Abstract
In Latin America the call for economic and political “modernization” is heard everywhere.1 Although the emergence of new paradigms has been slow and contentious, there seems to be agreement that sweeping reforms are inevitable. Some observers label the current climate as nothing short of a “cultural revolution” (Iglesias, 1994b: 494–5). Others fear that the present “revolution” is essentially the result of technocratic encroachments fostered by authoritarian regimes (Conaghan and Malloy, 1994) and not just a response to the exhaustion of previous development strategies.
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Notes
The author thanks CEDLA for a generous invitation to spend part of the Summer of 1995 in Amsterdam as a visiting researcher. This paper was written during my stay in The Netherlands.
In general, professions must ensure that their efforts to monopolize the provision of technical competence are perceived as necessary, beneficial, and therefore legitimate (Abbott, 1988). With that aim, professional groups use strategies to convince relevant audiences (the state, powerful elites and the public) that their knowledge, diagnoses and solutions to problems are not only relevant but superior to the ideas and expertise of others. To justify their claims, professions develop ideologies, construct sets of beliefs, values, norms, create specialized languages, myths, organizational structures, schools, journals, credentials, networks of professional and informal relations. On the professionalization of economics in Latin America, see Montecinos (forthcoming-a).
The preachings of “money doctors,” Drake (1994b) has shown, were central in the diffusion of free-market orthodoxy in the 1980s. But, more crucially, he argues, their expertise and reputation served as a political device to justify austerity, mediate negotiations between economic elites, obtain leniency from foreign creditors and balance the power of domestic and foreign actors.
The most likely contestants for the presidential elections of 1999 appear to be Ricardo Lagos and Alejandro Foxley, who went from directing CIEPLAN, to head the Ministry of Finance, and is now president of the Christian Democratic party. On the right, the economist Joaquin Lavfn has been mentioned as a likely presidential candidate for 1999.
Analyses of the Chilean military regime and the democratic transition can be found in Valenzuela and Valenzuela (1986); Drake and Jaksi4 (1995); Constable and Valenzuela (1991); and Garretón (1989).
For an assessment of economic reforms in Chile under Pinochet, see Bosworth et al. (1994).
The trauma of the coup, a new socio-economic reality, and an extraordinary exposure to international events led Chilean parties to change, although, of course, not all parties moved in the same direction or with the same celerity. As Kitschelt (1994) has shown in his analysis of recent changes in European social democracy, it is important to understand that both dimensions, the systemic interaction between parties and the organizational dynamics of intraparty politics are linked and mutually reinforce each other.
Puryear quotes from two leading intellectuals writing in the 1980s. Tomás Moulian, a noted sociologist on the left, says: “We fed on a religious vision of politics, that led us to see Marxism as ‘total knowledge’.” Alejandro Foxley, a leading Christian Democrat, writes: “The intellectual became, often, a reaffirmer of ideologies and a sharpener of ideological conflicts. Moderation was always interpreted in Chile as a sign of weakness” (Puryear, 1994: 20).
Including a succession of booms and busts, rapid economic liberalization and privatization, changes in class structure, the reduction of social protection and the impoverishment of large segments of the population.
Opposition economists reassessed the excessive confidence in the entrepreneurial capacity of the state and the traditional enemity to private initiative within groups of the political center and the left. For a critical analysis of the intellectual transformation of opposition economists see Petras and Leiva (1994). A more general treatment of the evolution of economic thinking in Latin America can be found in the works of Sunkel (1993) and Munoz (1994).
CIEPLAN, CED and VECTOR were among the most influential of these institutes. For details of their activities, see Puryear (1994).
