Since the end of the Chilean dictatorship in 1990, a growing body of scholarship has examined the quality, achievements and shortcomings of the subsequent democratisation process. In doing so, it has not only broadened the range of debates that previously focused largely on the years of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government and Pinochet’s dictatorship but also demonstrated the value of studying Chile’s recent past as a historical period in its own right. This entails addressing crucial questions about how a polity confronts its past and its post-authoritarian legacies as it rebuilds a democratic system.
Stephan Ruderer’s book, originally published in German in 2010 and now available in Spanish, tackles these important questions about Chile’s transition to democracy between 1990 and 2006. As explained in the introductory chapter, the author does so by focusing on what he describes as the ‘politics of the past’ (política del pasado). Derived from German scholarly debates on the aftermath of the Nazi regime, this concept is adapted by Ruderer to the Chilean case to examine how the country confronted its legacy of systematic human rights violations and the entrenched value system associated with Pinochet’s dictatorship. Building on this framework, Ruderer examines both judicial measures of transitional justice and the ‘historical–political’ dimension of debates and initiatives aimed at confronting this traumatic past. Alongside the politics of the past, democratisation studies and the politics of memory constitute the book’s principal theoretical pillars. Drawing on the literature on democratic transition and consolidation, Ruderer emphasises the institutional and normative dimensions of democratisation. At the same time, he employs the politics of memory to analyse competing interpretations of Chile’s historical identity within a highly polarised political landscape shaped by supporters and opponents of Pinochet’s regime.
Each chapter is structured around three subsections that examine the historical context, the measures associated with the politics of the past adopted during the period and the ensuing public debate. The analysis centres on three sets of actors: the centre-left governments of the Concertación; the right-wing opposition, represented by Unión Demócrata Independiente and Renovación Nacional, together with the Chilean Army as an institution; and human rights organisations. This structure effectively provides a comparative perspective on the positions adopted by these actors throughout the sixteen-year period under study. To support this comparative approach, Ruderer’s analysis draws on a rich and diverse range of sources, including legislation, newspapers, opinion polls, political manifestos, parliamentary debates, statistics on judicial proceedings, official statements and documentation produced by human rights organisations and research institutions specialising in military affairs in Chile.
Chapter 1 covers the years 1990–1 under Patricio Aylwin’s government, a period that Ruderer characterises as being defined by efforts to uncover the truth about human rights violations amid significant limitations on the delivery of justice – most notably the 1978 Amnesty Law – and the pursuit of the ever-elusive ideal of national reconciliation. Aylwin’s politics of the past combined symbolic measures, reparations for victims and institutional initiatives, most notably the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Rettig Report), which provided the first official state account of the human rights abuses committed under the dictatorship. Chapter 2 focuses on the years 1991–5, a period in which, according to Ruderer, the politics of the past receded ‘behind the scenes’ under pressure from both the right-wing opposition and the Army to curtail judicial proceedings concerning human rights violations. Although symbolic and institutional initiatives continued, they coexisted with governmental attempts to avoid further confrontation, exemplified by the so-called Ley Aylwin, which sought to expedite human rights cases by granting anonymity and amnesty to those who provided information about the whereabouts of the detained and disappeared. Chapter 3 examines the period 1995–8, during which Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle’s government faced the unexpected resurgence of the past, a development that Ruderer interprets through the concept of ‘irruptions of memory’. This dynamic is illustrated by events such as the criminal conviction of Manuel Contreras, the former head of Chile’s secret police.
Chapter 4 centres on the period 1998–2002, which the author identifies as a decisive phase in the politics of the past marked by a ‘rediscovery of the past’ following Pinochet’s arrest in London in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity. He argues that this event served as a catalyst for initiatives such as the 1999 Mesa de Diálogo, which brought together the government, the Armed Forces and representatives of civil society to gather information on the whereabouts of victims. Similarly, the author argues that Pinochet’s arrest was a significant factor in the increase in judicial proceedings against members of the military, including Pinochet himself. In Chapter 5, Ruderer examines the years 2002–6, a period characterised by the more receptive approach adopted by the governments of Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet towards the demands of human rights organisations. Equally important, the broader political context had changed, as the continued delegitimisation of Pinochet’s public image, exemplified by the discovery of his secret bank accounts in the so-called ‘Riggs Case’, further undermined his political standing before his death in 2006. This renewed engagement with the politics of the past was reflected in initiatives such as the Valech Report on political imprisonment and torture, as well as in the politics of memory surrounding the thirtieth commemoration of the 1973 coup. The book concludes by reflecting on the ambivalent evolution of the politics of the past in relation to truth, reparations, justice and the politics of memory. It also considers the changes and continuities in the public discourse of the various actors analysed, while identifying broader comparative lessons that may be drawn from the Chilean case.
Among the many significant contributions that scholars and students will find in this carefully researched book, three deserve particular attention. Firstly, Ruderer provides an insightful and original periodisation of this phase of contemporary Chilean history through the lens of human rights, and more specifically through the measures associated with the politics of the past adopted by the Concertación governments, which he analyses meticulously in each chapter. Another major contribution lies in the book’s intervention in the field of political history. By offering a rich and detailed examination of the historical context of each period, together with a broad selection of public debates, Ruderer enables the reader to trace the arguments, reactions and reasoning of political actors. In this respect, as he aptly argues, scholars should reflect more carefully on the analytical potential of public discourse in newspapers and magazines, so often dismissed as ephemeral or superficial. Such sources provide a valuable means of understanding political ideologies, identifying agenda-setting dynamics and examining which narratives achieve hegemonic status and which remain marginalised. A further contribution is the book’s challenge to institutionalist and stage-based approaches to democratisation. As Ruderer demonstrates, the democratisation of institutions – as illustrated by the 1999 judicial reform – is only one side of the story. Equally important is what he describes as normative democratisation: the development of a democratic civic culture. In his view, this dimension remained underdeveloped in Chile, owing in part to the limited plurality of the media and its capacity to disseminate democratic values, as well as to the democratic governments’ reluctance to articulate a clear public discourse linking progress in human rights cases to the moral legitimisation of democracy. Nevertheless, Ruderer argues that, at key moments when the politics of the past turned against authoritarian legacies, a more favourable political context emerged for institutional reforms such as the 2005 constitutional reform.
One of Ruderer’s principal conclusions is the remarkable persistence of the ideological positions adopted by the different actors examined throughout the book. While his analysis is consistently persuasive, an oral history perspective could have shed further light on how the generational experiences of political actors socialised during the 1960s and 1980s continued to shape their positions on Pinochet’s legacy. Likewise, although Ruderer convincingly relates the consensus-based democracy promoted by Chilean political elites – particularly during the 1990s – to fears of political polarisation, lessons drawn from other democratic transitions and pragmatic political considerations, greater attention to its intellectual genealogy would have enriched the discussion. A case in point is the influence of Arend Lijphart’s concept of ‘consociational democracy’ on senior politicians and technocrats during the transition. Finally, the discussion of education and military training as key arenas for fostering normative democratisation could have been developed further. A more sustained reflection on the mechanisms through which democratic civic values are cultivated would have strengthened an already compelling study.
Ultimately, Ruderer offers a persuasive interpretation of Chile’s transition to democracy through the lens of the politics of the past. By combining analytical insight with thorough historical contextualisation, he sheds new light on a period of contemporary Chilean history that, despite attracting increasing scholarly attention, still warrants further historiographical engagement. In doing so, this rigorously researched book demonstrates the explanatory potential of this extensively documented empirical case study for the analysis of democratisations, post-authoritarian legacies and the politics of memory.
