
lead to links that are family-like. For example, children often refer to
their parents' friends as "uncle" or "aunt."
Traditional definitions of gender roles have broken down considerably
as women have won access to more education and have entered the labor
force in larger numbers. By 1990 about half the students in the nation's
primary and secondary schools were female; the proportion of women was
lower, about 44 percent of the total enrollment in all forms of higher
education. The University of Chile graduated Latin America's first
female lawyers and physicians in the 1880s. However, women made faster
progress in traditionally female professions than in other professions.
Thus, by 1910 there were 3,980 women teachers, but there were only seven
physicians, ten dentists, and three lawyers. By the 1930s, female
enrollments reached significant numbers in these fields. The University
of Chile in 1932 had 124 female students enrolled in law (17 percent of
the total), ninety-six in medicine (9.5 percent), and 108 in dentistry
(38 percent), although 55 percent of all women students at the
university were enrolled in education.
Attitudes regarding the proper roles of men and women in society
seemingly no longer follow a fully traditional pattern. A 1984 survey
conducted in Santiago by the Diagnos polling firm found widespread
support among men (more than 80 percent) and women (more than 90
percent) of high, medium, and low socioeconomic status for the notion
that women benefit as individuals if they work outside the home. When
asked if they agreed or disagreed with the notion that "it is
better for women to concentrate on the home and men on their jobs,"
43 percent of the national sample in the CERC July 1991 survey agreed,
even though the term "concentrate" does not imply a denial of
the right of women to work outside the home. There were some differences
between the genders over this question, with 49 percent of men and 38
percent of women in agreement. The percentage in favor of this notion
increased with age. Only 30 percent of those under age twenty-five
agreed, while 61 percent of those over age sixty-one did so.
Men and women in the same CERC study were considerably divided over
whether "women should obey their husbands." This is a sentence
included in family law that is supposed to be read (although it is
frequently omitted) to Chileans when they take their marriage vows in
the civil registry's ceremony; 55 percent of men agreed, while only 40
percent of women did so. Again, men held the more traditional views, but
considering the nature of the proposition and its long-established
status in civil law, the fact that only slightly more than half of them
agreed can be considered a sign of changing times.
Surveys of working-class respondents can usually be counted on to
capture the more traditional views of urban society toward male and
female roles because such attitudes are usually associated with lower
levels of educational attainment. But working-class Chileans are in
general not as traditionally minded as could be expected about the issue
of women working outside the home. In a 1988 survey of workers, 70
percent of the men and 85 percent of the women agreed with the notion
that "even if there is no economic necessity, it is still
convenient for women to work." The notion that "men should
participate more actively in housework so that women are able to
work" was accepted by 70 percent of men and 92 percent of women.
Forty-five percent of men believed that "women who work gravely
neglect their home obligations," while 21 percent of women did so.
However, male support for the notion of women working outside the home
varied depending on the way the question was phrased. When interviewers
presented the idea that "if men were to make more money, then women
should return to the home," 63 percent of men agreed, while only 33
percent of women did.
Nonetheless, popular beliefs hold very strongly to the notion that
women reach full self-realization primarily through motherhood. This
generates strong pressures on women to have children, although most take
the necessary measures to have fewer than did their mothers and
especially their grandmothers. Employed working-class women usually are
able to find preschools and day care for their small children, as these
programs are broadly established throughout the country. The extended
family also provides a means of obtaining child care.
Middle-class to upper-class households usually hire female domestic
servants to do housework and take care of children. This practice
facilitates the work life of the women of such households. Women can
frequently be found in the professions even outside such traditionally
female-dominated areas as primary and secondary education, nursing, and
social work. For example, among the nation's 14,334 physicians in 1990,
there were 3,811 women, or 27 percent of the total. This percentage has
been increasing in recent years. Among the 7,616 physicians less than
thirty-five years of age, there were 2,778 women, or 37 percent of the
total. In 1991 about 48 percent of the nation's 748 judges were women;
although there were none on the Supreme Court, 24.2 percent of the
appellate court judges were women. A slight majority of the roughly
4,200 journalists in the country were women.
Chile - The Economy
CHILE'S ECONOMY ENJOYED a remarkable boom in the early 1990s, the
result of a comprehensive transformation that began in 1974 with the
adoption of free-market economic policies. Between the 1930s and the
early 1970s, the Chilean economy was one of the most stateoriented
economies in Latin America. For decades, it was dominated by the
philosophy of import-substitution industrialization. Heavily subsidized
by the government, a largely inefficient industrial sector had
developed. The sector's main characteristics were a low rate of job
creation, a virtual absence of nontraditional exports, and a general
lack of growth and development. In the early 1970s, the ruling
socialist-communist Popular Unity (Unidad Popular--UP) coalition of
President Salvador Allende Gossens (1970-73) attempted to implement a
socialist economic system. The Allende experiment came to an end with
the military coup of September 11, 1973. From that point on, Chile's
economic policies took a radical turn, as the military government
undertook, first timidly and later more confidently, deep reforms aimed
at creating a market economy.
In the early 1990s, politicians and analysts from around the world
looked to the Chilean economy for lessons on how to open up
international trade, create dynamic capital markets, and undertake an
aggressive privatization process. In early 1994, Chile had the strongest
economic structure in Latin America and, in large part because of the
military government's reforms, was emerging as a modern economy enjoying
vigorous growth. Moreover, there seemed to be a consensus among
politicians of widely varying beliefs that the existing economic model
should be maintained in the future.
Chile's income per capita, approximately US$2,800, placed the nation
squarely in the middle of what the World Bank called "middle-income
economies." Of the Latin American nations, Brazil, Uruguay,
Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina in 1990 each had a higher gross
national product ( GNP) per capita than Chile; the rest had a lower
level. In the 1991-93 period, the rate at which Chile's GDP grew
exceeded 6.5 percent per year, making Chile's GDP during these years by
far the fastest growing in Latin America. In 1992 GDP grew at a record
10.3 percent pace, year-end unemployment was down to 4.5 percent, real
wages were up 5 percent, inflation was down to 12.7 percent, and the
public-sector surplus was equivalent to 3 percent of GDP. When a longer
period is considered, Chile still comes up ahead of the rest of the
Latin American nations. For instance, according to the United Nations
Economic Commission for Latin America (Comisi�n Econ�mica para Am�rica
Latina-- CEPAL or ECLA), Chile's GDP per capita increased by 32.2
percent between 1981 and 1993; Colombia was a distant second with an
accumulated rate of growth during the period of 23.6 percent.
The success Chile enjoyed by the 1990s resulted largely from the boom
in agricultural exports. In 1970 Chile exported US$33 million in
agricultural, forestry, and fishing products; by 1991 the total had
jumped to US$1.2 billion. This figure excluded those manufactured goods
based on products of the agricultural, livestock, and forestry sectors.
Much of the increased agricultural production in the country was the
result of rapidly improving yields and higher productivity, spurred by
an export-oriented policy.
There was little doubt that an exchange-rate policy aimed at
encouraging exports lay behind the strong performance of the Chilean
economy in the 1986-91 period. First, the liberalization of
international trade substantially lowered the costs of imported
agricultural inputs and capital goods, enabling the sector to become
more competitive. In fact, the liberalization of international trade put
an end to a long history of discrimination against agriculture. Tariffs
and other forms of import restrictions throughout the 1950s and 1960s
gave a relative advantage to those industries that produced importable
goods, making them domestically competitive at production costs above
international prices. The same policies, because they permitted an
overvalued exchange rate, punished those economic activities, like
agriculture, that could produce exportable goods. While those goods
could be sold at international prices, the foreign-exchange earnings
would be converted into domestic currency at an unfavorable exchange
rate. Second, the exchange-rate policy, pursued aggressively since 1985,
had provided incentives for the expansion of exports.
Third, an institutional framework that secured property rights to
land and water, along with reformed labor laws, had increased the
openness of factor markets and established clear signals for the
allocation of resources. Potential profits in new business initiatives
had by then become very much tied to international prices of goods and
domestic costs of resources. The likelihood of government intervention
in property rights allocation, prohibitions, special permits, and so
forth had been significantly reduced. Related reforms in the
transportation sector, particularly in air and marine transport, had
further increased access to international trade.
A fourth fundamental policy-based explanation of the increase in
agricultural exports was the pursuit of a stable macroeconomic policy
whose purpose was to give entrepreneurs confidence in the system and
enable them to plan their activities over the longer term. Many of the
export-oriented agricultural activities required sizable investments
that could only be undertaken in an environment of stability and policy
continuity. What is most remarkable, perhaps, is that since 1989 poverty
and inequality have have been reduced significantly.
Chile - EVOLUTION OF THE ECONOMY
The Colonial Era to 1950
In colonial times, the segmentation of Chile into latifundios left
only small parcels for native American and mestizo villagers to
cultivate. Cattle raised on the latifundios were a source of tallow and
hides, which were sent, via Peru, to Spain. Wheat was Chile's principal
export during the colonial period. From the inquilinos (peons),
indentured to the encomenderos, or latifundio owners, to the
merchants and encomenderos themselves, a chain of dependent
relations ran all the way to the Spanish metropolis.
After Chile won its independence in 1818, the economy prospered
through a combination of mercantilist and free-market policies.
Agricultural exports, primarily wheat, were the mainstay of the export
economy. By mid-century, however, Chile had become one of the world's
leading producers of copper. After Chile defeated Bolivia and Peru in
the War of the Pacific (1879-83), nitrate mines in areas conquered
during the war became the source of huge revenues, which were lavished
on imports, public works projects, education, and, less directly, the
expansion of an incipient industrial sector. Between 1890 and 1924,
nitrate output averaged about a quarter of GDP. Taxes on nitrate exports
accounted for about half of the government's ordinary budget revenues
from 1880 to 1920. By 1910 Chile had established itself as one of the
most prosperous countries in Latin America.
Dependence on revenues from nitrate exports contributed to financial
instability because the size of government expenditures depended on the
vagaries of the export market. Indeed, Chile was faced with a severe
domestic crisis when the nitrate bonanza ended abruptly during World War
I as a result of the invention of synthetic substitutes by German
scientists. Gradually, copper replaced nitrates as Chile's main export
commodity. Using new technologies that made it feasible to extract
copper from lowergrade ores, United States companies bought existing
Chilean mines for large-scale development.
Chile initially felt the impact of the Great Depression in 1930, when
GDP dropped 14 percent, mining income declined 27 percent, and export
earnings fell 28 percent. By 1932 GDP had shrunk to less than half of
what it had been in 1929, exacting a terrible toll in unemployment and
business failures. The League of Nations labeled Chile the country
hardest hit by the Great Depression because 80 percent of government
revenue came from exports of copper and nitrates, which were in low
demand.
Influenced profoundly by the Great Depression, many national leaders
promoted the development of local industry in an effort to insulate the
economy from future external shocks. After six years of government
austerity measures, which succeeded in reestablishing Chile's
creditworthiness, Chileans elected to office during the 1938-58 period a
succession of center and left-of-center governments interested in
promoting economic growth by means of government intervention.
Prompted in part by the devastating earthquake of 1939, the Chilean
government created the Production Development Corporation (Corporaci�n
de Fomento de la Producci�n--Corfo) to encourage with subsidies and
direct investments an ambitious program of importsubstitution
industrialization. Consequently, as in other Latin American countries,
protectionism became an entrenched aspect of the Chilean economy.
Import-substitution industrialization was spurred on by the advent of
World War II and the loss of access to many imported products. State
enterprises in electric power, steel, petroleum, and other heavy
industries were also created and expanded during the first years of the
industrialization process, mostly under the guidance of Corfo, and the
foundations of the manufacturing sector were set. Between 1937 and 1950,
the manufacturing sector grew at an average yearly real rate of almost 7
percent.
Despite initially impressive rates of growth, importsubstitution
industrialization did not produce a sustainable expansion of the
manufacturing sector. With the industrialization process evolved an
array of restrictions, controls, and often contradictory regulations.
With time, consumer-oriented industries found that their markets were
limited in a society where a large percentage of the population was poor
and where many rural inhabitants lived at the margins of the money
economy. The economic model did not generate a viable capital goods
industry because firms relied on imports of often outmoded capital and
intermediate goods. Survival often depended on state subsidies or state
protection. In fact, it was because of these import restrictions that
many of the domestic industries were able to survive. For example, a
number of comparative studies have indicated that Chile had one of the
highest, and more variable, structures of protection in the developing
world. As a consequence, many, if not most, of the industries created
under the importsubstitution industrialization strategy were
inefficient. Also, it has been argued that this strategy led to the use
of highly capital-intensive production, which, among other
inefficiencies, hampered job creation. Additionally, the
importsubstitution industrialization strategy generated an economy that
was particularly vulnerable to external shocks.
During the import-substitution industrialization period, copper
continued to be the principal export commodity and source of foreign
exchange, as well as an important generator of government revenues. The
Chilean government's retained share of the value of copper output
increased from about one-quarter in 1925 to over four-fifths in 1970,
mainly through higher taxes. Although protectionist policies better
insulated Chile from the occasional shocks of world commodities markets,
price shifts continued to take their toll.
Chile - Economic Policies, 1950-70
After assuming power in November 1970, the UP rapidly began to
implement its program. In the area of structural reforms, two basic
measures were immediately begun. First, agrarian reform was greatly
intensified, and a large number of farms was expropriated. Second, the
government proposed to change the constitution in order to nationalize
the large copper mines, which were jointly owned by large United States
firms and the Chilean state.
Government expenditures expanded greatly, and in 1971 real salaries
and wages in the public sector increased 48 percent, on average.
Salaries in the private sector grew at approximately the same rate. In
the first two quarters of 1971, manufacturing output increased 6.2
percent and 10.6 percent compared with the same periods in the previous
year. Manufacturing sales grew at even faster rates: 12 percent during
the first quarter and 11 percent during the second quarter. Overall, the
behavior of the economy in 1971 seemed to vindicate the UP economists:
real GDP grew at 7.7 percent, average real wages increased by 17
percent, aggregate consumption grew at a real rate of 13.2 percent, and
the rate of unemployment dipped below 4 percent. Also, and more
important for the UP political leaders, income distribution improved
significantly. In 1971 labor's share of GDP reached 61.7 percent, almost
ten percentage points higher than in 1970. All of this created a sense
of euphoria in the government.
On June 11, 1971, Congress approved unanimously an amendment to the
constitution nationalizing large copper mines. As a result, reform of
the banking system and large manufacturing firms was more difficult
because the government lacked the institutional means to implement
nationalization. Initially, this obstacle was alleviated because the
government purchased blocks of shares, especially bank shares, at high
prices. These share acquisitions were complemented by a process of
requisition or expropriation of foreign-owned companies based on an old,
and until then forgotten, decree law promulgated during Marmaduke Grove
Vallejo's short-lived Socialist Republic of 1932.
All did not remain well in the economy in 1971. The UP's
macroeconomic policies were rapidly generating a situation of repressed
inflation. The high growth rate of GDP was largely the result of an
almost 40 percent increase in imports of intermediate goods. The fiscal
deficit had jumped from 2 percent of GDP in 1970 to almost 11 percent in
1971. The rate at which the money supply grew exceeded 100 percent in
1971. As a result, the stock of international reserves inherited by the
Allende government was reduced by more than one-half in that year alone.
A rapid reduction of inventories was another important factor in the
expansion of consumption.
By the end of 1971, the mounting inflationary pressures had become
evident. The economy was experiencing the consequences of an aggregate
demand for goods and services well above the aggregate supply at current
prices. This imbalance was aggravated by a series of labor disputes in
many large establishments that resulted in the takeover of those firms
by their workers. In fact, this procedure became the institutionalized
way in which the government seized a large number of firms.
During 1972 the macroeconomic problems continued to mount. Inflation
surpassed 200 percent, and the fiscal deficit surpassed 13 percent of
GDP. Domestic credit to the public sector grew at almost 300 percent,
and international reserves dipped below US$77 million.
The underground economy grew as more and more activities moved out of
the official economy. As a result, more and more sources of tax revenues
disappeared. A vicious cycle began: repressed inflation encouraged the
informal economy, thus reducing tax revenues and leading to higher
deficits and even higher inflation. In 1972 two stabilization programs
were implemented, both unsuccessfully.
