Political Participation and Democratic Consolidation in Chile
Date
2002
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
Transition literature has focused on how to generate civil society after emerging from authoritarian rule, but does not address the de-generation of civil society in the consolidation phase. Much of transitology assumes that institutional democracy provides the opportunity for the creation of civil society, where none existed. However, this literature often ignores the possibility that democratic consolidation may demobilize an historically vibrant civic culture. Transition from an authoritarian regime may inherently problematize the creation, or even the maintenance of a politically active population. In addition, when an extreme neo-liberal economic model is implemented before or during democratic consolidation, this further complicates political participation and the creation of the collective identity necessary to encourage the development of civil society actors. The legacy of authoritarian rule and neo-liberal economic structures change both the relationship of the state to the citizen as well as the relationships between citizens, thereby impeding the generation (or maintenance) of civil society while consolidating democracy today. Democracy and civil society theorists have debated the actual and ideal relationship between civil society and the state. Since Alexis de Toqueville, theorists have discussed the degree to which civil society should be active to promote a democracy. Contemporary theorists such as Robert D. Putnam and Chilean sociologist Tomas Moulian also discuss the possibilities for civil society as well as the problems for democracy that may arise from a demobilized citizenry. In Developing Democracy, a comprehensive overview of democratic consolidation, Larry Diamond outlines many of the changing dynamics that have and continue to effect the generation and preservation of civil society. However, theorists rarely juxtapose democratic theory with civil society literature and the dynamics of mobilization and de-mobilization in a post-authoritarian regime. Combining democracy and civil society literature not only offers theoretical insights, but can also explain the de-generation of civil society, in democratic consolidation, even where one might expect a flourishing of political particip~tion in the democratic opening. Chile, now more than a decade after the transition to institutional democracy, provides a case where one would expect the democratic opening to result in increased political participation and a re-generation of civil society. Paradoxically, all forms of political participation, from voting (see Appendix A) to active mobilization, have decreased.1 Political theorists, such as Toqueville, have imagined how democracies can decay, often facilitated by an increasingly inactive citizenry. Therefore, this paper promotes the construction of a more participatory model of democracy. Furthermore, by increasing participation, policy outcomes tend to be more equal and democratic, creating a "virtuous cycle." (Huber, Rueschemeyer and Stephens) Chilean democracy can either continue to consolidate an institutional, or "formal," democracy which could then deteriorate into democratic "despotism," or could, through this transitive moment, develop an active citizenry and deepen democracy, and advance toward a participatory, and eventually, social democracy. The Chilean case reveals possible problems for the preservation of civil society that theorists neglect or understate, such as the legacy of a dictatorship, the inherent challenges that associations face after a period of transition to democracy and the maintenance of civil society in a neo-liberal economic model. While democracy and civil society theory provide a useful framework for approaching the case, Chile then offers new considerations for the theoretical literature.