Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy 9781685853150

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POLITICS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

POLITICS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Comparing Experiences with Democracy edited by Larry Diamond Juan J. Linz Seymour Martin Lipset

Lynne Rienner Publishers

Boulder & London

Published in the United States of America in 1990 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1990 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. and the National Endowment for Democracy. All rights reserved Library of Congress CIP number: 90-31540 ISBN: 1-55587-212-3 A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is also available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America 5

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• Contents •

List of Illustrations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

vii

Introduction: Comparing Experiences with Democracy Larry Diamond, Juan J. Lin:, Seymour Martin Lipset

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Chile: Origins, Consolidation, and Breakdown of a Democratic Regime Arturo Valenzuela

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Brazil: Inequality Against Democracy Lamounier

87

Bolivar

Mexico: Sustained Civilian Rule Without Democracy Daniel C. Levy

135

Turkey: Crises, Interruptions, and Reequilibrations Ergun Ozbudun

175

India: Democratic Becoming and Combined Development Jyotirindra Das Gupta

219

Thailand: A Stable Semidemocracy

Chai-Anan

Samudavanija

271

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South Korea: Politics in Transition

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Nigeria: Pluralism, Statism, and the Struggle for Democracy Larry Diamond

351

Senegal: The Development and Fragility of Semidemocracy Christian Coulon

411

10 11

Sung-Joo Han

Zimbabwe: In Search of a Stable Democracy Sithole Index

313

Masipula 449 491

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• Illustrations •

• MAPS • Chile

38

Brazil

88

Mexico

136

Turkey

174

India

218

Thailand

270

South Korea

314

Nigeria

352

Senegal

410

Zimbabwe

450

• TABLES AND FIGURES • Table 1.1

Selected Developmental Indicators

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Table 3.1 Socioeconomic Change in Brazil, 1940-1980 Table 3.2 Brazilian Political Structure Since Independence Figure 3.1 Representation, Déconcentration, and Democratization

108 116 123

Table 4.1 Table 4.2

Electoral Support for the PRI and the PAN, 1946-1985 Income Distribution in Mexico, 1950-1977

151 154

Table 5.1

Percentage of Votes (and Seats) in Turkish Parliamentary Elections, 1950-1977

188

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Table 6.1

Table 6.2 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

S u m m a r y Electoral Data: National Parliament and State A s s e m b l y Results f r o m Eight Indian Elections, 19521985 India: Selected G r o w t h Indicators: 1950/51 to 1985/86

234 250

C o m p a r a t i v e Election Results, January 1975 and April 1976, f o r Largest Parties in T h a i l a n d Results of the T h a i l a n d General Elections 1983, 1986 Constitutions in T h a i l a n d : June 1 9 3 2 - D e c e m b e r 1987

284 285 288

Table 9.1

Distribution of Nigerian Ethnic G r o u p s , 1952-1953 and 1963 Figure 9.1 Nigeria: Ethnic G r o u p s and Four R e g i o n s

Table 10.1

Figure 11.1

S o c i o e c o n o m i c D e v e l o p m e n t in Senegal and O t h e r L o w Income Countries T h e Ethnic C o m p o s i t i o n of Z i m b a b w e ' s Population

353 354

440 455

• CHAPTER ONE

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Introduction: Comparing Experiences with Democracy LARRY DIAMOND JUAN J. LINZ SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET

The ten case studies in this book analyze the political development of a selection of countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East—or what we term, for lack of a better label, "developing countries." While analyzing the full sweep of regime evolution and change, we focus on a particular issue in political development that can justifiably be called the p r e e m i n e n t p o l i t i c a l i s s u e of o u r t i m e s : the s t r u g g l e f o r d e m o c r a c y . Beginning from a common theoretical agenda, we seek to explain whether, why, and to what extent democracy has evolved and taken root in the vastly different cultural and historical soils of these countries. The larger ( t w e n t y - s i x - n a t i o n ) comparative study f r o m which these cases derive was undertaken at a time of tremendous democratic ferment in the developing world. 1 The movement toward democracy that witnessed, in the mid-1970s, the toppling of Western Europe's last three dictatorships—Greece, Portugal, and S p a i n — m o v e d on through Latin A m e r i c a . In the ensuing decade, most Latin American military dictatorships collapsed or withdrew, defying predictions of a longer reign for these "bureaucratic-authoritarian" regimes. By the end of the 1980s, the transition to democracy was nearing completion in Chile, and the world was transfixed by the c a m p a i g n for democratization in China, the growing demands for national autonomy and further political liberalization in the Soviet Union, and the stunning collapse of C o m m u n i s t rule throughout Eastern Europe. T h e latter developments showed the diversity of paths to d e m o c r a c y — e v e n within the seemingly h o m o g e n e o u s C o m m u n i s t w o r l d — r a n g i n g f r o m r e f o r m f r o m a b o v e to negotiation to the violent overthrow of a regime that combined Communist with personalistic (sultanistic) rule in Romania. 2 In East A s i a , d e m o c r a t i c p r o g r e s s w a s a p p a r e n t in t h e d r a m a t i c transitions in the Philippines and South Korea, and in the incremental but considerable movement in Taiwan and Thailand. In the old British South A s i a n r a j , P a k i s t a n c o m p l e t e d a t r a n s i t i o n to d e m o c r a c y , b u t I n d i a experienced serious and persistent challenges to its democratic institutions and Sri Lanka descended into an ethnic civil war.

