In 1973 General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup against the democratically elected government of Chilean President Salvador Allende. The coup brought to an end four decades of democracy and a long tradition of constitutional government. Pinochet's stated aims were to rid the country of the cancer of Marxism and restore democracy and the rule of law. To achieve these objectives, he established a reign of terror aimed at silencing Allende's supporters and suppressing any form of opposition. He destroyed unions, outlawed political parties, closed the congress, and intervened in educational institutions. During his regime, torture and murder became essential instruments of state policy. Given this background, the linkage that this book makes between Pinochet and constitutionalism is, to say the least, provocative.

Robert Barros is not unaware of this problem. In Chapter 1 he makes it clear he is not arguing that Pinochet's regime was restrained by the principles of liberal constitutionalism or that his administration upheld the rule of law. He does argue, how-ever, that legal rules enacted by Pinochet had the effect of curbing the powers of his regime. The limitation of power brought about by these rules is what he calls constitutionalism. On the surface, it may appear as if Barros is simply making an argument about rules in any type of social setting. After all, even a band of robbers is subject to rules. His argument, however, is more ambitious and more specific. It is ambitious because his objective is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding politics and law under dictatorships. It is specific because he argues that the rules enacted by Pinochet had the attributes of legal standards.

Barros's main focus of attention is the constitution enacted by Pinochet in 1980. This document contained an authoritarian vision of politics. It also envisaged the establishment, in the future, of an elected president and legislature. Some of its rules were especially designed so that at some later date, Pinochet could transform himself from a dictator into a popularly elected president. As it turned out, however, these expectations did not materialize, and in 1990 Pinochet handed over power to a democratically elected president. Barros attributes this unintended outcome to the rules of the constitution. This interpretation leads him to raise an important question: Why did Pinochet and his colleagues in the armed forces create such rules? His answer is disarmingly simple: The conditions that made the emergence of such rules possible stem from the fact that Chilean armed forces are institutionally divided into separate services (army, navy, air force, and the police). Given that under the constitution the four heads of the armed services constituted the legislative power, there came into existence a mechanism that, according to Barros, operated in a way similar to the traditional separation of powers and led to the emergence of rules that restrained the behavior of the government (pp. 34–35).

The evidence on which Barros relies to construct his argument is taken mainly from minutes of meetings of the military junta, the drafting committee of the constitution, and other official bodies. Not surprisingly, these documents reveal several policy differences between Pinochet and members of the junta. Some of these differences relate to strategic questions, such as whether the government should ignore international pressure and press ahead with its repressive policies. Others relate to tactical differences, such as the type of repressive measures that the government should employ to confront the opposition. The policy disagreements recorded in these documents are the basis upon which Barros builds his argument about constitutionalism. These documents, however, were not public at the time and were only known to the inner circle of the regime. The author does not, however, consider the implications of the absence of publicity (and public debate) for his argument about constitutionalism, unless, of course, his argument is about ex post facto constitutionalism.

But Barros's argument has other fundamental problems. First, he assumes that the views expressed by the members of the junta in their secret discussions with Pinochet represent the views and interests of their respective services. Although this assumption is not implausible, nowhere in the book does he explain the conflicting institutional interests of these services or how these interests were reflected in the junta's deliberations and decisions. Instead, what the reader gets are excerpts from speeches—delivered mainly by the heads of the navy and air force—that reflect the personal preferences of the individuals concerned, but not the views of their institutions. Paradoxically, in terms of Barros's argument, what these discussions show is the extraordinary political influence of one man, Jaime Guzmán, Pinochet's most loyal and trusted civilian advisor.

Another serious difficulty with the author's argument is his extremely flexible ideas as to what constitutes limitation of power. His interpretation of one of Pinochet's most infamous decrees illustrates this problem. The decree in question (Decree Law 788 of December 1974) conferred the status of a constitutional amendment to any decree enacted by the junta before December 1974 that was inconsistent with the prevailing constitution. It also provided that in the future, only decrees that explicitly stated that they were amending the constitution would be regarded as having the force of a constitutional amendment, while the rest would have the status of ordinary laws. Barros argues that Decree 788 limited Pinochet's powers because decrees that the government did not characterize as constitutional amendments would, from then on, be subject to review by the Supreme Court (pp. 101–3). This interpretation is astonishing and misleading. It is astonishing because the objective of the Decree, as its text makes clear, was to validate scores of arbitrary decrees enacted by the government during its first year in office. It is also misleading because throughout the Pinochet administration, the Supreme Court behaved as an arm of the executive, rather than as an independent branch of the state. Barros's conception of what constitutes an effective limitation of power is so flexible as to be meaningless.

A further problem with the author's argument is his view that the restraints on Pinochet resulted from the operation of legal rules. This formalistic argument is self-defeating and reveals a surprising lack of familiarity with studies on the impact of law in society. Even in open political systems, it is virtually impossible to ascertain whether political outcomes are directly attributable to legal rules as opposed to political, economic, or other factors. This is why scholars who study the role of law in society are so skeptical about legal formalism.

Despite these misgivings, Constitutionalism and Dictatorship does suggest some intriguing questions. Why were Pinochet and his advisors so obsessed with legality? What impact did Pinochet's constitution have in shaping the transition to democracy? How much longer will Pinochet's (and Guzmán's) vision of politics haunt Chilean democracy? Scholars interested in pursuing these questions will find this book valuable, provided they do not take seriously the author's attempt to reinterpret the hazy concept of constitutionalism.