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1. Resilience and Change: The Party System in Redemocratized Chile

Author:
J. Samuel Valenzuela, Timothy R. Scully, and Nicolás Somma
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Recent literature on the Chilean party system has noted that its characteristics changed under the impact of Pinochet's long dictatorship. The right allegedly became a tool for maintaining his regime's “legacies,” and this generated a binary pattern of electoral competition between “pro-authoritarian” and “prodemocratic” forces after the return to democracy. The literature has also stressed that levels of identification with the nation's parties have plummeted, thereby questioning the extent to which the Chilean party system is an institutionalized one. And yet all analysts acknowledge, without being able to explain, that the distribution of voter options for the main parties from one election to the next has continued to be largely stable
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Chile

2. Families, Welfare Institutions and Economic Development: Chile and Sweden in Comparative Perspective

Author:
J. Samuel Valenzuela
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Since the 1960s, the sociology of development has drawn its explanations for the inadequate development of Latin American countries from culturalist paradigms, such as modernization theory, or macro-structural ones, like the dependency perspective. Setting such perspectives aside, this paper seeks to reinvigorate a sociological focus on development by arguing that it requires “social fundamentals”—and not only the economic and political ones that have taken center stage in recent discussions of this topic. Such social fundamentals have to do primarily with the synergies that are generated between properly designed welfare institutions and the characteristics of a nation's families.
Topic:
Development and Sociology
Political Geography:
Europe, Latin America, Sweden, and Chile

3. Institutionalizing Inequality: The Political Origins of Labor Codes in Latin America

Author:
Matthew E. Carnes, SJ.
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
When do labor laws protect workers from workplace risks, and when do they serve to institute or insulate the privilege of particular political and economic actors? This paper argues that Latin American labor laws are highly politicized, and have been since their early origins. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the first labor codes were formulated to favor skilled, unionized labor in key economic sectors controlled by business and governmental elites. Non-skilled labor outside of these sectors was largely locked out of the benefits of legislation. Recent efforts at market-oriented reforms, rather than creating a common (albeit weakened) norm for all workers, have only strengthened the privileges given to formal-sector, unionized workers, and widened the gap between these sectors and the unskilled workers in the informal sector. In this paper, I develop a theory of the political dynamics of labor code origins, emphasizing the explanatory role of skilled labor profiles, geographic isolation, and union organization, as well as the concentration of capital and nascent state power in the hands of a limited group of elites. I then illustrate the principal claims of the theory through a historical examination of three cases of labor law formulation: Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
Topic:
Human Rights and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Argentina, Latin America, Chile, and Peru

4. The Enduring Presence of Religion in Chilean Ideological Positionings and Voter Options

Author:
Nicolás Somma, Timothy R. Scully, and J. Samuel Valenzuela
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Analysts of Chilean politics assert that the Pinochet dictatorship created a new political cleavage characterized as “authoritarianism versus democracy.” It fostered the formation of two party coalitions that took positions for and against Pinochet's continuation as head of state in the plebiscite that he lost in October 1988. As a result, they argue, while the religious and class cleavages had powerfully shaped voter options and the party system in the pre-dictatorship past, these fissures have lost their salience in the current context.
Topic:
Development, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
South America and Chile

5. Latin American Catholicism in an Age of Religious and Political Pluralism: A Framework for Analysis

Author:
Frances Hagopian
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This article identifies and proposes a framework to explain the responses of Latin America's Roman Catholic churches to a new strategic dilemma posed by religious and political pluralism. Because the church's goals of defending institutional interests, evangelizing, promoting public morality, and grounding public policy in Catholic social teaching cut across existing political cleavages, Church leaders must make strategic choices about which to emphasize in their messages to the faithful, investment of pastoral resources, and alliances. I develop a typology of Episcopal responses based on the cases of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico, and explain strategic choices by the church's capacity to mobilize civil society, its degree of religious hegemony, and the ideological orientations of Catholics. The analysis draws from 620 Episcopal documents issued since 2000.
Topic:
Development, Government, and Religion
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, South America, Latin America, Mexico, and Chile

6. ¿Crisis en el Sindicalismo en América Latina?

Author:
Francisco Zapata
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Economic adjustment policies, trade liberalization, privatization of State enterprise and transformation of labor markets and labor market institutions relate to a process of transition between a model of import substitution industrialization and a "new economic model" characterized by the transnationalization of Latin American internal markets. All these elements contribute to change the premises of the organization of unions and to weaken their role in the negotiation of salaries and working conditions, their intervention in the regulation of employment and their participation in the administration of social security and health benefits. On the basis of the cases of Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the presentation will provide a context in which to pose the question of the crisis of Latin American labor and examine some of the alternatives that are available for trade unions in the new economic conditions.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, Central America, North America, Mexico, and Chile

7. The Labor Movement in Democratic Chile, 1990-2000

Author:
Frank K. Volker
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This article examines the experience of the Chilean labor movement during the first decade of democracy. In so doing, it calls attention to the need for further study of how institutional variables, such as labor legislations, influence labor movement strategies across different political regimes (authoritarian and democratic). Evidence from the Chilean case demonstrates that while important, exogenous variables such as new democratic governments and new labor legislations have only limited explanatory power with regard to labor movement strategies. This warrants a closer look at internal organizational aspects.
Topic:
Globalization, Industrial Policy, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Chile