Chile is facing an unprecedented crisis with the social explosion of late 2019, one of the highest rates of COVID-19 infections in the world, and an upcoming constitutional referendum that has the potential to significantly rewrite Chile’s constitutional map in existential ways. Though written before the onset of the October 19, 2019 crisis that continued into 2020, Carlos Huneeus and Octavio Avendaño’s excellent edited volume in many senses provides a roadmap to understand how Chile got to where it stands today, when the country’s major social and political institutions are held in extraordinarily low esteem. The volume’s chapters identify many of the precipitants of the manifold crises that Chile faces today. One of the book’s key strengths is its comprehensive breadth, with a focus on institutions, a diverse set of social actors, and the media.
The volume’s point of departure is based on Huneeus’s previous work, in which he sets out a model for what he calls “semi-sovereign democracy” produced by the military constitution of 1980. This “semi-sovereign democracy” extends to almost every aspect of the country’s political system, which each of this book’s contributing authors seeks to analyze.
Huneeus’s introductory chapter reviews major trends in Chilean democracy since the defeat of General Augusto Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite. He points to a consistent deterioration in Chile’s political development, even as reforms were made to the military constitution. This is reflected in seven trends, or limits, that Huneeus identifies as central to understanding this “semi-sovereign democracy.” They include a preference for technocratic over party government, a steep fall in participation, the deterioration of parties and party organizations, the legacy of state weakness produced by Pinochet reforms, a perception that GDP growth means a good economy without considering the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few, and the costs of elites’ obsession with reaching consensus. Huneeus contends that center-left Concertación (and later Nueva Mayoría) governments did little to stem these tendencies, partly considering the memory of the failures of the 1970s, but also the ways that these fears made governments unwilling or unable to make the necessary adjustments to the political system to stem the deterioration of Chile’s democratic development.
The chapters that follow take up the themes set down in the introduction. Claudia Heiss and Esteban Szmulewicz provide a comprehensive analysis of Chile’s constitutional history as the country heads into a period of potential reform. There are numerous analyses of the 1980 Pinochet constitution as a document that establishes (echoing Huneeus) a “protected democracy.” One of the many strengths of this chapter is its analysis of what came before, beginning with the Constitution of 1925. However, even though it was written before the announcement of Chile’s constitutional referendum, the chapter’s general points about what a constitution needs to do and what the 1980 Constitution did not do are clear. Fundamentally, the authors argue, the document failed because it did not meet the basics of what constitutions are supposed to do, which is to establish a pact between members of society, to limit majorities and protect minorities, and to rein in the various powers of the state.
Chistopher Martínez’s chapter on Chilean presidentialism hones in on the powerful presidency created by the 1980 Constitution. He begins by underscoring the many powers of the presidency, goes on to analyze the structure of each of the postauthoritarian governments, and continues with an analysis of relations between important actors within them. The fourth section of the chapter provides an intriguing account of the influence of presidents and presidential behavior on their successors. He concludes by noting that despite much academic literature pointing to the contrary, Chilean presidents have not employed their powers to the full extent and have been willing to govern with others.
María Cristina Escudero takes a similar approach to analyzing Congress. She provides an expansive account of the functions of the legislature as set out in the 1980 Constitution and reviews how they played out in subsequent governments. She argues that the dynamics of executive-legislative relations show that the twin intentions of the document’s designers (reinforcing presidential power and providing veto power to prevent substantial reforms) worked.
Political parties are perhaps the institutions whose popularity and support have declined most rapidly and most significantly in Chile. Huneeus and Avendaño’s chapter on party systems analyzes this decline. They consider the erosion of support for parties as an element explaining the deterioration Chile’s democratic development. They analyze the traditional role played by political parties and then trace the process of fragmentation that has caused difficulties with respect to democratic governability and representation.
