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Understanding Political Change After Authoritarian Rule: The Popular Sectors and Chile's New Democratic Regime*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Philip Oxhorn
Philip Oxhorn
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science atMcGill University.
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Extract

When Patricio Aylwin accepted the Chilean presidential sash in March 1990 an era in Latin American politics dominated by authoritarian regimes came to an end. Virtually every country in the region now had to grapple with the complicated task of consolidating fragile democratic regimes. Surprisingly, given what may be the emergence of a new democratic era, one is hardpressed even to begin answering an obvious question: How will years of non-democratic rule affect future efforts to establish democratic political processes in their wake? Despite recent attention to the ways in which different types of transition process affect the prospects for democracy, the impact of authoritarian rule on subsequent political processes remains largely unstudied.

Type
Commentary
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , October 1994 , pp. 737 - 759
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

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2 The ‘popular sectors’ are the disadvantaged groups in highly segmented, unequal societies. They are characterised by their limited life chances and consumption possibilities. In urban areas, the popular sectors include both organised and unorganised workers in the formal economy, the unemployed who are seeking employment, people working in the informal economy, and the lumpenproletariat who are largely outside of the formal and informal economies. See Oxhorn, P., ‘The Popular Sector Response to an Authoritarian Regime: Chilean Shantytown Organizations Since the Military Coup’, Latin American Perspectives, vol. 18 (Winter 1991), pp. 66–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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13 P. Oxhorn, Organising Civil Society: Popular Organizations and the Struggle for Democracy in Chile (University Park, Penn., forthcoming). The nature and extent of popular sector organisational activity will be discussed below.

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16 These conclusions are supported by the most comprehensive studies of popular sector organisational activity during the previous democratic regime. See Castells, M., The City and the Grassroots (Berkeley, 1983)Google Scholar; and Espinoza, V., Para una historia de los pobres de la ciudad (Santiago, 1988)Google Scholar. Also see Oxhorn, Organizing Civil Society.

17 The Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia is the multi-party coalition formed to support Patricio Aylwin's candidacy, and it continues to share collectively in the responsibilities of government under his successor, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.

18 This is according to statistics compiled by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA). See Análisis, no. XIII (29 Oct.–4 Nov. 1990), p. 3.

19 La Epoca (20 and 24 July 1990).

20 Angell, A. and Pollack, B., ‘The Chilean Elections of 1989 and the Politics of the Transition to Democracy’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 9 (no. 1, 1990), pp. 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Análisis, no. XIII (7–3 May 1990), pp. 19–21.

21 La Epoca (20 July 1990), p. 35.

22 Unless otherwise noted, all direct quotations are from interviews conducted by the author in Santiago during July and August 1990.

23 División de Organizaciones Sociales, Ministerio Secretaría General de Gobierno, Estrategia de Participatión para la Transitión a la Democracia (Santiago, 1990), pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 3.

25 La Epoca (12 August 1990), p. 20.

26 Oxhorn, Organizing Civil Society.

27 Although the Concertación has a majority in the lower house, the right effectively controls the Senate due to the presence of nine senators appointed by Pinochet. Any legislative act requires at least some support from the right.

28 Garretón, The Chilean Political Process.

29 In the 1992 municipal elections, the centre parties within the Concertación received 35.5 per cent of the vote, with the largest share (28.97 per cent) going to the Christian Democrats. The moderate left (the Socialist Party, the Party for Democracy and independents, all part of the Concertación) received 17.64 per cent of the vote and the far left (which was not part of the Concertación) received 6.6 per cent, for a combined total of 24.24 per cent of votes. The right (the National Renovation Party, Independent Democratic Union and smaller groups, including the populist Union Centre) received 37.77 per cent. See La Epoca (30 June 1992), p. 9. This compares with the 1973 congressional elections in which centre parties received 32.8 per cent of the vote, with 34.9 per cent voting for parties of the left and 21.3 per cent voting for the right. See Scully, Rethinking the Centre. The same pattern generally held in the 1993 congressional elections, although the actual distribution of the vote was distorted because individual political parties did not present candidates in all of the districts. The new system strongly favours the formation of electoral coalitions, and the apportionment of candidacies with each coalition was the result of intense elite-level negotiations. See P. Oxhorn, ‘Where did All the Protesters Go? Popular Mobilization and the Transition to Democracy in Chile,’ Latin American Perspectives (forthcoming).

30 Garretón, M. A., Reconstruir la política. Transitión y Consolidatión Democrática en Chile (Santiago, 1987)Google Scholar; La Renovatión Socialista. Balance y perspectivas de un proceso vigente (Santiago, 1987).

31 The relationship between the PPD and the PS is not free of tensions. But their close cooperation seems unavoidable given the undisputed leadership of Ricardo Lagos in the moderate left, and the results of the 1992 municipal and 1993 congressional elections in which both parties demonstrated a rough electoral parity.

32 After refusing to participate in what it considered to be an illegitimate process, the PC suddenly told its followers to register and vote. It later supported Aylwin's presidential bid, and even legalised itself under laws enacted by the military regime.

33 The PC formed the Movement of the Allendista Democratic Left (MIDA) in late 1991 in order to profile itself as a leftist opposition. See Análisis, no. XV (23 Dec. 1991– 5 Jan. 1992), pp. 10–12. The MIDA did surprisingly well in the 1992 municipal elections, surpassing even its own expectations by receiving 6.6 per cent of the national vote. Its 1993 presidential candidate received 4.69 per cent of the vote, although all of its congressional candidates lost. The latter result was, in part, caused by the already noted distortions in the electoral system. See footnote 29, above.

