Explanatory Blog Post: Number Two 

Chapter Four: Chile: Origins, Consolidation and Breakdown of a Democratic Regime

This chapter written by Arturo Valenzuela studies comprehensively the history and breakdown of the Chilean Democratic regime. The situation in Chile has often been neglected by scholars when developing theories as it is somewhat of a deviant case from traditional political theories. However Chile is an exceptionally interesting case and much can be gained from assessing it in isolation to try and determine what happened to cause such a dramatic break down. 

Beginning the chapter with a historical overview of the political history of Chile, Valenzuela starts by highlighting the hardships felt under the oppressive dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte or Pinochet as he was known. The intention is not to give a great depth to all periods of history but instead to provide attention to those parts of the history that are crucial to analyzing  the make and break of democratic rule. Following this there is an assessment of political science theories and how they relate to the Chilean situations. The third part of the chapter analyses the breakdown of democracy and how it leads to the military coup in 1973. The final part of the chapter gives an overview of military rule in Chile. 

Political History: 

This article provides great depth about Chiles’ political history and how it became the way that it did and whilst this is a very interesting discussion it is not the main point of the article and therefore it is not of the greatest importance. It is best just to understand that Chile had managed to establish a fully functioning democracy. In 143 years Chile had experienced only 13 months of unconstitutional rule by some sort of junta and only 4 months of rule by a junta dominated exclusively by the military. Therefore the best use of our time is to analysis what went so wrong to cause such a breakdown. 

Origins of Chilean Democracy: A Theoretical Assessment

Chile is described as the perfect case for analyzing the breakdown of a democratic system as the system was successfully implemented in the mid 19th century and then spectacularly disintegrated. It is largely incomparable to other cases due to this standard and as a deviant case it has been ignored often by scholars. This chapter uses many different theories in isolation of each other to try and provide insight into the Chilean exceptionality. 

The Colonial-Continuity Thesis 

This theory dictates that democracy will flourish if institutions of self-rule were in place for several generations during colonial times. Also if the transition to an independent state happened without too much violence and destruction. Chile doesn’t seem to follow this trend as there is no evidence of self rule and also the Chilean wars of independence were greatly disruptive. Chile did in turn find a period of democratic rule but it doesn’t seem to have had any direct relation to the political experiences of colonial times. Chile followed a different pattern to that of its Latin American neighbors because its post independence institutions were more conservative and not liberal like the others. Chile’s constitution established in 1833 brought a political system that greater resembled that seen in other North American colonies. The constitution replaced hereditary monarchy with an elected president whose power derived from office. The politics from the outset expanded greatly the concept citizenship and this was a stark contrast to the practices of other North American colonies who created their institutions based on the practices of self rule and the English Tudor framework. 

The Political Culture Thesis 

This is the idea that in order to aid in the development of democracy the citizens or at the very least the country’s elites need to harbor the same liberal beliefs and values. These are said to be the values associated with participatory politics as opposed to authoritarian governance. However in the case of Chile it fails to fit into this idea of a direct correlation between societal values and political institutions. Chile’s isolation had made it one of the most traditional on the entire continent and the church was extremely conservative and contained a strong backing of local aristocracy despite it’s close ties with colonial power. There is said to be no reason to believe that the evolution of democracy in Chile had anything to do with more “favorable” political conditions. The societal values are very unlikely to be similar to Norway or Australia however the political outcomes were not dissimilar. In the case of Chile it is said to be the democracy itself which helped to moderate political passions and manage deep-seated divisions. Democracy in Chile emerged without strongly held democratic values but the actual democratic practice itself instilled norms of give-and-take, tolerance and respect for fundamental liberties. 

The Economic Class Structure Thesis 

This can be divided into two categories, one that democracy is related to overall levels of economic development and the other focuses on the creation of democratic institutions of particular groups that emerge due to economic transformations in society. However again as with the previous theory Valenzuela finds this theory hard to relate to the case of Chile. In the 20th century Chile was clearly an exception as it showed minimal levels of economic growth but a high performance democratically. Agriculturally Chile remained repressive well into the 20th Century and the rise of an independent urban-based bourgeoise didn’t happen before the development of democratic rules and procedures. The most convincing argument highlighted by Valenzuela against this theory is that the emergence of democracy happened coupled with the support of the conservative landed elites. These Roman Catholic land owning elites who decided to support democratic institutions therefore show a clear negation of the theory that democracy only emerges at the destruction of this class. 