In 1987, Ricardo Lagos led a group of individuals of diverse ideological tendencies to form an “instrumental party” to campaign for the ‘no’-option in the 1988 plebiscite. In his speech at the ceremony inaugurating the PARTIDO POR LADEMOCRACIA the new party, Lagos said: “This party has no ideological frontiers...there is no other exigency but the respect for the democratic system...Today, above the interests of socialists, liberals, radicals, christian democrats or communists are the interests of Chile; and because the identity of political parties in Chile is strong, nobody loses his or her own identity... The difficulties to organize ourselves as the Partido por la Democracia simply express the rich diversity of Chilean reality. See Qué es el PPD? (1989: 17–21).
President Aylwin appointed economists to head the ministries of Finance, Economy, Public Works, Education, Planning, Labor and the Secretary of the Presidency. President Frei’s cabinet includes economists in the areas of Finance, Economy, Public Works, Education and Labor. It was much commented that both Foxley and Lagos had bid unsuccessfully for the ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In the pre-coup period, only one economist was a member of Congress. Since 1989, the number of economists in the legislature has increased to 16 in the 1989 elections and to 13 in the 1993 elections.
For a detailed analysis of Foxley’s career and intellectual trajectory, see Giraldo (1997).
Three months after becoming a member of Renovación Nacional, Sebastián Piñera, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, joined the Political Commission of the party. Referring to tensions within the party, in that same interview he says: “The party has entered a period of maturity. The party congress does no longer belong to anybody, it belongs to reflection, reason and intelligence.” Hoy No. 785, 3–9 August, 1992: 19.
Interview with Jorge Marshall, currently vice-president of the Central Bank, June 19, 1995. This and other interviews cited in this work were conducted over the telephone.
Interview June 13, 1995.
Interview, June 21, 1995. Also, internal transformations are interpreted as a way of accommodating the party organization to the new administrative structure of the state. For example, in 1995, the Christian Democratic party changed its statutes to improve its presence at the municipal level.
In what appears as the boldest proposal yet for a strategic restructuring of the party system, Carlos Altamirano, a former leader of the left wing of the Socialist party who shifted towards moderation during his years of exile, proposed the need to “rethink all our categories” and declared himself in favor of the future strategic fusion of the PPD, the Socialist and the Christian Democratic parties, the three main partners of the Concertación (El Mercurio, May 21, 1995: D2-4).
Carlos Ominami, “Un socialismo renovado: Para reconstruir una gran fuerza de izquierda.” Preliminary version, June 1995.
For a theoretical analysis of organizational change in political parties, see Panebianco (1988: 243-250).
The link between the “pragmatization” of political forces and the issue of corruption was mentioned in several of my interviews. Congressman Ignacio Balbontín explained that to “prevent the emergence of corruption,” the Christian Democratic party has made changes to make the party more open, with a more fluid communication with society (Interview, June 13, 1995). The problem of corruption was debated at a seminar organized in Santiago by the Fundación Eduardo Frei in 1993. The presentations were published in book form with the title La democracia combate la corrupción.
Interview, June 19, 1995.
In May of 1995, a vice-president of the Christian Democratic party caused public controversy with his criticism that Alejandro Foxley, the party president, was making decisions with a team that was parallel to party leadership. (El Mercurio, May 25, 1995: C6).
Interviews with members of the Socialist and the Christian Democratic parties, June 8 and June 20, 1995.
The latter manifested themselves clearly in a 1995 crisis involving the military’s defiance of a court order that condemned a retired army general accused of human rights violations. In a newspaper interview, Socialist Congressman José Antonio Viera-Gallo expressed desolation as he analyzed how that incident exposed the limitations of the government and the relative autonomy of the armed forces: “Many contradictions that were hidden have now emerged,” he said, “the Chilean elites...wanted to see only the positive aspects...and suddenly, the real Chile appears, with all its pains, its injustices and its contradictions...I do not know if we have done the transition in the correct way.” El Mercurio, International Edition, June 15–21, 1995, p. 6.
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Montecinos, V. (1998). Economists in Party Politics: Chilean Democracy in the Era of the Markets. In: Centeno, M.A., Silva, P. (eds) The Politics of Expertise in Latin America. Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26185-7_7
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