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The Endless Search for the Chile that Never Was: A Critical Reaction to Three North American Views
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STRUGGLE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE: POLITICS AND RURAL LABOR IN CHILE, 1919–1973. By LOVEMANBRIAN. (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1976. Pp. 439. $12.50.)
THE GROWTH AND STRUCTURE OF THE CHILEAN ECONOMY: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO ALLENDE. By MAMALAKISMARKOS J. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976. Pp. 390. $20.00.)
THE MILITARY IN CHILEAN HISTORY: ESSAYS ON CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS, 1810–1973. By NUNNFREDERICK M. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976. Pp. 343. $15.00.)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2022
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- Copyright © 1979 by the University of Texas Press
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Notes
1. On this subject, see the book review by Arturo and J. Samuel Valenzuela, “Visions of Chile,” LARR 10, no. 3 (Fall 1975):155–75.
2. The important point is that it questions the widely shared assumption that bureaucracies are instrumental in nature and that the implementation phase of the policymaking process is essentially a technical question—and hence, nonpolitical in character. Whether one accepts (as many North American scholars seem to) or not the existence of a dichotomy between politics and administration in the context of Third World countries, the fact remains that interest groups (or classes) will exercise political pressure wherever political power to affect policy outcomes is placed. Involvement of bureaucracies in public policy becomes unavoidable and, in consequence, central to the understanding of questions of national politics. See, J. I. Tapia Videla and Luis Quiros Varela, El subsistema político de la seguridad social en Chile, Serie Documentos de Trabajo, Instituto de Ciencia Política (Santiago: Universidad Católica de Chile, 1974); Osvaldo Sunkel, “Change and Frustration in Chile,” in Claudio Véliz, ed., Obstacles to Change in Latin America (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 116–44; and Charles J. Parrish, “Bureaucracy, Democracy, and Development: Some Considerations Based on The Chilean Case,” in Clarence E. Thurber and Lawrence S. Graham, eds., Development Administration in Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 1973), pp. 229–59.
3. In evaluating questions of legal formalism, there is a long-standing tradition in North American circles that adopts either a cynical attitude toward the matter or one of perplexity. In literature dealing with comparative politics and/or administration, legal formalism has been traditionally considered an index of underdevelopment—political or administrative. Far too often, as one may expect, these scholars seem to ignore the complexities of a phenomenon with important sociopolitical functions even in the context of the so-called postindustrial societies. See, among others, Fred W. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964); J. Lloyd Mecham, “Latin American Constitutions: Nominal or Real?” Journal of Politics 21, no. 2 (1959): 258–75; and my article, “Understanding Organizations and Environments: A Comparative Perspective,” Public Administration Review 36, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1976):631–36.
4. As Loveman has aptly put it: “Given the quasicorporate nature of relationships between interest groups and Chilean bureaucracies, loss of access to the top levels of administrative decision making was a serious loss to the landowners” (p. 326). On the general question of the “privatization” of state functions and activities in Chile, see, Constantine Menges, “Public Policy and Organized Business in Chile: A Preliminary Analysis,” Journal of International Affairs 20, no. 2 (1966):343–65; Robert L. Ayres, “Economic Stagnation and the Emergence of the Political Ideology of Chilean Underdevelopment,” World Politics 25 (1972):41, 43–44, 51–52; and the excellent study by Peter S. Cleaves, Bureaucratic Politics and Administration in Chile (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).
5. Jeffery M. Paige, Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World (New York: The Free Press, 1975). Chapter 1, “A Theory of Rural Class Conflict,” is most illuminating and theoretically provocative, pp. 1–71.
6. Sec Maurice Zeitlin and Richard Earl Ratcliff, “Research Methods for the Analysis of the Internal Structure of Dominant Classes: The Case of Landlords and Capitalists in Chile,” LARR 10, no. 3 (Fall 1975):5–61; Norbert Lechner, La democracia en Chile (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Signos S.L. R., 1970); Genaro Arriagada, La oligarquía patronal en Chile (Santiago: Ediciones Nueva Universidad, 1970); Markos Mamalakis, Growth and Structure, esp. pp. 125–28; Aníbal Pinto Santa Cruz, Chile: Un caso de desarrollo frustrado (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria S.A., 1962), pp. 36–40; and, in Hernán Godoy, ed., Estructura social de Chile (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria S.A., 1971), the articles by Alberto Edwards Vives, “Elementos de gobierno existentes en Chile a principios del siglo XIX” (pp. 170–79), Claudio Véliz, “La mesa de tres patas” (pp. 232–40), Aníbal Pinto Santa Cruz, “Crítica de una tésis tradicional” (pp. 459–75), and Osvaldo Sunkel, “Cambio social y frustración en Chile” (pp. 522–42).
7. In this sense, Mamalakis has suggested that “the shaking of the foundations of rural and agricultural areas may have been so bloodless and complete partly because for many landowners it meant simply a loss of capital, not of an irreplaceable land-based mode of life and a land creating a unique flow of utility,” Growth and Structure, p. 135. Along similar lines, see, “Introducción” in Federico G. Gil, Ricardo Lagos E., and Henry A. Landberger, eds., Chile 1970–1973: Lecciones de una experiencia (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos S.A., 1977) pp. 15–29, esp. p. 16.