When evaluating the problems faced by the economy, UP economists
generally held the view that the authorities had failed to impose
appropriate controls in implementing Allende's program. This view guided
the first, rather weak, attempt at stabilizing the economy that was
launched in February 1972. Price controls were the main ingredient of
the program. By mid-1972 it was apparent that the February stabilization
program was a failure. The underground economy was now widespread,
output had begun to fall, open inflation reached an annual rate of 70
percent in the second quarter, foreign-exchange reserves were very low,
and the blackmarket value of the currency was falling rapidly.
Parliamentary elections scheduled for March 1973 made the situation
particularly difficult for the UP. In August 1972, a new stabilization
program was launched under the political monitoring of the PCCh. This
time, not only prices were officially controlled, but the distribution
channels were taken over by the government, in an attempt to reduce the
extent of the black market.
Unlike the previous plan, the August 1972 stabilization program was
based on a massive devaluation of the escudo. The government expected that the result would be an easing of
the mounting pressures on the balance of payments. The program also
called for two basic measures to contain fiscal pressures. First,
nationalized firms were authorized to increase prices as a means of
reducing the financing requirements of the newly formed nationalized
sector. Second, the program called for a massive increase in production,
especially in the recently nationalized manufacturing and agriculture
sectors (large manufacturing firms and farms had been expropriated
arbitrarily). The devaluation and a large number of price increases
resulted in annualized inflation rates of 22.7 percent in August and
22.2 percent in September.
In mid-August 1972, the government announced that it had drafted a
new wage policy based on an increase in publicand private-sector wages
by a proportion equal to the accumulated rate of inflation between
January and September. In addition, the new policy called for more
frequent wage adjustments.
During the first quarter of 1973, Chile's economic problems became
extremely serious. Inflation reached an annual rate of more than 120
percent, industrial output declined by almost 6 percent, and
foreign-exchange reserves held by the Central Bank were barely above
US$40 million. The black market by then covered a widening range of
transactions in foreign exchange. The fiscal deficit continued to climb
as a result of spiraling expenditures and of rapidly disappearing
sources of taxation. For that year, the fiscal deficit ended up
exceeding 23 percent of GDP.
The depth of the economic crisis seriously affected the middle class,
and relations between the UP government and the political opposition
became increasingly confrontational. On September 11, 1973, the UP
regime came to a sudden and shocking end with a military coup and
President Allende's suicide.
When the military took over, the country was divided politically, and
the economy was a shambles. Inflation was galloping, and relative price
distortions, stemming mainly from massive price controls, were endemic.
In addition, black-market activities were rampant, real wages had
dropped drastically, the economic prospects of the middle class had
darkened, the external sector was facing a serious crisis, production
and investment were falling steeply, and government finances were
completely out of hand.
Chile - The Military Government's Free-Market Reforms, 1973-90
The international debt crisis unleashed in 1982 hit the Chilean
economy with particular severity, as foreign loans dried up and the
international terms of trade turned drastically against Chile. The
policies implemented initially to face the 1982 crisis can best be
described as hesitant. In early 1983, the financial sector was
nationalized as a way to avoid a major banking crisis, and a number of
subsidy schemes favoring debtors were enacted. The decision to subsidize
debtors who had borrowed in foreign currency during the period of fixed
exchange rates, and to bail out the troubled banks, resulted in heavy
Central Bank losses, which contributed to the creation of a huge deficit
in publicsector finance. This deficit, in turn, would become one of the
underlying causes of the inflation of the early 1990s. Different
exchange-rate systems were tried, including a floating rate, only to be
abandoned rapidly and replaced by new plans. Policies aimed at
restructuring the manufacturing sector, which had entered a deep crisis
as a consequence of the collapse of some of the major conglomerates, the
so-called groups (grupos), were implemented. In spite of this
array of measures, the economy did not show a significant response;
unemployment remained extraordinarily high, and the external crisis,
which some had expected to represent only a temporary setback, dragged
on.
In early 1985, increasingly disappointed by the economy's
performance, Pinochet turned toward a group of pragmatic economists who
favored free markets and macroeconomic stability. Led by newly appointed
finance minister Hern�n B�chi Buc, an economist who had studied
business administration at Columbia University, the new economic team
devised a major adjustment program aimed at reestablishing growth,
reducing the burden of the foreign debt, and rebuilding the strength of
the financial and manufacturing sectors. Three policy areas became
critical in the implementation of the program: active macroeconomic
policies, consolidation of the market-oriented structural reforms
initiated in the 1970s, and debt-management policies geared toward
rescheduling debt payments and making an aggressive use of the secondary
market. With the help of the International Monetary Fund ( IMF), the
World Bank, and improved terms of trade, these policies succeeded in
achieving their objectives.
The macroeconomic program of a group of Chilean economists known as
the "Chicago boys", who had guided Pinochet's early economic
policies, had relied on a hands-off "automatic adjustment"
strategy. By mid-1982 this approach had generated a severe overvaluation
of the real exchange rate. By contrast, the new macroeconomic program
relied on active and carefully monitored macroeconomic management. An
active exchangerate policy, based on large initial exchange-rate
adjustments followed by periodic small devaluations, became one of the
most important policies of the post-1982 period. Between 1982 and 1988,
the international competitiveness of Chilean exports was increased
greatly by a real exchange-rate depreciation of approximately 90
percent. This policy not only helped generate a boom in nontraditional
exports but also contributed to reasonable interest-rate levels and to
the prevention of capital flight.
The adjustment program that started in 1985 also had a structural
adjustment component that was aimed at consolidating the market-oriented
reforms of the 1970s and early 1980s, including the privatization
process, the opening of the economy, and the development of a dynamic
capital market. There were several structural goals of the 1985 program:
rebuild the financial sector, which had been nearly destroyed during the
1982 crisis; reduce import tariffs below the 35 percent level that they
had reached during 1984 to a 15 percent uniform level; and promote
exports through a set of fiscal incentives and a competitive real
exchange rate.
Perhaps the most important aspects of these structural reform
measures were the privatization and recapitalization of firms and banks
that had failed during the 1982-83 crisis. As a first step in this
process, the Central Bank bought private banks' nonperforming
portfolios. In order to finance this operation, the Central Bank issued
domestic credit. The banks, in turn, paid a rate of 5 percent on the
nonperforming portfolios and promised to repurchase them out of retained
profits. This recapitalization program had as its counterpart a
privatization plan that returned the ownership of those banks and firms
that had been nationalized in 1983 to the private sector. Economist Rolf
J. L�ders estimates that about 550 enterprises under public-sector
control, including most of Chile's largest corporations, were privatized
between 1974 and 1990. By the end of 1991, fewer that fifty firms
remained in the public sector. The overall privatization program
undertaken after 1985 has been criticized by some Chileans and also by
some international economists because banks and manufacturing firms were
sold too rapidly and at "very low prices."
Chile's structural adjustment of the second half of the 1980s was
unique from an international comparative perspective. The most
difficult, controversial, and costly reforms--including the bulk of
privatization, trade liberalization, financial deregulation, and labor
market streamlining--were undertaken in Chile in the 1975-80 period; the
measures taken after 1985 were minor, in comparison. The success of the
post-1985 period was rooted in the early reforms. For example, the boom
in nontraditional exports that took place in the second half of the
1980s was only possible because of investments begun almost ten years
before. The markets' flexible and rapid response to incentives was also
a direct consequence of the microeconomic reforms of the 1970s.
One of the most hotly debated issues of the Chilean recovery of the
second half of the 1980s concerns the different foreign-debt conversion
plans aimed at rapidly reducing foreign indebtedness. When the debt
crisis erupted in 1982, Chile's foreign debt was US$17.2 billion, one of
the highest debts per capita in the world. Through the aggressive use of
a variety of debt-conversion plans, between 1985 and 1991 Chile retired
an estimated US$10.5 billion of its debt, most of which was converted
into equity in Chilean companies.
Chile's net international reserves totaled US$9 billion in 1992,
enough to cover a year of imports and equivalent to roughly half of its
foreign debt. The stock of foreign direct investment in Chile was
estimated to be between US$10 billion and US$13 billion, roughly 30
percent of GDP. About US$4 billion of this was acquired through
debt-equity conversions. The debt-swap program was ended when the growth
of direct investment and the strength of the economy had done away with
the need for special incentives to attract foreign capital.
Chile - The Return to Democracy, 1990
Chile is well endowed in fish and forest resources. Since the 1980s,
output has increased rapidly in both sectors, and exports have boomed.
An increasing proportion of these sectors' output was being processed,
appearing in the economic statistics as manufactured products.
Fishing
The cold waters of South America's western coast are rich in fish and
contain a wide variety of shellfish. For instance, about 800 varieties
of mollusks are found there, including the largest abalones and edible
sea urchins in the world. Some species, such as the abalones, had been
depleted to the point that they could not be harvested legally. About
750 kilometers from the mainland, the waters surrounding the Islas Juan
Fern�ndez are much warmer and contain different types of fish and
shellfish, including lobster.
Fishing expanded rapidly starting in the late 1970s. By 1983 Chile
was ranked fifth in the world in catch tonnage and had become the
world's leading exporter of fish meal. Despite naturally caused
year-to-year variations, the volume of the total fish catch had
increased over the long term. For example, in 1970 the total catch was
1.2 million tons, but the figures increased to 2.9 million tons in 1980
and 6.3 million tons in 1989. The total catch was about 5.4 million tons
in 1990 according to Central Bank data. Total fish caught in 1991,
reached 6 million tons, and fishing exports totaled US$1.1 billion, up
21 percent from 1990 and 138 percent from 1985. Of the 1991 figure, fish
meal accounted for US$466 million. Fish exports rose to 6.5 million tons
in 1992.
Salmon production was expected to reach 46,000 tons in 1992, earning
about US$250 million and turning the country into the third largest
producer in the world (after Norway and Canada). Starting with
fifty-three tons in 1981, the explosive growth in salmon production and
exports reflected the combination of perfect natural conditions for its
cultivation in the south with the successful adaptation of modern
technology.
By the early 1990s, a lack of fishing regulations was threatening
some species and giving the large fishing fleets advantages over the
smaller-scale, traditional fishermen who use small boats. After long
debate, Congress approved the new General Fishing Law in July 1991. The
law's purpose was to encourage investment in commercial fishing by
ensuring the conservation of hydrobiological resources, by protecting
against overfishing, by reserving for traditional fishermen an exclusive
eight-kilometer strip of coastal waters, and by promoting fishing
research. The infrastructure plan also included providing resources for
developing large and small ports for industrial and traditional fishing.
Total output of industrialized fish products was expected to increase
significantly with new investments during the 1990s. Both the good
catches in the 1989-91 period and the openness of the regulations had
prompted Chilean companies to invest a total of US$100 million and to
build nearly twenty boats.
Forestry
Beginning in 1975, the planting and exploitation of forests was
subsidized heavily by the state, which remitted 70 percent of the cost
of planting new areas with trees, exempted such lands from taxes, and
permitted a 50 percent deduction for tax purposes from the profits
generated from cutting the forests. The forestry policy of the military
government was a major exception to its free-market approach and
stimulated a significant expansion of forested land.
Chile's forested land is highly concentrated in the hands of a few
major companies, principally those connected with the flourishing paper
industry and with the national oil company. About 90 percent of all the
wood harvested comes from plantations that were established, beginning
in the early 1960s, on land of poor quality that originally had been
cleared of forests for the growing of wheat and other crops.
Reforestation, mostly with pine but also increasingly with eucalyptus,
has continued at a faster pace than the cutting of the forests, thereby
ensuring ample supplies for the foreseeable future. It was thought that
the volume of production could double 1990 levels by the year 2000.
The public sector is playing a drastically smaller role in forestry.
This diminution of the public sector's role is the result of the general
tendency in the country toward reducing, and even eliminating, directly
productive government activities. In 1992 the forestry industry was
objecting strongly to the new powers that the Aylwin government was
proposing to confer on the National Forestry Corporation (Corporaci�n
Nacional Forestal--Conaf) to protect native forests.
Whereas exports of basic--that is, nonmanufactured--forestry products
had declined by the early 1990s, exports of manufactured wood products
had almost doubled. This doubling of manufactured wood exports meant
that instead of exporting raw logs, Chile was increasingly adding value
to its forest products and was producing such items as milled boards,
pulp, paper, and cardboard. The main market was Japan, which absorbed 25
percent of the value of exports, followed by the United States and
Germany, with 8 percent each. Chile's print industry was enjoying a boom
in the early 1990s, supplying books and magazines to neighboring
countries, especially to Argentina (which accounted for 75 percent of
overseas sales) and Brazil (12 percent). Exports of books and magazines
grew by 90 percent in 1992 to about US$70 million.
Under study in 1992 was a bill to regulate Chile's shrinking but
still large native old-growth forests, which totaled 7.62 million
hectares out of 8.86 million hectares of woodland (the remaining 1.24
million hectares are plantations). Chile's forestry industry has worked
mostly on plantations of radiata pine, the raw material used for making
pulp. But the country's native forests are in need of management to
avoid extinction or indiscriminate harvesting of slow-growing species
and the resultant erosions and loss of land for future plantations of
new species. During 1991, about 107,000 hectares were planted.
Chile - Energy
After reluctantly accepting the Labor Plan of 1979, unions became
active again in the early 1980s and were able to push for wage
concessions during the economic boom of that period. A minority
maintained a tough stance in opposition to the new system, but they
lacked significant influence, so opposition eventually disappeared.
The most radical change experienced by the union movement with the
return to democracy has been its reintegration into the national
discussion of labor reforms and social policies. The reforms of 1990-91,
which introduced some changes to the original Labor Plan, represented a
moderate increase in workers' bargaining power in each of the three
central areas of the labor law: dismissals; the right to collective
bargaining; and the right of employers to hire temporary replacements or
to impose lockouts during strikes.
Law 19,010, enacted in 1990, regulates individual contracts. In the
area of dismissals, it introduces two important differences relative to
the previous law--the size of the severance compensation and the right
of the worker to appeal. Whereas the Labor Plan had introduced the
practice of dismissals without cause and established a severance pay
equal to one month's salary per year of service up to a maximum of five
months' worth, this reform reinstates the principle of dismissal only
with cause, and it increases the severance-pay ceiling to eleven months.
The law considers two possible reasons for dismissal--the traditional
"just cause" (serious misconduct) and the new "economic
cause." If the employee appeals and the employer fails to prove
"just cause," the employer would have to pay a 50 percent
penalty in addition to the usual severance. Failure to prove
"economic cause" would result in a 20 percent penalty.
The previous law was also modified to provide an option to replace
the normal severance with a "payment in all separations." This
option is available to workers with more than seven years of service
with the same employer. If this option is exercised, the employer would
establish a fund in the worker's name, with monthly deposits of a
minimum of 4.1 percent and a maximum of 8.3 percent of the salary (the
salary base having a maximum) in a private financial institution. These
contributions and the corresponding accumulated interest would be
nontaxable income and would constitute a fund that would be withdrawn on
separation.
Law 19,069, enacted in 1991, regulates the rights of employers and
employees during collective bargaining. Under this law, enterprise-level
workers' organizations have the right to negotiate with employers, and
employers are obliged to negotiate with them. The law gives the employer
the right to limit to thirty-five days the period of bargaining with all
unions representing the enterprises' workers. Under Law 19,069,
collective agreements can establish pay scales, indexation formulas,
fringe benefits, and the like, but they cannot limit the sovereignty of
the employer over the organization and administration of the enterprise
(Article 82).
One of the important departures from the previous law is that trade
unions or workers' associations are given the right to bargain with more
than one employer. Yet this right can only be exercised under the
following circumstances: in the case of collective bargaining affecting
more than one enterprise, prior agreement of the parties is required
(Article 79); submission of collective agreement by other trade union
organizations (such as federations or confederations) requires approval
by secret ballot of the absolute majority of the member workers of the
enterprise (Article 110); and a given worker cannot be covered by more
than one collective agreement (Article 83).
A strike would suspend the individual contract, give employers a
conditional right to temporary replacement, and give employees a
conditional right to renounce union membership and return to work.
Employers can use temporary replacements from the first day of the
strike if their last offer, before the strike was declared, was
equivalent to the previous contract adjusted by the consumer price index
( CPI). If the last offer was lower, employers cannot use temporary
replacements within a minimum of thirty days after the strike is called.