The Political-Determinants Thesis

Valenzuela raises this thesis simply to disregard it’s overall relevance to the case of Chile. This thesis deals with the idea that there are historical, cultural and economic ‘determinants’ of democracy but in the case of Chile, it does not conform to these principles. In fact it actually raises serious questions about their overall validity. Valenzuela does state that it would be a mistake to argue that these factors play no substantial role in democratic development and therefore goes into a detailed description of all of these. However in the interest of providing clarity and keeping succinct, it is most beneficial just to understand that this thesis alludes to the fact that democracy is a complex process and owes much to certain events and variables. It also carries the idea that democracy comes from a set of compromises in which the conformity of nondemocratic players are as important as the support of democratic players. Democracy will only continue to be implemented if it provides guarantees to all people. 

The Breakdown of Chilean Democracy 

Essentially the breakdown of the Chilean democracy stemmed from the development of a radical Center party with a distinctly different political governing style. This was the Christian Democrats Party and they conceived themselves as a new force in politics. However they were unable to succeed in gaining a majority but were able to structure a post election coalition with the Left under the president Salvador Allende. However being a minority president it made compromise with the coalition parties exceptionally difficult and fractures began to show in the politics. Eventually a great polarization showed and in the wake of suspicion and violence a breakdown seemed inevitable. 

However as Valenzuela argues this breakdown did not seem inevitable from the start. He states that it is the premise of the chapter to highlight that in Chile there was an inadequate fit between the country’s highly polarized and competitive party system and a presidential system of centralized authority. There was great issue with the presidential elections in Chile as the elected president only represented 1/3 of the electorate but was the head of the government. As they couldn’t seek reelection there was little incentive for the parties to support them past midterm. In order to try and quash this issue Chile sought to increase presidential power, but this only aggravated the problem. Therefore there became an inverse correlation between the success of the presidential system and the success of the government. This issue became a major challenge when the time came to transition back to democracy. 

At the breakdown of democracy Chile immediately transitioned into an authoritarian rule. There came a military coup which was not actually aimed at overthrowing the current government but at destroying the parties of the Left and their contributors. From the wake of this coup arose a new leader, General Pinochet. After the coup military leaders with little to no political experience constituted themselves as a governmental junta with Pinochet as the president. Pinochet was skillful and ambitious and swiftly upped his skill set. He implemented new statutes which allowed him to either work with the junta or work without their consent. However there was opposition to his rule in for the form of another junta member General Leigh. General Leigh tried to enforce a coup within the coup but this was swiftly defeated by Pinochet who had now removed all political opposition and began to consolidate his leadership. Pinochet wanted documents that would allow him to stay in office for two 8 year terms but agreed to a compromise whereby he and a group of other commanders could select his successor in 1988 or 1989. 

Chile’s rightist parties after the coup agreed to disband and welcomed the new authorities believing that they truly would represent their interests. However the Christian Democrats refused to admit that democracy was the reason for the military coup and that military rule should be maintained indefinitely. In 1983 political parties in Chile started to regain support and showed that they had not been obliterated. A protest movement emerged calling for reform. However there were the Christian Democrats who aligned with the smaller groups on both sides to propose an alternative government. On the left there were Communist Party who had aligned an armed strategy of removal. There was therefore a division and when these came to an attempt to align with the signing of a National Accord for Transition to Democracy this failed. Therefore even though there was widespread rejection of the Pinochet regime their lack of a clear alternative did not help to solve the problem. 

Prospects for Redemocratization 

In 1987 a big push campaign started for citizens to register to vote NO in the plebiscite that  would ratify the individual chosen to serve the next 8 year term. Pinochet was named as the candidate and suddenly an insurgence of support for the NO campaign materialized. The NO campaign ended up winning by a 12% margin. This article was written pre the 1989 election and discusses much of whether this will lead to an implementation of changes to the constitution and democratic transition. With the benefit of hindsight now we can be aware that these reforms to Pinochet’s constitution did not occur until 2005 at which time over 50 reforms to the constitution. Pinochet himself finally left office in 1990 after 17 years rule and the first democratically elected president came into office. 

Upon analyzing this article Chile provides a very interesting point of reference in discussing the breakdown and transition back to democratic regime. It doesn’t seem to fit any kind of political theory or mould unlike many of it’s neighbors and therefore it is hard to categorize. It appears to be a deviant case in many ways and therefore it would be wise to deduct theories of political science based on what is witnessed here but it would be mistake just to write it off. It should be seen that all political regimes are extremely complication and how they are caused and disrupted is different on a case by case basis and therefore one size does not fit all.