8. Gil et al., Chile, pp. 16–17.
9. The peculiar brand of Chilean pluralism was characterized by social deadlock and political immobilism. In the area of social security and labor legislation, the prevalent style of pressure politics used to advance groups' interests led to a situation in which each major social group had elements within it that were actively working for the maintenance of the status quo because it gave them positions of relative advantage vis-à-vis their peers. At the national level, the combination of a rigid social structure and the mechanics of pluralism were to create a social deadlock no one dared to (or could) break for fear of either losing the advantages already accumulated or opening a Pandora's box in the political arena. Social deadlock inevitably led to political immobilism and to the reinforcement of the tendency (and necessity) for compromise. Within this framework, any social group with some capacity to articulate its interests, was given de facto veto power vis-à-vis other groups. From this perspective, it is hardly a surprise that policies espoused by either reformists like Frei or radicals like Allende were, in the final analysis, to reinforce the very features on which the social security and labor systems had operated in the past—usually against the interests of the lower class. Quite often, politico-administrative inertia proved to be more tempting and secure than innovation in areas considered to be politically sensitive and explosive. See J. I. Tapia-Videla and Charles J. Parrish, Clases sociales y la política de la seguridad social en Chile (Santiago: INSORA, 1970); Hernán Troncoso Rojas, Gobierno popular y participación popular (Santiago: Editorial Orbe, 1965); Ayres, “Economic Stagnation,” pp. 50–57, and Raúl Atria B., “Agentes Políticos en Chile,” in Ramon Downey A., ed., Los actores de la realidad chilena (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico S.A., 1974) pp. 207–32.
10. Osvaldo Sunkel, “Transnational Capitalism and National Disintegration in Latin America,” Dependence and Under development in the New World and the Old 22, no. 1 (March 1973): 135–36.
11. See Franz Hinkelammert, El subdesarrollo latinoamericano: un caso de desarrollo capitalista (Santiago: Ediciones Nueva Universidad, 1970); Orlando Caputo and Roberto Pizarro, Imperialismo, dependencia y relaciones económicas internacionales (Santiago: CESO, 1969); Fernando Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina: ensayo de interpretación sociológica (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1969); and Helio Jaguaribe, A. Ferrer, M.S. Wionczek, and T. Dos Santos, La dependencia político-económica de América Latina (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1969).
12. Some of these striking differences are to be found in the scope of state activities considered to be legitimate, the relationship between state and society, and more critically, the composition of the dominant coalition exercising power—inclusion or exclusion of the working class, for example, has important sociopolitical implications. On these general questions, see the series of articles in James M. Malloy, ed., Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), and those in Gil et al., Chile.
13. Gary MacEoin, No Peaceful Way: Chile's Struggle for Dignity (New York: Sheed and Ward, Inc., 1974) p. 55. In a more general sense, it has been noted that quite often dominant social classes have developed over time clientelistic relationships with powerful external actors. In the context of this relationship, national interest tends to be defined in terms of values manipulated by and shared with the external “patrons.” See, Kenneth M. Coleman, “Self-Delusion in U.S. Foreign Policy: Conceptual Obstacles to Understanding Latin America” (Erie, Penn.: Northwestern Pennsylvania Institute for Latin American Studies, 1977), Monograph No. 3.
14. In this particular area, the Chilean experience is similar to that found in the more developed countries in Latin America (e.g., Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Mexico). For a more detailed discussion of this phenomenon in Latin America see Tapia-Videla, “Understanding Organizations,” pp. 632–33.
15. The Popular Unity's failure to cope with these problems is dramatically illustrated by the fact that by mid-1971 attempts to ensure social justice in the area were sacrificed to a strategy trying to secure the widening of the political base of support—by definition, requiring the maintenance of the status quo! In a more restricted sense, the example provided by the handling of the proposed Ministerio de la Familia by the government should suffice—internal divisions and contradictions were to place leadership over the governmental project into the hands of the opposition.
16. In fact, the initial framework of analysis is subject to serious questioning by Nunn himself when he proposes the analysis of military thought on national issues in a contextual vacuum. If this approach to comparative history is correct, one wonders why he even bothered to elaborate relationships of disputable theoretical value or significance (e.g., the military establishment interacting with state, nation, and society). Moreover, Nunn goes on to add that “those factors utilized in assessing Chilean civil-military relations from independence until 1970 were of little significance, if any, by 1973”; see pp. 192–94 and 306, respectively.
17. Nunn's failure is more puzzling in that whether one reviews literature produced in quarters, of the Left, Right, or Center there is one striking consensus: internal deadlock among the parties of the governmental coalition was to have disastrous effects on the viability of the segunda vía al socialismo. See the articles found in Gil et al., Chile and in Francisco Orrego V., Chile: The Balanced View (Santiago: Editora Gabriela Mistral, 1975).
18. See Julio Cotler and Richard R. Fagen, Latin America and the United States: The Changing Political Realities (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974); Horacio L. Veneroni, Estados Unidos y las fuerzas armadas de América Latina (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Periferia, 1971); Jo Ann Fagot Aviel, “The United States Military and the New Latin American Military,” in Latin America and the United States: Past, Present, and Future (Proceedings of the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies, 1972), 1: 79–93; Helio Jaguaribe, Political Development: A General Theory and a Latin American Case Study (New York: Harper and Row, 1973); and Jeffrey Stein, “Grad School for Juntas,” The Nation 224, no. 20 (21 May 1977): 621–24.
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