Employees have the right to renounce union membership and go back to
work fifteen days after calling the strike, as long as the outstanding
offer of the employer is equivalent to the last contract adjusted by the
CPI. If the last offer is lower, employees must delay their walkout a
minimum of thirty days after the strike is called. The law does not
establish a maximum duration for strikes, but if more than half of the
workers return to work, the strike must end. At that point, all workers
must return to the job. In order to make use of the right to replace
workers temporarily, employers must make an offer that at least adjusts
wages by past inflation. If the employer also offers other fringe
benefits but workers still go on strike, the employer may hire temporary
replacements. However, the employer loses that right if the wage
adjustment for past inflation is given but some fringe benefits are cut.
That would not be a contract equivalent to the previous one adjusted by
inflation. If workers go on strike, the employer cannot use temporary
replacements within thirty days of the declaration of the strike.
It was unclear in 1992 what the final form would be for the new
legislation on labor-management relations, labor productivity,
investment, on-the-job training, and other aspects of labor markets'
performance. However, workers have almost doubled their participation in
labor unions since 1983, and by 1990 about 13 percent of those employed
were affiliated with unions. During 1990, 25,000 workers, out of 184,000
who participated in collective contracts, used strikes as a means of
pressing their demands. Most strikes during 1990 and 1991 were of short
duration.
Chile - Economic Results of the Pensions Privatization
Development and Breakdown of Democracy, 1830-1973
Following the wars of independence and several failed experiments in
institution building, Chile after 1830 made steady progress toward the
construction of representative institutions, showing a constancy almost
without parallel in South American political history. From 1830 until
1973, almost all of Chile's presidents stepped down at the end of their
prescribed terms in office to make way for constitutionally designated
successors. The only exceptions to this pattern occurred in 1891, after
a brief civil war; in the turbulence from late 1924 to 1927, which
followed the military's intervention against the populist President
Arturo Alessandri Palma (1920-24, 1925, 1932-38); in 1931, when several
chief executives resigned under pressure and military officers
intervened directly in politics; and in 1932, when the commander of the
Air Force of Chile (Fuerza A�rea de Chile--FACh), Marmaduke Grove
Vallejo, proclaimed his short-lived Socialist Republic. For most of its
history, Chile was governed by two charters--the constitution of 1833
and the constitution of 1925, which drew heavily on its
nineteenth-century predecessor.
Under the 1833 document, Chilean presidents, notably Manuel Bulnes
Prieto (1841-51) and Manuel Montt Torres (1851-61), presided over the
gradual institutionalization of representative practices and a gradual
expansion of suffrage, while exercising strong executive authority. By
the 1870s, the president was being challenged by increasingly cohesive
political parties, which, from their vantage point in the National
Congress (Congreso Nacional; hereafter, Congress), sought to limit
executive prerogatives and curb presidential intervention in the
electoral process.
With the assertion of congressional power, presidents were limited to
one term, and their control over elections was circumscribed. However,
it took the Civil War of 1891 to bring to an end the chief executive's
power to manipulate the electoral process to his advantage. The victory
of the congressional forces in that conflict inaugurated a long period
in which Congress was at the center of national politics. From 1891
until 1924, presidents were required to structure their cabinets to
reflect changing legislative majorities, and the locus of policy making
was subject to the intrigues and vote trading of the legislature.
Although politics during the parliamentary period was often chaotic
and corrupt, Chile enjoyed unusual prosperity based on a booming nitrate
trade and relatively enlightened leadership. Political parties, whose
activities had once been limited to the corridors of Congress, soon
engaged the interests and energies of Chileans at every level of
society. The parties thus provided the basis for an open, highly
competitive political system comparable to those of Europe's
parliamentary democracies. The competitiveness of Chilean politics
permitted the emergence of new interests and movements, including the
Communist Party of Chile (Partido Comunista de Chile--PCCh) and the
Socialist Party (Partido Socialista--PS), representing a growing and
increasingly militant proletariat.
The collapse of nitrate exports and the crisis brought on by the
Great Depression of the 1930s discredited the politicians of Chile's
oligarchical democracy and encouraged the growth of alternative
political forces. From 1924 to 1931, Chile was buffeted by political
instability as several presidents resigned from office and Carlos Ib��ez
del Campo (1927-31, 1952- 58), a military officer, rose to power on an
antipolitics platform. In 1925 a new constitution was approved. Although
it did not deviate substantially from previous constitutional doctrine,
it was designed to shift the balance of power from Congress back to the
president.
By the second and third decades of the twentieth century, Chile was
facing some of the same challenges confronting the nations of Europe.
Parliamentary democracy had fallen into disrepute as the machinations of
corrupt elites were challenged by both fascism and socialism, doctrines
that stressed social as opposed to political rights and that sought to
expand the power of the state in pursuing them. Precisely because of its
tradition of competitive politics and the strength of its political
parties, Chile was able to withstand the challenge of alternative
ideologies without experiencing the breakdown of democratic authority
that swept the South American continent.
Chilean politics changed dramatically, however, as a multiparty
system emerged without exact parallel in Latin America, one in which
strong Marxist parties vied with conservative parties, while pragmatic
centrist parties attempted to mediate. In this polarized context,
presidents governed with shifting coalitions, pushing the country
alternately to the right or left, depending on the particular political
configuration of the moment. Although the left gained ground throughout
the 1940s and 1950s, the right maintained electoral clout by blocking
efforts to bring congressional representation into line with new
demographic trends. This was not a period of policy stalemate, however.
By encouraging a policy of import-substitution industrialization and
expanding social welfare programs, the Chilean state markedly increased
its role in national life.
In the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Chilean politics
changed in a qualitative sense. With the 1964 election of a Christian
Democratic government under the leadership of President Eduardo Frei
Montalva (1964-70), Chile embarked on an experiment in reformist
politics intended to energize the economy while redistributing wealth.
Frei and his colleagues were determined to modernize the country through
the introduction of significant social reforms, including an extensive
agrarian reform that would bring an end to the concentration of economic
power in the hands of rural landlords.
Frei's government accomplished many of its objectives. In pushing for
change, however, the president broke the tacit alliance with the right
that had made his election possible. His attempt to co-opt part of the
program of the left and mobilize followers in traditionally leftist
constituencies also threatened the Marxist parties. By the end of the
1960s, the polarization of Chilean politics had overwhelmed the
traditional civility of Chile's vaunted democratic institutions. The
centrist agreements of the past, which had enabled presidents to
navigate a difficult course of compromise and conciliation, now became
more difficult to attain.
In a reflection of Chile's increased ideological polarization,
Allende was elected president with 36.2 percent of the vote in 1970.
Unable or unwilling to form coalitions, the left, center, and right had
all nominated their own candidates in the mistaken hope of obtaining a
majority. Although Allende's Popular Unity (Unidad Popular--UP)
government drew initially on the congressional support of the Christian
Democrats, whose backing made his election possible in the congressional
runoff on October 24, 1970, the left increasingly pushed to implement
its agenda without building political bridges to the "bourgeois
parties." Like Frei before him, Allende was convinced that he would
be able to break the deadlock of Chile's ideologically entrenched
multiparty system and create a new majority capable of implementing his
revolutionary agenda. Once this effort failed, Allende's attempts to
implement his program by decree only heightened opposition to his
policies. Finally, the president's failure to make substantial gains
from his electoral victory in the March 1973 congressional elections
meant that he would be unable to obtain the necessary congressional
majority to implement his legislative objectives. In an atmosphere of
growing confrontation, in which moderates on both sides failed to come
up with a regime-saving compromise, the military forces moved in to
break the political deadlock, establishing the longest and most
revolutionary government in the nation's history.
<>Imposition of
Authoritarian Rule
The constitutional document imposed by the regime in 1980 consisted
of 120 "permanent" articles, which went into full effect after
the transition to "constitutional government." The document
also included thirty-four "transitional" articles applying to
the transitional period from March 11, 1980, to March 11, 1990. The
transitional articles provided the regime with sweeping powers and
outlined the procedures for the 1988-89 plebiscite on constitutional
amendments and the election of a legislature. The most controversial
provision was Transitional Article 24, which eliminated due process of
law by giving the president broad powers to curtail the rights of
assembly and free speech and to arrest, exile, or banish into internal
exile any citizen, with no rights of appeal except to the president
himself.
The "permanent" articles of the constitution were intended
to create a "modern and protected democracy," an authoritarian
version of representative government that guarantees "national
security" by severely circumscribing the will of the people. This
was to be accomplished in three ways: through the establishment of a
permanent role for the armed forces as "guarantors" of the
nation's institutions; through the imposition of restrictions on
political activity, including the banning of movements or ideologies
hostile to democracy; and through the creation of institutional
mechanisms that would limit popular sovereignty.
The cornerstone of the military regime's constitutional doctrine was,
according to the 1980 document, the establishment of a permanent
tutelary role for the armed forces. The principal manifestation of this
"tutelage" was, according to the 1980 document, the National
Security Council (Consejo de Seguridad Nacional--Cosena), a body
composed of eleven members, eight of whom have enjoyed full voting
rights since 1989 and only two of whom were to be elected officials
(Article 95). Voting members consisted of the president of the republic,
the president of the Senate of the Republic (Senado de la Rep�blica;
hereafter, Senate), the president of the Supreme Court (Corte Suprema),
the commanders in chief of the armed forces, and the director general of
the Carabineros of Chile (Carabineros de Chile). This arrangement
provided military leaders with an absolute majority on any Cosena vote.
Nonvoting members included the ministers of defense; economy,
development, and reconstruction; finance; foreign relations; and
interior.
The 1980 constitution prescribed that Cosena could "express to
any authority established by this constitution its opinion regarding any
deed, event, act, or subject matter, which in its judgment gravely
challenges the bases of the institutional order or could threaten
national security" (Article 96). Cosena was thus empowered to
admonish top government leaders and institutions, including Congress and
the president, on any matter Cosena deemed relevant to the nation's
security as Cosena defined it. Although the fundamental law did not
specify what would transpire should an authority ignore Cosena's
opinion, the framers clearly intended to give the armed forces
constitutional authority to take matters into their own hands should
their views be ignored.
The 1980 constitution also gave Cosena significant powers of
"authorization" and "nomination." The constitution
required the president to seek approval from Cosena to impose any state
of exception and gave the council authority to solicit any information
it deemed necessary in "national security" matters from any
government agency. Under the 1980 charter, Cosena was also empowered to
name four of the nine designated members of the Senate and two of the
seven members of the powerful Constitutional Tribunal (Tribunal
Constitucional), whereas the president and the Senate could nominate
only one each. Finally, only Cosena could remove military commanders.
Perhaps the most significant protection of military prerogatives was
provided by Article 93, which severely limits civilian control over the
armed forces. Although the president names the commanders of each of the
military services and the director general of the Carabineros, nominees
must be selected from a list of the five highest-ranking officers with
greatest seniority. Once a commander is appointed, that appointee is
safe from presidential dismissal for the duration of the individual's
four-year term, unless qualified charges are brought against the person.
A second set of instruments for the establishment of a
"protected" democracy excluded from political life those
individuals, parties, or movements whose views and objectives are judged
hostile to democracy. The language of Article 8 was aimed specifically
at the parties of the Marxist left, although it could be applied to
other groups and movements as well. According to the article, "any
act by a person or group intended to propagate doctrines that are
antagonistic to the family or that advocate violence or a totalitarian
concept of society, the state, or the juridical order or class struggle
is illicit and contrary to the institutional order of the
Republic." Furthermore, any organization, movement, or political
party that supports such aims is deemed unconstitutional. Article 19
barred parties from intervening in any activities that are "foreign
to them," including the labor movement and local or community
politics. Finally, Article 23 and Article 57 specifically barred leaders
of "intermediate groups," such as unions, community
organizations, and other associations, from leadership of political
parties, and vice versa; deputies or senators could lose their seats for
acting directly on such groups' behalf.
Third, the military regime sought to limit the expression of popular
sovereignty by placing a series of checks on government institutions
whose existence derives from popular consent. The most dramatic example
was the elimination of elected local governments. Since colonial times,
Chileans had elected municipal governments with considerable local
powers and autonomy. Although modern local governments were limited in
their efficacy by the overwhelming power and financial resources of the
state, participation and interest in local politics had always been
high. Article 32 of the constitution called for the direct presidential
appointment of regional intendants (intendentes), governors (governadores)
of provinces, and mayors (alcaldes) of large cities. Other
mayors could be appointed by provincial corporative bodies.
Reversing Chilean democratic practice, the constitution created an
exaggerated presidentialism, severely limiting the prerogatives of
Congress. Article 32 was particularly dramatic, giving the president the
power to dissolve the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies (C�mara de
Diputados), at least once in the chief executive's term. Popular
representation in Congress was to be checked through the appointment of
nine "designated" senators, more than a fourth of the
thirty-five-member chamber. Finally, the constitution made any reform in
the basic text extremely difficult to implement by requiring the
concurrence of the president and two succeeding legislatures, each of
which would have to approve an amendment by a three-fifths vote.
Chile - Authoritarianism Defeated by Its Own Rules
The reversal of fortune for Chile's democratic opposition came very
gradually. After massive protests in 1983, spearheaded by labor leaders
buoyed by mass discontent in the wake of a sharp downturn in the
nation's economy, party leaders sought to set aside their acrimonious
disputes and make a collective effort to bring an end to the military
government. By this point, even influential elements on the right were
signaling their displeasure with the personalization of power, fearing
that a prolongation of the Pinochet regime would only serve to
radicalize Chilean politics further and set the stage for a popular
uprising that would overwhelm the authorities.
But Pinochet seemed to relish the challenge of taking on the
opposition and was determined to carry out his self-appointed mandate to
reshape Chile's economic and political systems. In a strategic retreat
made under pressure from regime moderates, Pinochet briefly permitted
officials to open a dialogue with democratic opponents, only to refuse
to make any change in the formula for transition outlined in the
constitution of 1980. In response to the continuing wave of protests,
Pinochet declared a state of siege in November 1984 that included a
crackdown on all demonstrations.
In August 1985, after months of delicate intraparty negotiations
backed by Chile's Roman Catholic cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno, a broad
alliance of eleven political groups, from center-right to socialist,
signed a document entitled the National Accord for Transition to Full
Democracy. It called for a gradual transition to civilian rule without
specifying a particular timetable; legalization of all political
activity; an end to restrictions on civil liberties; and free, direct
presidential elections rather than the plebiscite contemplated in the
constitution of 1980. The signing of the accord by such an array of
groups meant that for the first time since 1973 Pinochet could no longer
claim majority support. The regime appeared vulnerable, and many
Chileans began to believe that Pinochet would agree to relinquish power.
And yet, the accord soon lost its momentum as Pinochet and his aides
worked skillfully to sow mistrust and rancor within the fragile
alliance. The general refused to acknowledge the accord's existence or
meet with its leaders, despite a personal plea from Cardinal Fresno.
In the face of a determined military leader, opposition forces were
at a clear disadvantage. They had no coherent strategy to force the
regime to accept their point of view. The far left, which had refused to
endorse the accord, hoped for a Sandinista-style insurrection that would
drive Pinochet from power and give the PCCh and its allies, which
included clandestine armed groups, the upper hand in the formation of a
"provisional" alternative government. The moderate opposition
envisioned a completely different scenario: some kind of breakdown of
military support for Pinochet in response to peaceful civilian
discontent, followed by free elections.
With the erosion of support for the National Accord, the Chilean
opposition fell back into partisan and ideological quarrels. After years
without national, local, or even internal party elections, opposition
leaders were frozen in past disputes, incapable of gauging popular
support for various policies. Given the parties' stasis, student
elections on Chile's university campuses became bellwethers of political
opinion. Often, the Christian Democratic and Communist candidates for
student offices proved far more willing to compromise and form working
alliances than their older counterparts.
The dramatic attempt on Pinochet's life by the Manuel Rodr�guez
Patriotic Front (Frente Patri�tica Manuel Rodr�guez--FPMR) in
September 1986 further weakened the general's divided opponents and
temporarily strengthened his own grip on power. The elaborately planned
attack by the PCCh's armed branch, in which commandos stormed Pinochet's
motorcade on a hillside road outside Santiago, left five bodyguards dead
but the general unharmed. Conservatives rallied around the regime,
Christian Democrats and moderate Socialists distanced themselves from
the Communists, and the Western democracies tempered their support of
the opposition movement. Over the ensuing months, several new campaigns
by the democratic opposition fizzled, including a movement of prominent
citizens calling for free elections. Key opposition leaders, notably
Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin Az�car, began to emphasize the
wisdom of trying to take on the regime in the upcoming plebiscite,
rather than pressing for free elections.