34 With 29 deputies and 11 senators in the current congress, the RN is the second largest party in Chile.

35 Personal interviews, Santiago (August 1990); La Epoca (6–8 August 1990).

36 Oxhorn, Organizing Civil Society.

37 Garretón, M. A., ‘La oposición política partidaria en el régimen militar chileno. Un proceso de aprendizaje para la transitión’, in Garretón, M. A. and Cavarozzi, M. (eds.), Muerte y Resurrectión. Los partidos politicos en el autoritarismo y las transiciones del cono sur (Santiago, 1989), pp. 395–465Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., and Scully, Rethinking the Centre, argue there are no new major political parties because most of their leaders were active in politics prior to the coup. One should not over-emphasise this historical continuity with traditional parties, given that they have explicitly tried to break with past organisational styles and structures. Moreover, many of their most prominent leaders, including Ricardo Lagos (the PPD's founding president), Sergio Bitar (the PPD's current president) and the RN's president Andrés Allamond, among others, were never active in electoral politics before 1973.

39 Central government expenditures as a percentage of GNP declined from 43.2 per cent in 1972 to 32.8 per cent in 1990. See World Bank, World Bank Development Report (New York, 1992), p. 239Google Scholar. In terms of public sector employment, approximately 95,000 jobs were lost between 1973 and 1979 alone. If the number of jobs that would have been created had public sector employment expanded at its historical rate (an average of 3.84 per cent per year 1940–70) are included, the total rises to almost 183,000. See Martínez, J. and Tironi, E., Las clases sociales en Chile. Cambio y estratificación, 1970–1980 (Santiago, 1985), pp. 69–70Google Scholar .

40 Speech before a local PPD meeting, Valparaíso, 14 August 1991.

41 Nobba, G. Martelli, ‘Junta s de vecinos, movimientos de pobladores y reforma municipal’, in ECO, Taller de Andálisis Movimientos Sociales y Coyuntura, vol. 4 (07 1989), p. 7Google Scholar.

42 He is presently the Labour Minister in President Frei's cabinet.

43 Análisis, no. XIII (8–14 Oct. 1990), pp. 6–8.

44 Analisis, no. XIV (10–16 Dec. 1990), p. 21.

45 There were even reports of barricades being built in poblaciones and the number of people killed, injured and arrested was comparable to a typical national protest in the mid–1980s.

46 Análisis, no. XIV (10–16 June 1991), p. 3. Even the 1993 elections were characterised more for the noticeable lack of public enthusiasm and participation. The voter turnout was high, but voting is mandatory in Chile and abstention carries stiff penalties.

47 Razeto, L., Klenner, A., Ramírez, A. and Urmenteta, R., Las organizaciones económicas populares, 1973–1990, 3rd ed. (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar. This compares to the approximately 12.5 per cent of all workers who belonged to unions at the end of 1990. See Análisis, no. XIV (15–21 April 1991), p. 25. This trend continued during the first years of the Aylwin presidency, despite a dramatic decline in poverty. Personal interview, L. Razeto, Santiago, August 1992.

48 Razeto et al., Las organizacioms económicas populates.

49 Believing that it is the responsibility of the civilian government to resolve the social problems associated with poverty, the Church is now concentrating on more explicitly religious activities and has been distancing itself from popular organisations.

50 From 1986 until mid-1988, leaders of popular organisations attempted to create a social movement of the urban poor. However, these leaders' dependence on political parties undermined their efforts whenever they came into conflict with the perceived interests of political parties. The final clash came in June 1988, when the CUP sponsored a Second March Against Hunger. In the midst of a difficult campaign to defeat Pinochet in the October plebiscite, opposition parties feared that this march could undermine their electoral prospects, by providing the military with a powerful propaganda tool that could be used to stimulate middle class anxiety. When the CUP's leadership disobeyed party instructions and proceeded with the march, the parties reacted by effectively dismantling the organisation. See Oxhorn, ‘Where Did All of the Protesters Go?’.

51 ECO, Taller de Análisis Movimientos Sociales y Coyuntura (Dec. 1989), pp. 20–24.

52 It should be noted that government policies have deliberately sought to deal with this problem and have enjoyed considerable success. In fact, the woman being quoted went on to play an important role in helping the Aylwin government implement these policies at the grassroots level. Moreover, continued economic growth brought the poverty rate down to just over 30 per cent by the end of 1993, as unemployment went below 5 per cent. At the same time, however, there was no significant improvement in income distribution, which remained considerably more unequal than it had been prior to the 1973 coup. See Ruiz-Tagle, J., ‘Reductión de la pobreza y distributión de los ingresos en Chile’, Mensaje, vol. 42 (12 1993), pp. 640–3Google Scholar.

Improved social welfare services and a vibrant economy have undoubtedly contributed to popular sector political apathy since the transition. The argument here, however, is that this only compounded more fundamental problems of popular sector political participation that preceded the impact of these positive trends. This is consistent with the fact that poverty still remains at an historically high level, and helps explain why the vibrancy of popular sector organisational activity at the grassroots level has not been translated into more effective forms of political participation.

53 Solervicens, M., Puente Alto. Desafiós de la transitión en la comuna (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar.

54 ECO, Taller de Análisis Movimientos Sociales y Coyuntura (Nov. 1989).

55 Razeto et al., Las organizaciones económicas populares, 1973–1990.