Political parties also formed a fundamental part of Chilean political culture, which Matías Bargsted and Nicolás Somma’s chapter analyzes. Their major focus is Chileans’ attitudes toward the political regime and political attachments. They find mixed trends with respect to support for democracy, but a clear decline in satisfaction with the concrete functioning of democracy and political institutions. With respect to political attachments, their findings are similar. More diffuse measures, like political interest, show no clear pattern in either direction, while specific measurements of attachment, like confidence in institutions, demonstrate a sharp downward trend.
Mauricio Morales’s chapter turns to the issue of elections and participation. He provides a comprehensive analysis of all election results from 1989 until 2017, as well as a cogent analysis of the evolution of political participation during that period, adding to it the 1988 plebiscite. He finds that despite the claims that a 2012 reform from a system of voluntary registration and compulsory voting to one with automatic inscription and voluntary voting would increase participation, that did not come to pass. Furthermore, older voters and voters with a high socioeconomic status now make up a higher percentage of voters as a result of the reforms. In addition, the new proportional electoral system, first used in the 2017 elections, has shaken up the party system with the powerful emergence of a third electoral force, the Broad Front, breaking the grip on power that the two major coalitions have held since the return of democracy.
Manuel Délano takes on the issue of the mass media. He points to the need for plural, diverse, and open media for a democracy to function well and seeks to determine whether the Chilean media make the grade. For Délano, the dictatorship was a turning point that has had damaging consequences for the media until today, and postauthoritarian governments did little to transform the media landscape. Today, he argues, commercial concerns drive media coverage, and power has been concentrated in a few hands. In addition, with a few exceptions, the media have been reduced to trivial and sensationalized coverage, and print media have become increasingly dominated by the right.
In evaluating the quality of democracy, it is essential to analyze the policymaking process. In her chapter, Cecilia Osorio seeks to uncover who are the powerful actors that have affected the policymaking process since the return of democracy. Echoing Huneeus’s point in chapter 1, she argues that there is tension between technical and political policymaking actors, and that technical ones have dominated since the return of democracy.
Unions were powerful actors in pre-authoritarian Chile and were emasculated by the dictatorship. Avendaño and Rodrigo Cuevas focus their chapter on the large umbrella organizations that bring together business interests—the CPC (Confederación de la Producción y el Comercio) and unionized workers—the CUT (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores). Their analysis shows that during the last decades, the balance of power has shifted markedly away from the CUT and toward the CPC. This was due, they argue, to the labor policies of the dictatorship, as well as the neoliberal economic model more generally. On the other side of the equation, more and more power was concentrated in a few hands within the CPC, particularly among the largest businesses it comprises. This has left trade unions weakened and with little organizational and institutional power.
The final two chapters of the volume turn to the judicial branch. The first, by Paula Ahumada, analyzes the role of the Constitutional Tribunal. She points to increasing use of such bodies around the world as a check on other state powers and to prevent tyrannies of the majority by assuring the constitutionality of laws. She painstakingly traces the evolving role of the Constitutional Tribunal since its creation in 1970. Ahumada argues that it was first created to act as a brake on Parliament and to strengthen the president, but later acted as a body designed to rein in politics more generally. Following the reforms of 2005, the tribunal has reflected a more general tendency in Chile to assign more powers to supposedly technical and nonpolitical actors.
Eduardo Aldunante focuses on the courts more generally, tracing tendencies since the return of democracy. He underscores the expanding role of the Supreme Court and analyzes the effects of administrative reforms to the judicial process that have transformed the structure of the judiciary and led to a tendency to create special administrative courts.
This book is essential reading to understand where Chilean democracy stands today, and it provides important clues to the sources of the current political and social crisis. Chapters are well written, well crafted, solid in their arguments, and backed by a treasure trove of useful data. However, as in many edited volumes, the chapters could have done a better job of talking to each other to build argumentative bridges between them. In addition, a comprehensive conclusion summarizing and connecting the findings of the study would have helped. Nevertheless, these aspects only slightly detract from what is otherwise a premier work on the state of Chilean democracy in terms of its content, presentation, and breadth.