As 1987 began, Pinochet and his aides confidently started planning
for the presidential plebiscite. The economy was showing signs of
recovery. The Marxist left, decimated by arrests and executions
following the attack on Pinochet, was discredited. The democratic
opposition was torn between those who accepted the regime's transition
formula and those who denounced it as illegitimate. Moderate
conservatives and some regime insiders, including the chiefs of the FACh
and the National Police (Polic�a Nacional), urged Pinochet to permit
open elections or to allow a candidate other than himself to stand for
office. But the general was surrounded by sycophants who assured him
that he was the only man capable of saving Chile from anarchy and chaos.
Pinochet viewed politicians as demagogues determined to reverse the
accomplishments of the military regime that only he, as a patriotic,
self- sacrificing soldier, could defend in the face of a life-and-death
threat from the communist foe.
On August 30, 1988, Chile's four military commanders met in secret
deliberation and unanimously nominated the seventy-three- year-old
Pinochet to run for president in a plebiscite that would take place in
just five weeks, on October 5. Any commander who might have opposed
General Pinochet did not do so, apparently because of a belief in the
principle of military unity, or because of intimidation by Pinochet's
power. The vast resources of the regime were already mobilized to ensure
Pinochet's victory. Military provincial governors and civilian mayors,
all appointed by Pinochet, were acting as local campaign chiefs. A
voter- registration drive had begun in early 1987, with Pinochet himself
the first to register. While opposition forces were denied access to the
mass media, state television aired glowing advertisements for the
government's accomplishments. The regime stepped up production of
low-income housing, and Pinochet presided over countless ribbon-cutting
ceremonies. The general's wife, Luc�a Hiriart, who headed a vast
network of women's aid and mothers' clubs, organized them into a
grass-roots support network for the yes vote.
The turning point for the opposition had come in 1987, when key
leaders concluded that their only hope to defeat the military was to
beat it at its own game. Opposition leaders accepted the reality, if not
the legitimacy, of constitutional provisions they despised by agreeing
to register their followers in the electoral rolls set up by the junta,
legalize political parties according to the regime's own prescriptions,
and prepare to participate fully in a plebiscite they viewed as
undemocratic.
By early 1988, fourteen parties had joined a loose coalition for the
no vote. Moderate Socialists played a key role in convincing dubious
Chilean leftists to register to vote, and the more radical wing of the
Socialist Party finally followed suit. With little money and only
limited freedom to operate, an all- volunteer force led by Socialists
and Christian Democrats registered voters, organized training sessions
for poll watchers, and collected the signatures needed to legalize
parties. By the cutoff date, a record 92 percent of the voting-age
population had registered to vote, and four parties had collected enough
signatures to register poll watchers for 22,000 voting tables.
Despite inherently unfair campaign conditions, the military
government made some efforts to provide a level playing field. The
Constitutional Tribunal, to the annoyance of some hard-liners in the
regime, issued a firm ruling arguing that the constitution requires the
implementation of a series of measures that would guarantee an impartial
vote and vote count. Ironically, these measures had not been applied in
the plebiscite that had ratified the constitution itself in 1980.
Although opposition leaders did not trust the government, a fair
election was also in the government's interest. Pinochet and his
commanders were confident that the population's fear of a return to the
confrontations of the early 1970s, in combination with signs of economic
recovery and a campaign run with military efficiency, would permit
Pinochet to overwhelm the fractious opposition and let his detractors,
both at home and abroad, know that he enjoyed broad popular legitimacy.
In the weeks before the plebiscite, the no campaign, finally granted
access to television, stunned the nation with its unity and a series of
upbeat, appealing advertisements that stressed harmony and joy in a
reunited Chile, called for a return to democratic traditions, and hinted
at the poverty and oppression average people had suffered under the
dictatorship. In response, the government stepped up its official
propaganda campaign, bombarding the airwaves with grim and far less
appealing ads that reminded voters of the violence and disorder that had
preceded the coup and warned that Pinochet's opponents offered only more
of the same.
On October 5, 1988, the voting proceeded in a quiet, orderly fashion,
with military guards at each polling place, per tradition. By 9:00 P.M.,
the opposition's computers had counted half a million votes and showed
the no tally to be far ahead. However, the government kept delaying the
release of its tallies, and state television finally switched to a
comedy series from the United States.
After frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed effort by
some government officials to provoke street violence as an excuse to
cancel the plebiscite, government television announced, at 2:40 A.M.,
that with 71 percent of the vote counted, the no was far ahead. The
following night, a grim-faced Pinochet appeared on television and
acknowledged his defeat: 54.5 percent for the no, versus 43 percent for
the yes. Pinochet's acceptance of his electoral loss was a remarkable
event. Despite the general's evident ambition to remain in power, the
firm discipline within Chile's military establishment and the commitment
of the other junta commanders, who had pledged to guarantee the vote's
outcome, prevented him from doing so.
Chile - The Constitutional Reforms of 1989
The victory of the opposition led to a period of political
uncertainty. The no coalition had campaigned on a platform that rejected
not only Pinochet's candidacy but also the "itinerary" and
proposed "institutionality" of the Pinochet government.
Democratic leaders felt that their clear victory entitled them to seek
significant modifications in the constitutional framework established by
the armed forces. However, they firmly rejected calls for Pinochet's
resignation, or the formation of a provisional government, as
unrealistic. Although Pinochet and the armed forces had suffered an
electoral defeat, they had, of course, not been defeated militarily, nor
had they lost their iron grip on the state. Nor was there any hint that
the military would be willing to disregard Pinochet's wishes and abandon
the transition formula and institutional order envisioned in
"their" 1980 constitution. The fact that Pinochet had received
43 percent of the popular vote, despite fifteen years in office, only
strengthened his hand in military circles.
Under these circumstances, the opposition leaders understood that
they could not risk upsetting the military's transition formula or
giving Pinochet an excuse to renege on the constitutional provision
calling for an open presidential election within seventeen months. The
opposition had won the plebiscite following Pinochet's rules; it could
not now turn around and fully disavow them. Yet the opposition faced a
serious dilemma. The 1980 constitution would be very difficult to amend
once a new government was elected; a government elected under its terms
would be locked into a legal structure the coalition considered
fundamentally undemocratic. Pinochet would appoint almost one-third of
the Senate, and the congressional election would take place under the
rules of a system designed to favor the forces of the right, which had
supported the military government. Changes to the constitution could be
approved much more expeditiously before the full return to democracy
because they would require the approval of only four men on the military
junta, subject to ratification by a plebiscite.
Moderates within the military government who were open to discussions
with the opposition quickly distanced themselves from regime officials
and supporters who saw any compromise as capitulation. These moderates
believed that it was in the military regime's clear interest to bargain
with the opposition so as to salvage the essential features of the
institutional legacy of the armed forces. They wanted a "soft
landing" and feared that if the regime proved inflexible, a
groundswell of support for the opposition could sweep away all of what
they viewed as the government's accomplishments.
The position of the moderates in the military government, whose power
was not assured, was bolstered significantly by the willingness of the
largest party on the right, the National Renewal (Renovaci�n
Nacional--RN), to sit down with the opposition parties to come to an
agreement on constitutional reforms. Political leaders of the democratic
right were also uncomfortable with many of the authoritarian features of
the 1980 constitution and anxious to distance themselves from the more
unpalatable features of the regime as the country began to move toward
electoral politics. They too were committed to a spirit of dialogue that
might help prevent a breakdown in the transition and a return to raw
military rule. The rightists' willingness to talk to their opponents in
the center and on the left placed the regime hard-liners on notice: if
reforms were not accomplished before the election of a Congress, the
center-left parties of the opposition and the moderate right might yet
find a way to dismantle the constitution of 1980.
The moderates within the government won the day with two additional
arguments. First, they argued that any compromise with the opposition
would leave the essence of the constitution intact while providing it
with a legitimacy it presently lacked. The constitutional reforms
finally would establish the Pinochet document as the legitimate
successor to the 1925 constitution.
Second, the government soft-liners made persuasive arguments that
constitutional reforms, prior to the advent of democratic politics,
could improve certain features of the constitution. The constitution was
designed for Pinochet's reelection, not his defeat, and the armed forces
feared that the document did not sufficiently protect their
institutional autonomy. By entering into a constitutional-reform
agreement, the authorities could insist on an amendment that would
elevate the law regulating the armed forces' internal operations,
including promotions, organization, training, and finances, to the
status of an "organic constitutional law." This would mean
that changes in the law could not be made unless approved by a majority,
or four-sevenths, of all senators and deputies.
The extraordinary bargaining among the democratic opposition, the
moderate right, and the regime owed much to the leadership of Patricio
Aylwin, the leader of the Christian Democrats, who had become the
standard-bearer of the no alliance. Aylwin understood that the
hard-liners within the military government could make the transition
difficult, if not impossible, if the reform process broke down. Nor did
Aylwin, who expected to be the next president of Chile, relish the
prospect of a confrontational transition government in which the new
authorities would endeavor vainly to implement reforms while supporters
of the former military government sought to hold the line. The prospects
for the first government after a long authoritarian interlude would be
jeopardized by a continuous struggle to define the future of the
country's institutional order. Better to agree on the playing field now,
in order to avoid fatal problems later. For the regime, Carlos C�ceres,
Pinochet's minister of interior, played a critical role. At one point in
the talks, he threatened to resign when the general balked at key
constitutional reforms, only to find strong support for his position
among other commanders on the junta.
Opponents of constitutional reform on both the far left and the far
right shared a curious symbiotic logic. Those on the left rejected
reform because they envisioned a sharp break with the military
government, which would be defeated once again in an open presidential
election and would have to concede the failure of its institutional
blueprint. Those on the right relished that very confrontation because
they saw it as forcing the military once again to accept its
"patriotic responsibility" and save the country from a
citizenry still not ready for democracy.
The fifty-four reforms, approved by 85.7 percent of the voters on
July 30, 1989, fell far short of the expectations of the opposition but
nevertheless represented significant concessions on the part of the
authorities. From the point of view of the opposition, the most
important modifications were to Article 8, which in its new form
penalized parties or groups that, through their actions and not simply
through their objectives, threatened the democratic order. Other reforms
eliminated the prohibition against party membership of labor or
association leaders, required the courts to consider habeas corpus
petitions in all circumstances, and prohibited exile as a sanction. The
revised article also reduced the qualified majorities required for
approval of organic constitutional laws and constitutional amendments in
Congress; eliminated the requirement that two successive Congresses vote
to enact amendments; and increased the number of elected senators to
thirty-eight, thus reducing the proportion of designated senators while
restoring some oversight functions to the Senate. In addition, the
amended article eliminated the president's power to dissolve the lower
house of Congress and reduced some of the chief executive's power to
declare a state of exception; changed the mandate of Cosena by
substituting the word representar (represent) for hacer
presente (make known), a legal construction that the opposition
interpreted from legal precedents at the Office of the Comptroller
General of the Republic (Oficina de la Contralor�a General de la Rep�blica)
as giving Cosena an advisory role, rather than an enforcement role; and
increased the membership of Cosena to eight by adding another civilian
member, the comptroller general (contralor�a general). The
latter modification ensured that the military members of Cosena would
not enjoy a four-to-three majority.
From the perspective of the Pinochet government, the most important
result of the reform process was the retention of the essential elements
of its constitutional design and its ratification by an overwhelming
majority of the citizenry. What the military had not achieved in 1980,
it achieved with the negotiations of 1989. The constitution of the armed
forces had now replaced the constitution of 1925 as the legitimate
fundamental law of the land. Although it had to concede some points, the
military gained a significant victory with the provision that laws
dealing with the armed forces would be governed by an organic
constitutional law. The Pinochet regime also succeeded in having the
first elected president's term limited to four years with no option to
run for reelection. Government officials were convinced that even if the
opposition parties won the next election, they would be incapable of
governing, a situation that would open the door in four years to a new
administration more to the military's liking.
With the approval of the constitutional reforms, Chile's transition
became, in political sociologist Juan J. Linz's terms, a transici�n
pactada (a transition by agreement), rather than a transici�n
por ruptura (a sharp break with the previous order). However, the
opposition made clear that it saw the agreements as constituting only a
first step in democratizing the constitution, and that it would seek
further reforms of Cosena, the composition of the Constitutional
Tribunal and the Senate, the election of local governments, the
president's authority over the armed forces, and the powers of Congress
and the courts.
With the constitutional reforms behind them, Chileans turned their
attention to the December 14, 1989, elections, the first democratic
elections for president and Congress in nineteen years. The fourteen
opposition parties formed the Coalition of Parties for Democracy
(Concertaci�n de Partidos por la Democracia--CPD), with Aylwin as
standard-bearer. His principal opponent was Pinochet's former minister
of finance, Hern�n B�chi Buc, who ran as an independent supported by
the progovernment Independent Democratic Union (Uni�n Dem�crata
Independiente--UDI) and the more moderate rightist party National
Renewal, which ran a joint congressional coalition called Democracy and
Progress (Democracia y Progreso). Independent businessman Francisco
Javier Err�zuriz Talavera ran as the third candidate on a populist
platform supported by a heterogeneous group of small parties calling
themselves Unity for Democracy (Unidad por la Democracia).
Aylwin (1990-94) won a decisive victory, improving on the no vote in
the plebiscite with 55.2 percent of the 7.1 million votes cast to B�chi's
29.4 percent and Err�zuriz's 15.4 percent. In the congressional races, the CPD was able to beat
the heavy odds imposed by the government's electoral formula and win a
majority of the elected seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the
Senate. The CPD gained 49.3 percent of the vote to 32.4 percent for
Democracy and Progress in the Chamber of Deputies, and 50.5 percent of
the vote versus 43 percent for its opponent in the Senate.
Although the CPD won a majority of the contested seats in Congress,
it fell short of having the numbers required to offset the designated
senators to be appointed by the Pinochet government. Passage of even the
simplest legislation would have required negotiations with opposition
parties or individual designated senators. The military regime's
electoral law had ensured an overrepresentation of the parties of the
right in relation to their voting strength, making it virtually
impossible for the new civilian government to adopt constitutional
reforms without the concurrence of one of the main opposition groups.
Not the least of the new government's challenges was Pinochet
himself, who by constitutional provision could remain as commander in
chief of the army until 1997. Pinochet made it clear that he would
continue to be a watchdog, ensuring that the new rules were followed and
that "none of his men were touched" for their actions in the
"war" to save Chile from communism.
Although Chile's authoritarian legacies clearly frustrated the new
leadership, the transition probably was facilitated in the short term by
the veto power that the military and the right continued to enjoy. Had
the CPD pressed for an immediate modification of Pinochet's
institutional edifice and attempted to dismiss many of his supporters,
the armed forces would have been far more resistant to the return of
civilian rule.
Chile's rightist parties, which remained suspicious of popular
sovereignty and fearful that a center-left alliance with majority
support could threaten their survival, would have been much more likely
to conspire with the military had their "guarantees" been
undermined. These authoritarian legacies also contributed to the success
of the transition by helping the broad coalition under Aylwin's
leadership achieve unity, retain it, and elaborate a common program of
moderate policies. This moderation can be attributed not only to respect
for a new style of politics after the traumatic years of authoritarian
rule, but also to the new authorities' genuine fear of the strength of
the armed forces and their rightist supporters. The danger Chile now
faced was that the very provisions that made the transition possible in
the short term could make the consolidation of a stable democracy more
difficult in the long term.
Chile - STATE AND GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS
The State and the System of Government
Even prior to the 1970 election of Salvador Allende, the Chilean
state was one of the most extensively structured in Latin America. By
the end of the 1960s, direct public investment constituted over 50
percent of all gross investment. Government expenditures accounted for
14 percent of the gross national product ( GNP), and 13 percent of the
economically active population worked in the public sector. From 1940
until 1952, the budget deficit of the government averaged 0.5 percent of
the gross domestic product ( GDP). It grew to 2.4 percent between 1940
and 1952 and 4.3 percent between 1959 and 1964, a period largely
conconcurrent with the administration of the conservative Jorge
Alessandri.
