Abstract
Chile's economic and political evolution after the 1982–83 financial crisis has been offered as a model for the rest of Latin America. This paper interprets the 1973 military coup, and national recovery during the 1980s and 1990s, in terms of the presence and absence, respectively, of the Hillinger (1971) paradox. The paradox arises when democratic voting on platforms consisting of several issues leads to majority support for a platform, itself consisting of issues, none of which is supported by the majority. In the early 1970s, a particular expression of the Hillinger paradox led Chile to the verge of a bloody civil war, and to a prolonged military dictatorship. In the mid 1980s, an important policy question, that of differentiated industrial protection versus free trade, was solved by a stable compromise in favour of the latter. This avoided the Hillinger paradox and eventually made electoral politics possible again.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bardhan, P. (1997). Corruption and development: A review of issues. Journal of Economic Literature 35(3): 1320–1346.
Behrman, J.R. (1976). Foreign trade regimes and economic development: Chile. New York: NBER and Columbia University Press.
Bosworth, B.P., Dornbusch, R. and Laban, R. (Eds.) (1994). The Chilean economy: Policy lessons and challenges. Washington: The Brookings Institution.
Business Monitor International (1997). Chile 1997: In a class of its own. London: BMI.
Collier, S. and Sater, W.F. (1996). A history of Chile, 1808–1994. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Constable, P. and Valenzuela, A. (1991). A nation of enemies: Chile under Pinochet. New York: Norton.
Corbo, V. (1997), Trade reform and uniform import tariffs: The Chilean experience. American Economic Review 87(2): 73–77(AEA Papers and Proceedings).
De la Cuadra, S. and Hachette, D. (1991).Chile. In Papageorgiou, D., Michaely, M. and Choksi, A.M. (Eds.). Liberalising foreign trade, Volume 1, 287–362. London: Basil Blackwell.
De Pineres, S.A.G. and Ferrantino, M. (1997). Export diversification and structural dynamics in the growth process: The case of Chile. Journal of Development Economics 52: 375–391.
De Vylder, S. (1976). Allende's Chile: The political economy of the rise and fall of the Unidad Popular. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, S. and Edwards, A.C. (1987). Monetarism and liberalisation: The Chilean experiment. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.
Farrell, J.P. (1986). The National Unified School in Allende's Chile. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Fernandez, R. and Rodrik, D. (1991). Resistance to reform: Status quo bias in the presence of individual-specific uncertainty. American Economic Review 81(5): 1146–1155.
Ffrench-Davis, R. (1973). Politicas economicas en Chile 1952–1970. Santiago: CEPLANNueva Universidad.
Fontaine, A. (1988), Los Economistas y el Presidente Pinochet. Santiago: Zig-Zag.
Hachette, D. and Luders, R. (1992). La privatizacion en Chile. San Francisco: CINDE-ICS Press.
Harrison, L.E. (1997). The Pan-American dream. New York: Basic Books.
Hillinger, C. (1971). Voting on issues and on platforms. Behavioural Science 16: 564–566.
Hojman, D.E. (1990a). Neoliberal agriculture in rural Chile. London: Macmillan.
Hojman. D.E. (Ed.) (1990b). Chile after Pinochet: Aylwin's christian democrat economic policies for the nineties. Bulletin of Latin American Research 9(1): 25–47.
Hojman, D.E. (1993a). Chile: The political economy of development and democracy in the 1990s. London: Macmillan.
Hojman, D.E. (Ed.) (1993b). Change in the Chilean countryside: From Pinochet to Aylwin and beyond. London: Macmillan.
Hojman, D.E. (1994). The political economy of recent conversions to market economics in Latin America. Journal of Latin American Studies 26(1): 191–219.
Hojman, D.E. (1995a). Educational standards and ideological attitudes in a free-market, openeconomy development model. In Hojman, D.E. (Ed.). Neoliberalism with a human face? The politics and economics of the Chilean model, 151–170. Liverpool: Institute of Latin American Studies.
Hojman, D.E. (1995b). Chile under Frei (again): The first Latin American tiger – or just another cat?. Bulletin of Latin American Research 14(2): 127–142.
Larrain, F. and Meller, P. (1991). The socialist-populist Chilean experience: 1970–1973. In Dornbusch, R. and Edwards, S. (Eds.). The macroeconomics of populism in Latin America, 175–214. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Mamalakis, M. (1965). Public policy and sectoral development, In Mamalakis, M. and Reynolds, C.W. (Eds.). Essays on the Chilean economy, 3–200. Homewood: Irwin.
Mamalakis, M. (1976). The growth and structure of the Chilean economy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Montero, C. (1997). La revolucion empresarial Chilena. Santiago: Dolmen-CIEPLAN.
Moran, T.H. (1974). Multinational corporations and the politics of dependence: Copper in Chile. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Rae, D.W. and Taylor, M. (1970). The analysis of political cleavages. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Roberts, P.C. and Araujo, K. LaF. (1997). The capitalist revolution in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Silva, E. (1996). The state and capital in Chile. Boulder: Westview.
Stallings, B. (1978). Class conflict and economic development in Chile, 1958–1973. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Valdes, J.G. (1989). La escuela de Chicago: Operacion Chile. Buenos Aires: Grupo Zeta.
Valenzuela, J.S. and Scully, T.R. (1997). Electoral choices and the party system in Chile: Continuities and changes at the recovery of democracy. Comparative Politics 29(4): 511–427.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chakravarty, S.P., Hojman, D.E. Voting, Collective Action, and Liberalisation in Latin America: The Rise and Fall of the Hillinger Paradox. Public Choice 101, 215–233 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018319919728
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018319919728