With the growth of the state went the growth of a far-flung
bureaucracy with its own dynamic and considerable independence from
executive power. State expansion involved the creation of an ever larger
and more bewildering array of decentralized and semiautonomous agencies,
which depended only nominally on particular ministries for control. By
the mid-1960s, 40 percent of all public employees in Chile worked for
more than fifty such agencies, charged with implementing most of the
economic and social service responsibilities of the state.
Particularly important was the Production Development Corporation
(Corporaci�n de Fomento de la Producci�n--Corfo), created in 1939 to
develop Chilean industry in accord with an import-substitution
industrialization policy. By mid-century Corfo owned shares in eighty of
the country's most important enterprises and held majority shares in
thirty-nine of them. Utilities, ports, steel production, and other
enterprises were developed by an array of state agencies. Although
public ventures, these enterprises were governed by their own boards and
enjoyed substantial autonomy from ministerial and executive control.
Some permitted direct representation of interest groups in a
quasi-corporatist scheme. Such representation was most commonly enjoyed
by business organizations, which had voting rights in agencies such as
the Central Bank of Chile (Banco Central de Chile; hereafter, Central
Bank), the State Bank of Chile (Banco del Estado de Chile; hereafter,
State Bank), and Corfo. During the Allende years, a policy of
nationalization of private industry brought close to 500 firms into
state hands, including the country's giant copper companies, which had
been owned by United States interests.
The expansion of the state sector was in response to a development
strategy that entrusted economic growth to publicsector initiative and
regulation. State expansion was also fueled by a presidential form of
government that encouraged chief executives to establish new programs as
their historical legacy. Civil service laws made it difficult for
incoming presidents to dismiss employees, a situation that led to the
creation of new agencies to undertake new programs without dismantling
old ones. In a sluggish economy, the state sector was also an important
source of patronage. Political parties, particularly those that were
part of the incumbent presidential coalition, became important
employment centers for government agencies.
The Chilean state, however, was also notable for its general lack of
corruption and its fairly efficient operation. Public employees were
keenly aware that their careers could be ruined if the powerful Office
of the Comptroller General caught them using funds improperly. Although
tax revenues often lagged, Chile enforced tax laws with greater success
than many of its neighbors. A career in public service was valued, and
the Chilean state counted on many dedicated and fairly well-educated
officers from Chile's middle classes. The relative efficiency and
probity of the Chilean state was the result of a long history of
competitive party politics, in which opposition parties and Congress
kept a close watch on the conduct of public affairs.
By the 1960s, Chile's strategy of import-substitution
industrialization had run its course. The country was plagued by chronic
inflation as contending groups sought government subsidies or wage
readjustments that would keep them ahead of their competition. The
scramble for favorable state action on behalf of sectoral interests was
intensified by growing polarization and confrontation in the political
sphere, as increasingly mobilized social groups sought larger shares of
Chile's finite resources. The system came to a breaking point during the
Popular Unity government, when the authorities unabashedly used state
agencies as a means of expanding political support. The Allende
government swelled the rolls of government offices with regime partisans
and made ample use of regulatory powers to freeze prices and increase
wages, while printing unbacked money to cover an expanding government
deficit. State agencies became veritable fiefdoms for the different
parties, each trying to pursue its own agenda with little regard for a
coordinated national policy.
Within days of toppling the Allende government, the military regime
began a dramatic reduction in the size of Chile's public sector. Between
1973 and 1980, public-sector employment was reduced 20 percent, and by
the latter year only forty-three firms remained in state hands. In the
late 1980s, another round of privatization further reduced state control
of productive enterprises. Cutbacks in state expenditures in other
fields, including medical care and education, reduced deficits to the
point that by the mid-1980s the state budget was in the black.
Government surpluses reached 3 percent of GNP by the end of the military
regime.
The civilian government of Patricio Aylwin took great pains to retain
a smaller but more efficient state. By 1992 government surpluses had
reached 5 percent of GNP; expansions in state expenditures for social
services were financed by increased revenues generated by tax reform,
rather than by deficit spending. By comparison with many developed
countries, Chile still retained a powerful state sector, with utilities,
railroads, and the giant copper mines that produced a significant
percentage of government revenues remaining under government control. At
the same time, the process of state decentralization begun by the
military government continued, albeit under the aegis of democracy
rather than dictatorship.
Chile's system of government was patterned after that of the United
States, as were those of all of the Latin American countries. The
failure of the French Revolution to produce an enduring republican model
left the representative model of Philadelphia as the only viable
republican system of government in the early nineteenth century. Chile
thus incorporated the principle of the separation of powers into its
constitutional framework, even though the country rejected in its
constitution of 1833 the federal system pioneered by the United States.
Much of Chile's political history can be described as an ongoing,
occasionally violent struggle for advantage among the executive and
legislative branches of government. In the 1920s, the Office of the
Comptroller General became a virtually coequal branch of government with
the others because of its great oversight powers and its virtual
autonomy. With the approval of constitutional amendments in 1970 and the
adoption of the 1980 constitution, the Constitutional Tribunal, Cosena,
and the Central Bank became important government organs in their own
right.
<>The Presidency
The constitution of 1925 sought to reestablish strong presidential
rule in order to offset the dominant role assumed by the legislature
after the Civil War of 1891. Elected to serve a single six-year term,
the president was given broad authority to appoint cabinets without the
concurrence of the legislature, whose members were no longer eligible to
serve in executive posts. Formal executive authority increased
significantly in succeeding years as Congress delegated broad
administrative authority to new presidents, who increasingly governed by
decree. Constitutional reforms enacted in 1947 and in 1970 further
reduced congressional prerogatives.
Although the 1925 constitution gave Chilean presidents increased
power on paper, actual executive authority does not appear to have
increased significantly. No president could count on gaining majority
support without the backing of a broad alliance of parties. In 1932,
1938, 1942, and 1964, presidential candidates structured successful
majority coalitions prior to the presidential election, promising other
parties cabinet appointments and incorporation of some of their
programmatic objectives. In 1946, 1952, 1958, and 1970, because
presidential candidates did not attract sufficient coalition support to
win a majority of the votes, the election was thrown into Congress,
which chose the winner from the two front-runners. Whether elected by a
majority of the voters or through compromises with opposition parties in
Congress, Chilean presidents found that governing often amounted to a
balancing act. Only by structuring complex majority coalitions could the
president pass legislative programs and prevent the censure of key
ministers by Congress.
The presidential balancing act was complicated by frequent defections
from the chief executive's coalition of supporters, even by members of
his own party, particularly in the waning months of his constitutionally
stipulated single term. One result was that the average cabinet often
lasted less than a year. For example, in the government of Gabriel Gonz�lez
Videla (1946-52), who was a member of the Radical Party (Partido
Radical--PR), the average cabinet lasted six and one-half months;
Allende's cabinets lasted slightly less than six months. The average
duration of ministerial appointments was six months and seven months in
the same two governments, respectively. This pattern resulted in
frustrated presidents and policy discontinuity that belied the formal
powers of the chief executive.
The authors of the constitution of 1980 sought to address the
government's structural problems by creating a far stronger executive.
The 1980 charter increases presidential terms from six to eight years
but retains the prohibition against immediate reelection, and it gives
broad new powers to the president at the expense of a weakened
legislature. However, prior to the transfer of power in March 1994, the
constitution was amended, reducing the presidential term back to six
years.
The constitution specifies that the president should be at least
forty years of age, meet the constitutional requirements for
citizenship, and have been born on Chilean territory. The president is
elected by an absolute majority of the valid votes cast. The 1980
constitution did away with the traditional practice of having Congress
decide between the two front-runners when no candidate receives an
absolute majority of the votes. It institutes instead a second-round
election aimed specifically at barring political bargaining in the
legislature and ensuring the election of a president with the backing of
a majority of the population.
In addition to specific prerogatives and duties, the constitution
grants the president the legal right to "exercise statutory
authority in all those matters that are not of a legal nature, without
prejudice to the power to issue other regulations, decrees, or
instructions which he may deem appropriate for the enforcement of the
law" (Article 32). The president has the right to call plebiscites,
propose changes to the constitution, declare states of emergency and
exception, and watch over the performance of the court system. The
president names ministers and, in accord with specific procedures, two
senators, the comptroller general, the commanders of the armed forces,
and all judges of the Supreme Court and appellate courts (cortes de
apelaciones). Departing from previous practice, which required
senatorial confirmation of diplomatic appointments, the 1980
constitution bars the legislative branch from any role in the
confirmation process. Finally, it increases the legislative faculties of
the president dramatically, making the chief executive a virtual
colegislator (Article 32, in concordance with Article 60).
Ironically, although the CPD strongly criticized the disproportionate
powers given to the president in the 1980 constitution, President Aylwin
moved with determination to make full use of those very powers. The son
of a middle-class family, whose father was a lawyer and judge and
eventually president of the Supreme Court, Aylwin was born on November
26, 1918, in Vi�a del Mar. He studied law and had faculty appointments
at the University of Chile and the Pontifical Catholic University of
Chile. In 1945 he joined the National Falange (Falange Nacional), the
precursor of the PDC, which he helped form in 1957. A former senator,
Aylwin served seven terms as president of the PDC, a position he held
when he was nominated as the PDC's presidential candidate. In his work
as spokesman for the multiparty opposition coalition, he displayed great
skills as a conciliator, gaining the confidence of parties and leaders
on the left, who had vehemently opposed his support for the overthrow of
the Allende government. A man of deep religious conviction, humble
demeanor, and unimpeachable honesty, Aylwin impressed friends and foes
alike when he successfully negotiated the constitutional reforms of
1989.
As president, Aylwin surprised even his closest advisers with his
firm leadership, particularly his willingness to stand up to Pinochet,
who remained army commander. For instance, in a crucial meeting of
Cosena, Aylwin challenged Pinochet on a matter directly related to the
issue of presidential authority and received backing from the other
military commanders for his position. Aylwin moved cautiously but firmly
in dealing with the human rights abuses of the past, appointing a
commission that officially acknowledged the crimes of the security
forces. Subsequent legislation provided compensation for victims or
their families, even if prosecution for most of those crimes appeared
unlikely ever to take place.
The Aylwin government also took great pains to assure domestic and
foreign investors of its intention to maintain the basic features of the
free-market economic model. The CPD was keenly aware that it needed to
retain the confidence of the national and international business
communities and show the world that it too could manage economic policy
with skill and responsibility. Indeed, by showing that Chile could
manage its economic affairs in democracy, the government could provide
an even more favorable economic climate, one not clouded by the
political confrontations and potential instability of authoritarianism.
The Aylwin government appeared to meet this objective, as the Chilean
economy grew at an average rate of more than 6 percent from 1990 through
1993.
The Aylwin government was cautious in proposing constitutional
reforms for fear of alienating the military and the opposition parties
of the right, which controlled the Senate. The key constitutional
reform, enacted on November 9, 1991, created democratically elected
local governments by reestablishing elections for municipal mayors and
council members. Additional reforms of the judicial system were also
approved. Although it indicated its desire to change the electoral
system and the nature of civil-military relations, the Aylwin government
was unable to achieve those objectives.
The executive branch in Chile is composed of sixteen ministries with
portfolio and four cabinet-level agencies--the Central Bank, the
Production Development Corporation (Corfo), the National Women's Service
(Servicio Nacional de la Mujer--Sernam), and the National Energy
Commission (Comisi�n Nacional de Energ�a). Ministers serve exclusively
at the president's discretion. Each ministry is required to articulate a
series of firm objectives for each fiscal year, and the president uses
these ministerial goals to judge the success of a particular department
and minister. Every seven months, a formal evaluation (state of
progress) is conducted to ascertain the progress of each ministry. The
president writes a formal letter to each minister in January, evaluating
the accomplishments or failures of the department in question. Cabinet
officers have significant authority over their own agencies.
Although important in setting the overall priorities of the
government and coordinating a uniform response to issues, cabinet
meetings deal primarily with general subjects. Critical policy
questions, however, are often addressed at the ministerial level by
interministerial commissions dealing with specific substantive areas.
These include infrastructural, development, economic, socioeconomic, and
political issues. If there is no unanimity on a particular matter, the
question goes to "the second floor" (the president's office)
for final disposition. The president is kept closely apprised of all
matters under discussion at all times by the secretary general of the
presidency, who has the primary responsibility of coordinating the work
of ministerial commissions. Under President Aylwin, that position was
held by Edgardo Boeninger Kausel, a former rector of the University of
Chile. Boeninger's success resulted not from the power of his position,
which in formal terms is unimportant, but from his skills as a
negotiator and consensus builder and from the willingness of the
cabinet, composed of individuals from different parties, to work in a
collegial fashion. This style of authority might slow decisions, but it
has the advantage of averting serious conflicts and sparing the
president from having to micromanage policy or serve as a constant
referee. Aylwin's secretary general of the government, Enrique Correa
Rios, the government's chief spokesman, also played a prominent role in
projecting the government's image and serving as a bridge to political
parties and opposition leaders.
In addition to the office of the secretary general of the presidency
and secondary general of the government, two ministries had key roles in
the Aylwin administration. The Ministry of Finance had virtual autonomy
in formulating and guiding overall economic and budgetary policy. The
Ministry of Interior, the principal "political ministry" of
the government, was charged with law enforcement and with coordinating
government policy with the parties of the CPD.
Chile - The Legislative Branch
Inaugurated on July 4, 1811, the National Congress became one of the
strongest legislative bodies in the world by the end of the nineteenth
century. The 1925 constitution reaffirmed the commitment to a bicameral
system made up of a 150-member Chamber of Deputies and a fifty-member
Senate. However, that charter diminished congressional prerogatives by
barring members of Congress from occupying ministerial posts,
restricting the legislature's power over budget laws, and giving the
president considerable legislative powers, including the right to
designate particular legislation as "urgent." Nevertheless,
Congress remained a critical arena for the formulation of national
policy, serving as the most important institution for cross-party
bargaining and consensus building in Chile's fragmented political
system. Congress produced fundamental legislation, such as laws
establishing social security (1924), the Labor Code (1931), the minimum
wage (1943), Corfo (1939), restrictions on the PCCh (1948), and agrarian
reform (1967). Congress also had an important means of oversight in its
authority to accuse ministers of wrongdoing.
Under the 1980 constitution, Chile retains a bicameral legislature
composed of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, both of which play a
role in the legislative process. However, the 1980 charter reduced the
Chamber of Deputies to 120 members, two for each of sixty congressional
districts. All deputies serve for four years on the same quadrennial
cycle. Upon taking office, all deputies must be citizens possessing the
right to vote. They must be at least twenty-one years old, must have
completed secondary education, and must have lived in the district they
represent for at least two years. The 1980 constitution also reduced the
Senate, to thirty-eight members, who serve eight-year terms, with half
of the body coming up for election every four years. Senators must be
citizens with the right to vote, must be at least forty years old, must
have completed secondary school, and must have lived in the region they
represent for at least three years. High-level government officials,
including ministers, judges, and the five members of the Central Bank
Council, are barred from being candidates for deputy or senator until a
year after they leave their posts. Leaders of community groups or other
associations also are not permitted to become candidates unless they
give up their posts.
In addition to the elected senators, the Senate has nine designated
senators (eight since the death of one in 1991), all of whom serve
eight-year terms. The Supreme Court names two from the ranks of former
members of the court and one who has served as comptroller general.
Cosena designates four senators, each a former commander of each of the
armed services who held that post for at least two years. Finally, the
president of the republic designates two senators, one who has been a
university president and the other a government minister (Article 45).
All former presidents who remain in office for at least six years of the
eight-year term are automatically senators for life. Pinochet, the only
former president alive when the current Senate was installed in March
1990, opted instead to remain commander in chief of the army, a post
that is constitutionally excluded from a senatorial position. The
appointed senators played a somewhat surprising role in the Aylwin
government by not always acting in unity with the rightist opposition,
as the government feared they would. Indeed, these senators occasionally
served as bridges between the government and the armed forces, helping
to diffuse tensions and avert misunderstandings.
The Chamber of Deputies carries out its duties by means of thirteen
permanent commissions, each one of which is composed of thirteen
deputies. The Senate has eighteen commissions, each with five members.
Most of the commissions correspond to a ministry responsible for a
similar substantive area. Mixed commissions, composed of members from
both houses, are charged with resolving discrepancies between the houses
on particular pieces of legislation.
The constitution establishes a hierarchy of laws that must be
approved by majorities of various sizes. Ordinary laws are approved by a
simple majority of the members present in both chambers. Laws requiring
a qualified quorum must be approved by an absolute majority of all
legislators. An example would be a law redefining the boundaries of
regions or provinces. Organic constitutional laws, designed to
complement the constitution on key matters, require approval by
four-sevenths of all members to be modified, repealed, or enacted into
law. Finally, laws interpreting the constitution require the approval of
three- fifths of all legislators for enactment.
Constitutional amendments can be initiated by the president, ten
deputies, or five senators, and they require the concurrence of
three-fifths of all legislators and the signature of the president to be
approved. Key provisions dealing with such matters as rights and
obligations, the Constitutional Tribunal, the armed forces, and Cosena
require the assent of two-thirds of the members of each chamber and
approval by the president. If the president rejects a constitutional
reform measure that is subsequently reaffirmed by Congress by at least a
three-fifths vote, he or she can take the matter to the voters in a
plebiscite.
Congress has the exclusive right to approve or reject international
treaties presented to it by the president before ratification, following
the same procedure used in approving an ordinary law. Although the
president, with the consent of Cosena, can institute a state of siege,
Congress, within a period of ten days, can approve or reject the state
of siege by a majority vote of its members.
In case the office of the president is left vacant and there are
fewer than two years left in the presidential term, Congress can select
a presidential successor through a majority vote of its members. Should
the vacancy occur with more than two years left in the presidential
term, a new presidential election would be called. The Chamber of
Deputies can also initiate a constitutional accusation by majority vote
against the president, ministers, judges, the comptroller general,
admirals, generals, intendants of regions, and governors of provinces
for violations of the law, constitutional dispositions, or abuse of
power. The Senate, in turn, acts as a jury and finds the accused either
innocent or guilty as charged. If the president of the republic is
accused, the conviction depends on a two-thirds majority in Senate. The
Senate is also required to give the president permission to leave the
country for a period of more than thirty days or for any amount of time
during the last ninety days of the presidential term. Further, the
Senate can declare the physical or mental incapacity of the president or
president-elect, once the Constitutional Tribunal has pronounced itself
on the matter.
The original constitutional provisions of 1980 virtually barred the
Senate from exercising oversight of the executive branch or expressing
opinions on the conduct of government. These provisions were removed
from the constitution in the 1989 amendments. The amendments also
eliminate the president's power to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. The
constitution of 1980, however, severely limits the role of Congress in
legislative matters relative to earlier legislatures in Chilean history.
Article 62 states that "the President of the Republic holds the
exclusive initiative for proposals of law related to changes of the
political or administrative division of the country, or to the financial
or budgetary administration of the State." Article 64 of the
constitution also restricts the budgetary prerogatives of the
legislative branch.
In several areas, the president is given sole authority to introduce
bills. These include measures involving spending, changes in the duties
and characteristics of public-sector administrative entities,
modifications to the political-administrative configuration of the
state, and initiatives related to collective bargaining. The president
can also call the legislature into extraordinary session, at which time
the legislature can only consider legislative and treaty proposals
introduced by the president. The president may grant certain initiatives
priority status, requiring that Congress act within three, ten, or
thirty days, depending on the degree of urgency specified. In this
sense, the president has the exclusive power to set the legislative
agenda and, therefore, the political agenda. In a further restraint on
legislators, the 1980 constitution permits the Constitutional Tribunal
to remove a senator or deputy from office if he or she "permits the
voting of a motion that is declared openly contrary to the political
constitution of the State by the Constitutional Tribunal" (Article
57).
Finally, Congress is limited in its ability to act as a counterforce
against the president's power in matters dealing with the constitutional
rights of citizens. Although the president needs the approval of the
majority of Congress to establish states of siege, the president may
declare a state of assembly, emergency, or catastrophe solely with the
approval of Cosena (Article 40).
Important legislative initiatives approved during the Aylwin
government have included, in the political sphere, constitutional
changes leading to the creation of democratic local governments; laws
reforming the administration of justice, including the treatment of
political prisoners and terrorism; and the creation, in 1990, of a
cabinet-level agency, Sernam, to pay special attention to women's
issues. In the sociocultural area, changes included a revision to the
National Education Law (Estatuto Docente) to "dignify" the
teaching profession and establish a "teaching career"; a
reformulation of student loan programs; and measures designed to
simplify the reporting of petty crimes and robbery and increase the
powers of the police in dealing with such crimes. Congress also approved
measures to regulate collective bargaining and recognize labor
organizations. In the economic sphere, the most important legislation
enacted into law included the Industrial Patents Law, designed to ease
Chile's entrance into international markets; the lowering of tariff
barriers; and the creation of a price-stabilization fund for petroleum.
In the international sphere, Congress approved various treaties of
economic cooperation (including one with the European Economic
Community) and ratified the findings of the Bryan Commission, a joint
commission with the United States that settled the case of the 1977
assassination of Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington,
which had constituted a long-time source of conflict between Chile and
the United States.
During the Aylwin administration, relations between the executive and
Congress were conducted through an informal network of bilateral
commissions composed of ministers and their top advisers and senators
and deputies of the governing coalition working in the same policy area.
However, these meetings proved less important than the weekly gatherings
presided over by the minister of interior with party leaders of the CPD
coalition, leaders of the CPD parties in the legislature, and the
secretary generals of the presidency and the government. At these weekly
meetings, the legislative agenda was discussed and decided upon. This
pattern of decision making signified, in practice, that individual
members of Congress and the legislature itself had assumed a secondary
and pro forma role, following the instructions of legislative leaders in
their close negotiations with government and party leaders. Nor did
congressional committees or members of Congress have enough staff and
expertise to deal with experts from the executive branch on complex
legislative matters. Individual legislators could articulate concerns
and provide important feedback, but early in the postauthoritarian
period the legislature appeared to be playing a decidedly secondary
role.
Chile - The Courts
Although the Republic of Chile's founders drew on the example of the
United States in designing the institutions of government, they drew on
Roman law and Spanish and French traditions, particularly the Napoleonic
Code, in designing the country's judicial system. The judicial system
soon acquired a reputation for independence, impartiality, and probity.
However, the judiciary fell into some disrepute during the Parliamentary
Republic (1891- 1925), when it became part of the logrolling and
patronage politics of the era.
The 1925 constitution introduced reforms aimed at depoliticizing and
improving the judicial system by guaranteeing judicial independence.
Chile's justice system established itself as one of the best on the
South American continent, despite a serious lack of resources and
inadequate attention to the needs of the nation's poorest citizens.
During the Popular Unity government, the Supreme Court repeatedly
clashed with the president and his associates. The Allende government
viewed the court as a conservative and inflexible power, obsessed with a
literal definition of a law designed to protect the privileges of
private property against the new logic of a revolutionary time. The
Supreme Court retorted vehemently that its task was simply to follow the
dictates of the law, not to change it to suit some other objective.
The courts had much less difficulty dealing with the military regime,
which left the court system virtually intact. As soon as the courts
accepted the legitimacy of the military junta as the new executive and
legislative power, they worked diligently to adjudicate matters in
conformity with the new decree laws, even when the latter violated the
spirit and letter of the constitution. In particular, the courts did
nothing to address the serious issue of human rights violations,
continuously deferring to the military and security services. The
Supreme Court saw its own jurisdiction severely eroded as the military
justice system expanded to encompass a wide range of national security
matters that went far beyond institutional concerns.
According to the 1925 constitution, modified somewhat by the 1980
document, the Supreme Court can declare a particular law, decree law, or
international treaty "inapplicable because of
unconstitutionality." This does not invalidate the statute or
measure for all cases, only for the one under consideration. Another
important function of the Supreme Court is the administration of the
court system. The organization and jurisdiction of Chile's courts were
established in the Organic Code of the Tribunals (Law 7,241) adopted in
1943. This law was modified on several occasions; two recent instances
are the organic constitutional Law 18,969 of March 10, 1990, and Law
19,124 of February 2, 1992. Chile's ordinary courts consist of the
Supreme Court, the appellate courts (cortes de apelaci�n),
major claims courts, and various local courts (juzgados de letras).
There is also a series of special courts, such as the juvenile courts,
labor courts, and military courts in time of peace. The local courts
consist of one or more tribunals specifically assigned to each of the
country's communes, Chile's smallest administrative units. In larger
jurisdictions, the local courts may specialize in criminal cases or
civil cases, as defined by law.
Chile has sixteen appellate courts, each with jurisdiction over one
or more provinces. The majority of the courts have four members,
although the two largest courts have thirteen members, and Santiago's
Appellate Court (Corte de Apelaci�n) has twenty-five. The Supreme Court
consists of seventeen members, who select a president from their number
for a three-year term. The Supreme Court carries out its functions with
separate chambers consisting of at least five judges each, presided over
by the most senior member or the president of the court.
Members and prosecutors of the Supreme Court are appointed by the
president of the republic, who selects them from a slate of five persons
proposed by the court itself. At least two must be senior judges on an
appellate court. The others can include candidates from outside the
judicial system. The justices and prosecutors of each appellate court
are also appointed by the president from a slate of three candidates
submitted by the Supreme Court, only one of whom can be from outside the
judicial system. In order to be appointed, ordinary judges at the local
level are appointed by the president from a slate of three persons
submitted by a court of appeals. They must be lawyers, must be at least
twenty-five years old, and must have judicial experience. Ministers of
the appeals courts must be at least thirty-two years old, and Supreme
Court ministers must be at least thirty-six years old, with a specified
number of years of judicial or legal experience. Judges serve for life
and cannot be removed except for inappropriate behavior.
The relationship between the Aylwin administration and the Supreme
Court was tense. Pinochet offered extraordinary retirement bonuses to
the eldest court members to ensure the appointment of relatively young
judges who were friends of the outgoing regime. The parties of the CPD
were highly critical of these appointments and made no secret of their
strong disapproval of the Supreme Court's behavior under the military
government, particularly its complete disregard for the massive
violations of human rights. Responding to these concerns, the Aylwin
administration introduced constitutional reform legislation that would
overhaul the nomination procedure for Supreme Court ministers, create a
separate administrative structure for the judicial branch, and obligate
the Supreme Court to take a more vigilant role in the protection of
human rights. These reform efforts failed because the parties of the
right refused to go along with change in the face of strong opposition
from the Supreme Court, which was fearful that it would lose its
prerogatives and concerned that the judicial system would become
"politicized." Still pending as Aylwin's term neared its end
were reforms of the military justice system with its authority to try
civilians in areas of national security and to judge military personnel
even when charged with a criminal or civil crime against civilians.
Chile - The Autonomous Powers
The armed forces constitute an essentially autonomous power within
the Chilean state. An entire chapter of the constitution (Chapter 10) is
devoted specifically to the armed forces, granting them a status
comparable to that of Congress and the courts. Although the opposition
felt that it had reduced the tutelary role of the armed forces with the
constitutional reforms of 1989 by softening the language dealing with
Cosena's powers, the military continued to have a constitutionally
sanctioned right to discuss politics and policy and make its views known
to the democratically elected authorities.
Whether or not the commanders of the services "represent"
their views "or make them known," the political fact remains
that the armed forces are defined by the constitution as the
"guarantors of the institutional order of the Republic." Thus,
their leadership exercises tutelage over the conduct of the elected
government and other state bodies. This privilege is given only to the
commanding officers. The 1980 constitution lays down strict rules
requiring lower-ranking officers to refrain from any political activity
or expression and to conform strictly to the orders of their superiors.
The 1989 reforms did not change the provisions that insulate the
commanders in chief of the armed services and the National Police from
democratically elected leaders. Although the military commanders and the
head of Chile's paramilitary police, the Carabineros, are chosen by the
president from among those officers having the most seniority in their
respective services, the appointment is for four years, during which
time the commanders cannot be removed except by Cosena under exceptional
circumstances.
The constitution also specifies that entry into the armed services
can only be through the established military academies and schools that
are governed exclusively by the services without outside interference.
The Organic Constitutional Law on the Armed Forces (Law 18,948 of
February 1990) governs in detail military education, hierarchy,
promotion, health, welfare, and retirement. It also provides the armed
forces with a specific minimum budget that cannot be reduced. Other
legislation provides the military with a set percentage from the
worldwide sales of the state-run copper companies.
Despite seventeen years of military rule, the armed forces are
remarkably uncontaminated by factionalism or partisan politics. No major
divisions within the services are apparent. However, because the
military enjoyed privileged treatment during Pinochet's rule, any
attempt to tamper with military prerogatives was likely to be strongly
resisted.
Pinochet's insistence on retaining his position as commander in chief
of the army displeased the Aylwin government. As commander of the army,
the general affirmed the military's determination to resist prosecution
for human rights violations. Yet the army's credibility was badly
damaged by allegations of financial wrongdoing by Pinochet's son, the
discovery of mass graves containing corpses of individuals who died
while in military hands, and the illegal export of arms to Croatia. The
report of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, known as
the Rettig Commission, confirmed many of the allegations of military
abuses.
The Aylwin government contended that the full consolidation of
democracy could not be accomplished without a fundamental change in the
relationship between civil and military authority. Members of the CPD
asserted that presidential control of the armed forces existed in all
modern democracies and since 1822 had been an essential element in
Chile's constitutional tradition.
A proposal for reform of the Organic Constitutional Law on the Armed
Forces was signed by President Aylwin on March 29, 1992, and sent to
Congress. Aylwin's initiative dealt specifically with Article 7 and
Article 53 of the organic laws of the armed forces and police, which
limit presidential prerogatives in relation to the hiring, firing, and
promotion of members of the military. Among the suggested reforms was a
provision providing the president with the right to choose commanders of
the armed forces from among the ten most senior officers, instead of the
top five. These proposals were opposed, however, by both parties of the
right, making it impossible to envision any constitutional reform on
this matter in the foreseeable future.
The opposition contended that the tenure of the commanders had
contributed to the stability and moderation of the Chilean transition.
It argued that these reforms would result in the politicization of the
armed forces by undermining the hierarchy, discipline, and
professionalism of military institutions. The rightist parties also
contended that the reform proposals, if successful, would upset the
counterweights on presidential power and would disturb the institutional
balance existing between the president, the Constitutional Tribunal,
Congress, and Cosena. This balance, they argued, helped guarantee the
success of the Chilean transition by insulating the armed forces from
overt political pressures.
Chile - Regional and Local Government
On June 23, 1992, 6.4 million Chileans (90 percent of the nation's
registered voters) participated in Chile's first municipal elections
since 1971. As was done in the congressional elections of 1989, joint
lists designed to maximize electoral fortunes were formed by both the
progovernment and the antigovernment parties. The results of the
municipal contests did not deviate substantially from those observed in
the earlier race. The CPD obtained 60.6 percent of the vote, to the
right's 30 percent (38 percent if the independent Union of the Centrist
Center [Uni�n de Centro Centro-- UCC] is counted with the right).
Nationwide elections for the country's thirteen regional councils
were held in April 1993. The CPD won the majority of the thirteen
regions. Of the total of 244 regional council members elected
nationwide, 134 were CPD candidates and eighty-six were candidates of
the opposition parties of the right. Another thirteen seats went to
independent candidates or those from other parties. A tie resulted only
in the sparsely populated Ais�n del General Carlos Ib��ez del Campo
Region in the far south, where the government and the opposition each
won eight council seats.
The far-reaching electoral reforms implemented before the 1989
elections represented a further attempt to transform Chile's party
structure into a moderate two-party system. The constitution of 1925 had
established a system of proportional representation to allocate seats in
multimember districts, the most widely used system in Latin America and
Europe. For the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, the country was
divided into twenty-eights districts, each electing between one and
eighteen deputies for a total of 150, producing an average district
delegation of 5.4 deputies. Although implementation of the proportional
representation system was not responsible for the emergence of the
country's multiparty system, it encouraged party fragmentation,
particularly before 1960, when parties were allowed to form pacts with
each other in constituting individual lists.
Women were granted the vote for municipal elections in 1934 and for
national elections in 1949. Chile has a lively history of women's civic
and political organizations that goes back to the early decades of the
twentieth century, including the formation of two political parties led
by women, one of which, the Feminine Civic Party (Partido C�vico
Femenino), elected its main leader to the Senate before it faded from
the scene in the mid-1950s. However, there are still conspicuously few
women in national politics an din top government positions. Only six
women were elected to Congress in 1989, and only one woman held
ministerial rank in President Aylwin's government. Yet close to half of
all Chileans who were affiliated with parties in 1992 were women, and
slightly more than half of the electorate is composed of women.
The military government redrew electoral boundaries to create sixty
legislative districts, each of which would send two representatives to
the Chamber of Deputies. Redistricting favored smaller and more rural
districts that were deliberately designed to favor progovernment
parties. Thus, one vote in District 52, which was a government
stronghold in the plebiscite, was worth three times more than one vote
in District 18, in which the opposition had fared better. By reducing
the electoral districts to an average representation of two deputies per
district, the military authorities sought to create an electoral formula
that would provide supporters of the Pinochet regime with a majority of
the seats in the legislature, with a level of support comparable to
Pinochet's vote in the plebiscite, or about 40 percent of the turnout.
According to the new law, parties or coalitions continue to present
lists with a candidate for each of the two seats to be filled. The law
considers both the votes for the total list and the votes for individual
candidates. The first seat is awarded to the party or coalition with a
plurality of votes. But the first- place party list must receive twice
the vote of the second-place list, if it is to win the second seat. This
means that in a two-list contest a party can obtain one seat with only
33.4 percent of the vote, whereas a party must take 66.7 percent of the
vote to gain both seats. Any electoral support that the largest party
gets beyond the 33.4 percent threshold is effectively wasted unless that
party attains the 66.7 percent level.
The designers of the electoral system considered the worst-case
scenario to be one that assumed a complete unity of purpose among the
anti-Pinochet forces, a unity that would at best provide them with 50
percent of Congress. Government officials were convinced that another
scenario was more likely: the parties of the centerleft would soon
fragment, unable to maintain the unity born of their common desire to
defeat Pinochet. The military government envisioned multiple lists, with
the list of the right being the largest, able to double the next
competing list in many constituencies and thus assuring the promilitary
groups at least half of all elected representation, if not a comfortable
majority.
For the parties of the right, the worst-case scenario came to pass.
Showing remarkable focus and discipline, the fourteen parties of the
opposition structured a common list and chose a common presidential
candidate, and as a result the coalition garnered a majority of the
elected seats. The binomial
electoral system did, however, benefit the right. The
National Renewal Party obtained many more seats than it should have in
light of the percentages of the vote it received nationally. The system
also forced parties to coalesce into large blocs to maximize their
strengths. The result was two broad coalitions, not a two-party system.
Indeed, the results of the 1989 congressional elections, despite the
requirements of the binomial system and the constitution that broad
slates be formed by these party coalitions, reveals that the Chilean
electorate split its vote for individual candidates in a manner
reminiscent of traditional tendencies. Thus, the right obtained 38
percent of the vote; the center, 24 percent; and the left 24.3 percent.
Survey research corroborated that the electorate was likely to
continue to identify with left-right terms of reference. In March 1993,
about 22.8 percent of respondents classified themselves as politically
right or center-right; 24.6 percent as center; and 33.7 percent as
center-left. Only 19 percent refused to opt for an ideological
identification. These figures differ somewhat from the electoral
results reported previously but are consistent with trends indicating
that the right lost some of its appeal during the Aylwin government,
while the moderate left gained.
Despite attempts at political engineering, not only did Chileans
continue to identify with broad ideological tendencies, they also
identified with a wide range of parties explicitly considered to embody
those tendencies. In surveys, between 70 percent and 80 percent of all
Chileans identified themselves with particular parties, a high level
considering the many years of military rule and the experience of other
democratic countries. Identification with individual parties increased
during the first three years of the Aylwin government. In the March 1993
survey, more than a third of the respondents identified themselves with
the Christian Democrats, 20 percent with the leading parties of the
left, and 20 percent with the principal parties of the right. The rest
identified themselves with smaller parties of the left, center, and
right.
The survey findings do not mean that the ideological polarization of
the past has remained constant. The Chilean electorate still segments
itself into three roughly equal thirds, but the distance between its
left and right extremes have narrowed substantially. With its more
radical program, the PCCh was not able to win more than 6.5 percent of
the vote in municipal elections. In surveys taken during the 1990-93
period, fewer than 2 percent of respondents preferred the PCCh.
Right-wing nationalist parties associated with the military government
had even less appeal and did not ever register on surveys. The far left
of the Socialist Party had lost ground to the more moderate tendencies
of the party, and the authoritarian right had developed no significant
electoral following. Ideological moderation also characterized the
centrist Christian Democrats, who no longer defended the "third
way" between Marxists and capitalists that they advocated in the
1960s. Perhaps the strongest indication of programmatic moderation was
the consensus in postmilitary Chile on free-market economics and the
important role of the private sector in national development.
As Chile approached the twenty-first century, differences among
parties were no longer based on sharply differing visions of utopias.
Ideological differences now concerned more concrete matters, such as the
degree of government involvement in social services and welfare or,
increasingly, moral questions such as divorce and abortion. A narrowing
of programmatic differences did not mean, however, that the intensely
competitive, multiparty nature of Chilean politics was likely to change
in the near future.
Chile - The Parties of the Left
The Communist Party of Chile (Partido Comunista de Chile--PCCh) is
the oldest and largest communist party in Latin America and one of the
most important in the West. Tracing its origins to 1912, the party was
officially founded in 1922 as the successor to the Socialist Workers'
Party (Partido Obrero Socialista--POS). It achieved congressional
representation shortly thereafter and played a leading role in the
development of the Chilean labor movement. Closely tied to the Soviet
Union and the Third
International, the PCCh participated in the Popular
Front (Frente Popular) government of 1938, growing rapidly among the
unionized working class in the 1940s. Concern over the PCCh's success at
building a strong electoral base, combined with the onset of the Cold
War, led to its being outlawed in 1948, a status it had to endure for
almost a decade. By midcentury the party had become a veritable
political subculture, with its own symbols and organizations and the
support of prominent artists and intellectuals such as Pablo Neruda, the
Nobel Prize-winning poet, and Violetta Parra, the songwriter and folk
artist.
As a component of the Popular Unity coalition that elected Salvador
Allende to the presidency in 1970, the PCCh played a strong moderating
role, rejecting the more extreme tactics of the student and
revolutionary left and urging a more deliberate pace that would set the
groundwork for a communist society in the future. The military
government dealt the PCCh a severe blow, decimating its leadership in
1976. Although the party called for a broad alliance of all forces
opposed to the dictatorship, by 1980 it moved to a parallel strategy of
armed insurrection, preparing cadres of guerrillas to destabilize the
regime and provide the party with the military capability to take over
the state should the Pinochet government crumble.
After the attempt on Pinochet's life in 1986, the democratic parties
began to distance themselves from the PCCh because the PCCh was openly
opposed to challenging the regime under the regime's own rules. The
PCCh's strong stand against registration of voters and participation in
the plebiscite alienated many of its own supporters and long-time
militants, who understood that most of the citizenry supported a
peaceful return to democracy.
Particularly problematic for the party was the Manuel Rodr�guez
Patriotic Front (Frente Patri�tica Manuel Rodr�guez--FPMR), an
insurrectionary organization spawned by the PCCh. The party found the
FPMR difficult to rein in, and the FPMR continued to engage in terrorism
after the demise of the military government. The FPMR had eclipsed
Chile's better-known revolutionary group, the Movement of the
Revolutionary Left (Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria-- MIR),
formed in the 1960s by university students, a movement that barely
survived the repression of the military years. During the Aylwin
administration, a group known as the Lautaro Youth Movement (Movimiento
Juvenil Lautaro--MJL), an offshoot of the United Popular Action
Movement-Lautaro (Movimiento de Acci�n Popular Unitario-Lautaro
(MAPU-L), sought without success to maintain a "revolutionary"
offensive.
The dramatic failure of the PCCh's strategy seriously undermined its
credibility and contributed to growing defections from its ranks. The
party was also hurt by the vast structural changes in Chilean society,
particularly the decline of traditional manufacturing and extractive
industries and the weakening of the labor movement. The collapse of the
Soviet Union and its East European allies represented a final blow.
Although the PCCh obtained 6.5 percent of the vote in the 1992 municipal
elections, by mid-1993 it was enjoying less than 5 percent support in
public opinion surveys and did not fare well in the 1993 presidential
race.
The Socialist Party (Partido Socialista--PS), formally organized in
1933, had its origins in the incipient labor movement and working-class
parties of the early twentieth century. The Socialist Party was far more
heterogeneous than the PCCh, drawing support from blue-collar workers as
well as intellectuals and members of the middle class. Throughout most
of its history, the Socialist Party suffered from a bewildering number
of schisms resulting from rivalries and fundamental disagreements
between leaders advocating revolution and those willing to work within
the system.
The Socialist Party's greatest moment was the election of Salvador
Allende to the presidency in 1970. Allende represented the moderate wing
of a party that had veered sharply to the left. The Socialist Party's
radical orientation contributed to continuous political tension as the
president and the PCCh argued for a more gradual approach to change and
the Socialists sought to press for immediate "conquests" for
the working class.
After the overthrow of Allende's Popular Unity government, the
Socialist Party suffered heavy repression and soon split into numerous
factions. Some joined with the Communists in supporting a more
insurrectionary strategy. Another faction of "Renewed
Socialists," led primarily by intellectuals and exiles in Western
Europe, argued for a return to a moderate socialism for which democratic
politics was an end in itself. The latter faction broke with the
Marxist-Leninist line of the immediate past, embracing market economics
and a far more pluralist conception of society. Guided by leaders such
as Ricardo Lagos Escobar and Ricardo N��ez Mu�oz, the Renewed
Socialists reached an accord with the Christian Democrats to mount a
common strategy to bring an end to the military government.
Prior to the 1988 plebiscite, the Socialists launched the Party for
Democracy (Partido por la Democracia--PPD) in an effort to provide a
broad base of opposition to Pinochet, one untainted by the labels and
struggles of the past. Led by Lagos, an economist and former university
administrator, the PPD was supposed to be an "instrumental
party" that would disappear after the defeat of Pinochet. But the
party's success in capturing the imagination of many Chileans led
Socialist and PPD leaders to keep the party label for the subsequent
congressional and municipal elections, working jointly with the
Christian Democrats in structuring national lists of candidates.
The success of the PPD soon created a serious dilemma for the
Socialist Party, which managed to reunite its principal factions-- the
relatively conservative Socialist Party-Almeyda, the moderate Socialist
Party-N��ez "renewalists," and the left-wing Unitary
Socialists--at the Social Party congress in December 1990. Heretofore an
instrument of the Socialists, the PPD became a party in its own right,
even though many Socialists had dual membership. Although embracing
social democratic ideals, PPD leaders appeared more willing to press
ahead on other unresolved social issues such as divorce and women's
rights, staking out a distinct position as a center-left secular force
in Chilean society capable of challenging the Christian Democrats as
well as the right on a series of critical issues.
As the PPD grew, leaders of the Socialist Party insisted on
abolishing dual membership for fear of losing their capacity to enlarge
the appeal of the Socialist Party beyond its traditional constituency.
By 1993 both parties, working together in a somewhat tense relationship,
had comparable levels of popular support in opinion polls. In a March
1993 survey by the Center for Public Studies (Centro de Estudios P�blicos--CEP)
and Adimark (a polling company), 10.6 percent of Chilean voters
identified with the PPD while 8.5 percent registered a preference for
the Socialist Party. As the 1993 presidential election approached, PPD
leader Ricardo Lagos signaled his intention to challenge the Christian
Democrats for the presidential candidacy of the CPD. His move indicated
the determination of the parties of the moderate left to remain an
important force in Chilean politics. However, Christian Democrat Eduardo
Frei Ruiz-Tagle, the son of the former president, defeated Lagos in a
convention of CPD parties held on May 23, 1993, making him the strong
favorite to win the presidential elections scheduled for December 11,
1993. Frei Ruiz-Tagle won by a vote of 60 percent, while Lagos received
38 percent.
Other parties that could be placed on the center-left included the
Humanist-Green Alliance (Alianza Humanista-Verde) and the Social
Democratic Party (Partido Social Democr�tico), an offshoot of the
Radical Party, which managed to elect one of its leaders to the Senate.
These new parties were successful in mobilizing support against Pinochet
in the plebiscite but faltered in subsequent elections.
Chile - The Parties of the Center
The compromises struck in the 1980 constitutional reform discussions
between the military government and the opposition led to the limitation
of President Aylwin's term to four years, half of the normal term
contemplated in the constitution. This meant that by mid-1992 parties
and leaders were already jockeying to prepare the succession. Leaders of
the Aylwin government, including prominent cabinet members, made no
secret of their desire to put forth the name of Alejandro Foxley Riesco,
the minister of finance, as a man who would guarantee stability and
continuity. A Christian Democrat, Foxley had presided ably over the
delicate task of maintaining economic stability and promoting growth.
Within the CPD, however, there was considerable disagreement over a
Foxley candidacy. Christian Democrats controlling the party
organization, who had not been favored with prominent governmental
positions, pushed the candidacy of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, the son of
the former president, as an alternative. Frei's candidacy was given an
enormous boost when he succeeded in defeating several Christian
Democratic factions, including the Aylwin group, by capturing the
presidency of the PDC. In the first open election for party leadership
among all registered Christian Democrats, Frei, drawing on the magic of
his father's name, scored a stunning victory.
While most observers presumed that from his position as PDC president
Frei would be able to command the nomination of the center-left
alliance, elements in the Socialist Party and the PPD argued that the
nomination in the second government should go to a Socialist, not a
Christian Democrat. This was the position of Ricardo Lagos, a minister
of public education in the Aylwin cabinet and the most prominent leader
of the moderate left. Lagos, who was defeated for a Senate seat in
Santiago by the vagaries of the electoral law, remained one of the most
popular leaders in Chile and was widely praised for his tenure in the
Ministry of Public Education.
A Lagos candidacy, however, implied the serious possibility that the
CPD would break up. Christian Democrats pointed to their party's
significant advantage in the polls and noted that the country might not
be ready for a candidate identified with the Socialist Party. Lagos
faced opposition within the PPD and the Socialist Party among leaders
who thought that risking the unity of the CPD could only play into the
hands of forces that would welcome a victory of the right or an
authoritarian reversal. Lagos, in turn, argued that the Socialists could
be relegated to the position of a permanent minority force within the
coalition if they did not have the opportunity to present their own
candidate. The constitutional provision for a second electoral round, in
case no candidate obtained an absolute majority in the first round,
would permit the holding of a kind of primary. The CPD candidate that
failed to go into the second round of the two finalists would simply
support the CPD counterpart. Lagos, however, was not able to persuade
either the Christian Democrats or his own allies to launch two
center-left presidential candidacies spearheading one joint list for
congressional seats. Instead, he had to settle for a national convention
in which Frei handily defeated him with his greater organizational
strength.
The right had even more difficulty coming up with a standardbearer .
The National Renewal party was intent on imposing its own candidacy this
time and sought to elevate one of its younger leaders to carry the
torch. Bitter opposition for the UDI and the destructive internal
struggle within the National Renewal party precluded Chile's largest
party on the right from selecting the standard-bearer of the coalition.
After a bitter and highly destructive process, the parties of the right,
including the UCC, finally were able to structure a joint congressional
list and turn to Arturo Alessandri Besa, a senator and businessman, as
presidential candidate.
Several other candidates were presented by minor parties. The PCCh,
which had reluctantly supported Aylwin in 1989, endorsed leftist priest
Eugenio Pizarro Poblete, while scientist Manfredo Max-Neef ran a
quixotic campaign stressing environmental issues. In the election held
on December 11, 1993, Eduardo Frei scored an impressive victory,
exceeding the total that Aylwin obtained in 1989. Frei's victory
underscored the strong support of the CPD's overall policies, bucking
the Latin American trend of failed incumbent governments. Frei obtained
57.4 percent of the vote to Alessandri's 24.7 percent. The surprise in the race was Max-Neef, who, exceeding
all expectations, obtained 5.7 percent of the vote, surpassing the vote
for Pizarro, which was 4.6 percent. Max-Neef was able to translate his
shoestring candidacy into the most significant protest vote against the
major candidates.
The election of the fifty-one-year-old Frei marked the coming of age
of a new generation of political leaders in Chile. Frei, an engineer and
businessman, had avoided the political world of his father until the
late 1980s when he agreed to form part of the Committee for Free
Elections. Subsequently, his party faction challenged Aylwin for the
leadership of the party prior to the 1989 election. Although Frei lost,
he laid the groundwork for his successful bid for party leadership in
1992 and, eventually, the race for president.
Frei's election signals the intention of the CPD to remain united in
a coalition government for the foreseeable future. The designation of
Socialist Party president Germ�n Correa as minister of interior and
Ricardo Lagos's acceptance of another cabinet post underscore the broad
nature of the regime. Its challenge, however, will be to maintain unity
while addressing many of the lingering social issues that still affect
Chilean society without upsetting the country's economic progress.
Chile - THE CHURCH, BUSINESS, LABOR, AND THE MEDIA
The Church
The Roman Catholic Church has played a central role in Chilean
politics since colonial days. During the nineteenth century, the
question of the proper role of the Catholic Church in society helped
define the differences among the country's incipient political parties.
The Conservatives, in defending the social order of the colonial era,
championed the church's central role in protecting that order through
its control of the educational system and its tutelage over the
principal rights of passage, from birth to death. They also supported
the close tie between church and state based on the Spanish patronato
real, which provided the president with the authority to name
church officials. Liberals, and especially Radicals, drawing on the
ideals of the Enlightenment, sought a secular order, a separation of
church and state in which the state would take the primary
responsibility for instruction and assume "civil" jurisdiction
over births, marriages, and the burial of the dead. The Liberals and
Radicals also promoted the liberal doctrine of the rights of man and
citizenship, seeking to implement the notion of one man-one vote,
unswayed by the influence of the upper class or the preaching of the
clergy.
During the 1861-91 period, the Liberals were in the ascendancy,
succeeding in their quest to expand the authority of the state to the
detriment of that of the church. The de jure separation of church and
state, however, did not occur until the adoption of the constitution of
1925. Although a few priests and Catholic laity embraced the progressive
social doctrines inspired by papal encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum
(1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931), it was not until the 1950s
that the church hierarchy began to loosen its ties to the Conservative
Party. Keenly aware of Marxism's challenge to their core values and the
growing influence of Marxist parties, church leaders responded with an
increased commitment to social justice and reform. Some of the early
efforts at breaking down Chile's semifeudal land tenure system were
undertaken on church lands by progressive bishops, notably Bishop Manuel
Larra�n Err�zuriz of Talca in the 1960s.
The church's shift away from Conservative politics coincided with the
development of a close alliance between the church elite and the
emerging Christian Democrats, which contributed to the success of the
new party, particularly among women and another previously
disenfranchised group, rural voters. The church, and in particular
Cardinal Ra�l Silva Henriquez, the archbishop of Santiago, welcomed the
election of Eduardo Frei Montalva to the presidency in 1964.
Relations between the church and Allende, however, were far less
cordial. Church leaders retained correct relations with the leftist
government, fearful that the new authorities would make use of the
public schools for Marxist indoctrination and further undermine the
waning influence of the church in society. When Allende was overthrown,
all of the bishops welcomed the coup and helped legitimize the new
military junta with solemn ceremonies. Several bishops, including the
bishop of Valpara�so, remained staunch supporters of the military for
years to come.
Other church leaders, notably Cardinal Silva, shocked by widespread
human rights violations and disturbed by the growing rift between the
men in uniform and the church's Christian Democratic allies, soon
distanced themselves from the military authorities. The church, and
particularly the archdiocese of Santiago, responded by gradually
assuming a critical role as a defender of human rights and providing an
"umbrella" of physical and moral shelter to intellectuals and
party and union leaders. Antagonizing the regime and its many supporters
in upper-and middle-class sectors, the Vicariate of Solidarity (Vicar�a
de la Solidaridad) helped provide for the legal defense and support of
victims of the dictatorship. Silva's successor, though more
conservative, supported the church's work in the human rights field and,
in 1985, sought to broker the National Accord for Transition to Full
Democracy. As the plebiscite approached, the Episcopal Conference made
clear that it did not consider the junta's plan to be democratic and
urged Pinochet to step down, further aggravating the relationship
between the authorities and the church.
With the restoration of democracy, the church retreated from the
political arena. Following dictates from Rome and the appointment of
more conservative bishops, relations between the hierarchy and the
Christian Democrats cooled. Church leaders also made it clear that, in
recognition of church support for the democratic opposition in the
difficult years of the dictatorship, they expected support from the new
government for the church's own more conservative agenda. In early 1994,
Chile remained one of the few countries in the world that did not
recognize divorce, and issues such as abortion and the role of women in
society were not fully addressed. Chile's political right made clear
that it hoped to capitalize on these "moral" issues and revive
an alliance between clerical authorities and the parties of the right
not seen since the 1940s.
Although the challenge from the Marxist left had waned, the Roman
Catholic Church appeared to be engaged in a losing struggle to stem the
extraordinary growth of Protestant Evangelicals. Evangelical groups grew
rapidly during the years of military rule, primarily as a result of
severe social and economic dislocations. While the Roman Catholic Church
gained adherents and supporters through its politicized Christian Base
Communities (Comunidades Eclesiales de Base-- CEBs) and the work of
highly committed priests, tens of thousands of other Chileans were
seeking a new meaning for their lives by responding to the far more
flexible and spontaneous religious appeals of hundreds of storefront
churches. Surveys in Santiago indicated that Evangelicals made up close
to 15 percent of the population, with far larger proportions in
shantytowns (callampas or poblaciones) and other
low-income neighborhoods. What is perhaps more significant is that
active Evangelicals were as numerous as active Catholics.
<>Business
Chile has a long tradition of an active press, closely tied to the
country's competitive political parties. Prior to the 1973 coup,
Santiago had ten daily newspapers spanning the ideological spectrum.
These included, on the left, the Communist El Siglo, the
Socialist Ultima Hora, and the far-left papers Puro Chile
and Clar�n. The Christian Democrats owned La Prensa.
Newspapers identified with the center-right or far right included El
Mercurio (founded in 1827), Las Ultimas Noticias (founded
in 1902), La Segunda (founded in 1931), La Tercera de la
Hora (founded in 1950), and La Tribuna.
The wide ideological range of Chile's major newspapers did not mean
that circulation was evenly distributed. All of the newspapers
supporting the Allende government had a combined circulation of less
than 250,000, while, for instance, La Tercera de la Hora, a
center-right paper, had a circulation of 200,000. By far the most
important newspaper in Chile has been El Mercurio, with a
Sunday circulation of 340,000 and wide influence in opinion circles. The
El Mercurio Company, easily the most powerful newspaper group in Chile,
also owns La Segunda, the sensationalist Las Ultimas
Noticias, and regional papers. With its close ties to the Navy of
Chile (Armada de Chile), El Mercurio played a critical role in
mobilizing support against the Allende government, openly supporting the
military coup.
After the coup, Chile's independent press disappeared. The papers of
the left were closed immediately, and the centrist La Prensa
stopped publishing a few months later. Newspapers that kept publishing
strongly supported the military government and submitted to its
guidelines on sensitive issues; they also developed a keen sense of when
to censor themselves. The print media became even more concentrated in
the hands of two groups: the Edwards family, owners of El Mercurio,
with approximately 50 percent of all circulation nationwide, and the Pic�
Ca�as family, owners of La Tercera de la Hora, with another 30
percent. Only toward the end of the military government did two
opposition newspapers appear--La �poca, founded in 1987 and
run by Christian Democrats, and Fort�n Mapocho, a publication
run by groups on the left that became a daily newspaper in 1987. By 1990
Chile had approximately eighty newspapers, including thirtythree
dailies.
During the years of military rule, opposition opinion was reflected
in limited-circulation weekly magazines, the first being Mensaje,
a Jesuit publication founded in 1951. Over time, magazines such as Hoy,
a Christian Democratic weekly started in 1977; An�lisis and Apsi,
two leftist publications that began reaching a national audience in
1983; and the fortnightly Cauce, established in 1983, all
circulated under the often realized threat of censorship, confiscation
of their publications, and arrests of reporters and staff. In perhaps
the worst case of government suppression, Cauce, Apsi,
An�lisis, and Fort�n Mapocho were all shut down from
October 1984 to May 1985. After the restoration of democracy, two
conservative weekly magazines were founded that were opposed to the
Aylwin government were the influential �Qu� Pasa? (founded in
1971) and Ercilla (begun in 1936). By 1990 Chile had more than
twenty major current affairs periodicals.
The return of civilian government did not lead to an explosion of new
publications. Both �poca and Fort�n Mapocho, which
had received some support from foreign sources, faced enormous financial
challenges in competing with the established media. Fort�n
folded, and �poca finally was sold to a business group, which
retained the paper's standards of objective reporting. El Mercurio
continued to dominate the print medium and remained the most influential
newspaper in the country. The El Mercurio Company remained closely tied
to business groups that had supported the military regime but made
efforts, particularly through La Segunda, to present balanced
and fair reporting. The only openly pro-CPD newspaper in Chile was the
government-subsidized financial paper, La Naci�n, which
reflected the views of the authorities.
Radio traditionally has been dominated by progovernment stations, the
most notable exceptions being Radio Cooperativa, run by Christian
Democrats, and Radio Chilena, run by the Roman Catholic Church. At first
the size of the audience for these two stations did not approach the
listenership levels of Miner�a, Portales, and Agricultura--stations
identified with the business community. Radio Tierra, claiming to be the
first all-women radio station in the Americas, had identified
exclusively with women since its establishment in 1983.
Although the opposition had some print outlets, it had no access to
television. Not until 1987, in the months leading up to the plebiscite,
did opposition leaders gain limited access to television. The medium was
strictly controlled by the authorities and by network managers: the
University of Chile, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and
the National Television Network of Chile--Channel 7 (Televisi�n
Nacional de Chile--Canal 7).
Competitive politics transformed television news broadcasting,
introducing numerous talk shows that focus on politics. Channel 7, the
official station of the military government, was reorganized by the
junta after Pinochet's defeat as a more autonomous entity presenting a
broad range of views and striving for more impartial news presentation.
The station with the widest audience in Chile in the early 1990s was the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile's Channel 13, offering a
right-of-center editorial line. Other channels with a more regional
focus included Channel 5 of Valpara�so, operated by the Catholic
University of Valpara�so (Televisi�n Universidad Cat�lica de Valpara�so--Canal
5); Channel 11, operated in Santiago by the University of Chile
(Corporaci�n de Televisi�n de la Universidad de Chile--Canal 11); and
two commercial channels, Valpara�so's Channel 4 and Santiago's Red
Televisiva Megavisi�n--Channel 9, owned by the Pinto Claude Group and
directed by Ricardo Claro. In May 1993, the Luksic Group entered the
private television market by acquiring a 75 percent share of Maxivisi�n
(TV MAX), broadcast by microwave on UHF (ultrahigh frequency) in the
Metropolitan Region of Santiago.
The National Council of Television (Consejo Nacional de Televisi�n)
was charged with regulating the airwaves and setting broadcast
standards. Its jurisdiction in matters of censorship was unclear in the
wake of Supreme Court rulings challenging its decisions.
Chile - FOREIGN RELATIONS
Chile has never been particularly close to the United States. The
distance between Washington and Santiago is greater than the distance
between Washington and Moscow. In the twentieth century, Chile's giant
copper mines were developed by United States economic interests,
although Europe remained a larger market for Chilean products. Chile's
democratic governments distanced themselves from European fascism during
the world wars and embraced the cause of the Allies, despite internal
pressures to support the Axis powers. Chile later joined with the United
States in supporting collective measures for safeguarding hemispheric
security from a Soviet threat and welcomed United States support in
developing the Air Force of Chile. But the advent of the cold war and
the official Chilean policy of support for the inter-American system
exacerbated internal conflicts in Chile. The growing presence of the
Marxist left meant a sharp increase in anti-American sentiment in
Chilean public opinion, a sentiment that was fueled by opposition to the
United States presence in Vietnam, the United States conflict with Cuba,
and increased United States intervention in domestic Chilean politics.
During the 1960s, the United States identified Chile as a model
country, one that would provide a different, democratic path to
development, countering the popularity of Cuba in the developing world.
To that end, the United States strongly supported the candidacy of
Eduardo Frei Montalva in 1964 with overt and covert funds and
subsequently supported his government in the implementation of urban and
rural reforms. This support spawned considerable resentment against the
United States in Chile's conservative upper class, as well as among the
Marxist left.
The election of Allende was viewed in Washington as a significant
setback to United States interests worldwide. National Security Adviser
Henry Kissinger was particularly concerned about the implications for
European politics of the free election of a Marxist in Chile. Responding
to these fears and a concern for growing Soviet influence in the Western
Hemisphere, the United States embarked on a covert campaign to prevent
Allende from gaining office and to destabilize his government after his
election was ratified. Although the United States did not have a direct
hand in the overthrow of Allende, it welcomed the coup and provided
assistance to the military regime.
The widespread violations of human rights in Chile, combined with a
strong rejection of covert activities engaged in abroad by the
administration of President Richard M. Nixon, galvanized United States
congressional opposition to United States ties with Chile's military
government. With the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, the United States
took an openly hostile attitude toward the Chilean military government,
publicly condemning human rights violations and pressing for the
restoration of democracy. Particularly disturbing to the United States
government was the complicity of the Chilean intelligence services in
the assassination in Washington of Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier
and one of his associates, a United States citizen. That incident
contributed to the isolation of the Pinochet government internationally
and led to a sharp rift in relations between both countries. The Chilean
military turned elsewhere for its procurement needs and encouraged the
development of a domestic arms industry to replace United States
equipment.
With the defeat of Jimmy Carter and the election of Ronald Reagan,
the pendulum in the relations between both countries swung the other
way. Reagan argued that anticommunist authoritarian regimes should not
be antagonized for fear that they might be undermined, leading to the
triumph of a Marxist left, as in Nicaragua. Chile would be pushed to
respect human rights through "quiet diplomacy," while the
United States government reestablished normal ties with the
dictatorship.
The new policy did not last long. After the riots in Santiago in
1983, the United States began to worry that the Pinochet government was
no longer a solution to a potential threat from the far left, but part
of the problem. United States officials increasingly began to reflect
the concerns of prominent conservatives in Chile, who believed that
Pinochet's own personal ambitions could stand in the way of a successful
transition back to civilian rule.
The shift in policy became far more apparent in Reagan's second term,
when the Reagan administration, struggling to oppose the leftist
government of Nicaragua, sought to show its consistency by criticizing
the right-wing government of Chile. The United States made it clear that
it did not see the Pinochet government's plebiscite as a satisfactory
step toward democracy supported the option of open and competitive
elections. Whereas in the early 1980s the United States government had
embraced the military regime while refusing to take the democratic
opposition seriously, by the end of the decade the United States was
actively backing the opposition in its effort to obtain a fair electoral
process so that it could attempt to defeat Pinochet at his own game.
Pinochet's defeat was considered by Washington to be a vindication of
its policies.
With the election of Patricio Aylwin in Chile, relations between the
two countries improved greatly. The administration of George Bush
welcomed Chile's commitment to free-market policies, while praising the
new government's commitment to democracy. The United States also
supported the Aylwin government's human rights policies and came to a
resolution of the Letelier assassination by agreeing to a bilateral
mediation mechanism and compensation of the victims' families.
A few issues have complicated United States-Chile relations,
including the removal of Chilean fruit from United States supermarkets
in 1991 by the Food and Drug Administration, after tainted grapes were
allegedly discovered. The United States also objected to Chile's
intellectual property legislation, particularly the copying of drug
patents. However, these issues pale by comparison with the strong ties
between the two countries and the admiration that United States
officials have expressed for Chile's remarkable economic performance. As
evidence of this "special" relationship, both the Bush and the
Bill Clinton administrations have indicated United States willingness to
sign a free-trade agreement with Chile in the aftermath of the
successful negotiations with Mexico on the North American Free Trade
Agreement ( NAFTA). Although Chile has pressed strongly for the
agreement as a way to ensure access to United States markets, the United
States in 1991 was replaced by Japan as Chile's largest trading partner,
with the United States accounting for less than 20 percent of Chile's
world trade. Ironically, in the post-cold war era, anti-Americanism in
Chile is more prevalent in military circles and among the traditional
right, still bitter about United States support for democratic parties
prior to the plebiscite and concerned that the United States has
hegemonic presumptions over the region.
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CITATION: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. The Country Studies Series. Published 1988-1999.
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