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Among the states of Africa, which found it difficult to establish new nationhoods and democratic regimes, there were also some signs of democratic emergence or renewal. Uganda, for example, struggled to put an end to decades of anarchy, tyranny, and civil strife in order to fulfil its hopes for democracy and human rights. Despite intense repression (somewhat diminished by 1990), the black and colored peoples of South Africa continue their struggle for a nonracial democracy through multiple forms of n o n v i o l e n t a c t i o n , i n c l u d i n g an i n c r e a s i n g l y p o w e r f u l t r a d e union m o v e m e n t . Nigeria instituted an elaborate timetable f o r d e m o c r a t i c transition from military rule, beginning with local government elections and the formation of two political parties, to be followed in stages by partisan elections at the local and state and then federal levels. In North Africa, processes of political liberalization were launched in the late 1980s in Tunisia and Algeria, and a partially competitive, partially liberal, multiparty system persists in Egypt. The 1980s witnessed an unprecedented growth of international concern for human rights—including, prominently, the rights to choose democratically the government under which one lives and to express and organize around one's political principles and views. As torture, disappearances, and other grave human rights violations became more widespread but also more systematically exposed and denounced around the world, there developed a renewed and deeper appreciation for democratic institutions which, with all their procedural messiness and sluggishness, nevertheless protect the integrity of the person and the freedoms of conscience and expression. The growth of democratic norms throughout the world is strikingly evidenced in the degree to which authoritarian regimes find it necessary to wrap themselves in the rhetoric and constitutional trappings of democracy, or at least to state as their goal the eventual establishment of democracy. The global advance of democracy in the 1980s was assisted by the demise of its historic ideological rivals. Fascism was destroyed as a vital force in World War II. The appeals of Marxism-Leninism have declined with the harsh repressiveness, glaring economic failures, and loss of revolutionary idealism of the existing Communist regimes. More-limited, quasi-socialist or mass mobilizational models-—the Mexican, Yugoslav, and Nasserite—have also lost their aura. Military regimes almost universally lack ideological justification and legitimacy beyond a temporary intrusion to correct political and social problems. With the important but still-indeterminate exception of the Islamic fundamentalist state—-for that large portion of the world from I n d o n e s i a to West A f r i c a w h e r e i n Islam is a m a j o r or d o m i n a n t religion—democracy is the only model of government with any broad ideological legitimacy and appeal today. It is a sign of the changes in our world, politically and intellectually, that the normative question-—-Why study democracy?-—-now seems, at the start of the 1990s, much less contentious and problematic than it did in the 1960s. Nevertheless, previous historical cycles warn that the 1990s may bring

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setbacks and even a renewed crisis of confidence in democracy. Some critics suggest that political democracy is the wrong problem and ask: Are there not more pressing issues of survival and justice facing developing societies? Others contend our choice of topic betrays a misplaced value bias for democracy. They ask (or assert): If in some societies democracy in our (liberal) sense has to work against so many odds, as our research unveils, is it worth striving for, or are there alternatives to democracy that should be considered? We wish to state quite clearly here our bias for democracy as a system of government. For any democrat, these questions carry serious implications: The former suggest that economic and social rights should be considered more important than civil and political liberties; the latter implies granting to some forms or cases of authoritarian rule the right to use coercive measures, in the name of some higher good, to suppress democratic opposition. For ourselves, neither of these normative suppositions is tenable. If there were many undemocratic governments (now and in the past) committed to serving collective goals, rather than the interests of the rulers, and ready to respect human rights (to refrain from torture and indiscriminate violence, to offer due process and fair trial in applying laws that, even if antiliberal, are known in advance, to maintain humane conditions of imprisonment), we might find these questions more difficult to answer. However, no undemocratic regime meets these two requirements, and even those that begin with a strong ideological commitment to the collectivity and a professed sensitivity to human rights often become increasingly narrow, autocratic, and repressive, although these trends, too, are subject to reversal. E v e n where authoritarian rulers ( w h e t h e r c i v i l i a n or m i l i t a r y , bureaucratic or charismatic) strive to serve collective goals, why should we assume that their conception of the collective good is better than that of any other group in society? Only if we were totally certain that one ideological conception is the expression of historical reason—true and necessary—would we be forced to accept such an authoritarian alternative as better than democracy. To do so, as we know, justifies any sacrifices and ultimately terrible costs in freedom and human lives. Democracy—with its relativism and tolerance (so disturbing to those certain of the truth), and its "faith" in the reasonableness and intelligence of the common people, deciding freely (and with a chance to change their minds every four or five years) and without the use of force—seems still a better option.

• THE ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY • Despite the growth of political and intellectual interest in democracy in developing countries, there remain huge gaps in our understanding of the factors that foster or obstruct the emergence, instauration (establishment), and consolidation of democratic government around the world. The

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contributions to this book are distinctive in that they deal with the entire history of a country's experience with democracy: establishment, breakdown, reequilibration and consolidation of democratic government; periods of democratic persistence, crisis, authoritarianism, and renewal; and all of the ambivalences and oscillations in between. We consider each country's early cultural traditions, analyze (where relevant) the colonial experience, and consider all of its postindependence history, giving special emphasis to post-World War II developments. Whereas most other works cut horizontally through the history of countries to focus on limited time spans and particular processes (usually ignoring the phenomena of democratic consolidation and stability), 3 we cut vertically through historical phases in order to explain the overall path of a country's political development. While it can be enormously fertile, this historical approach is not without m e t h o d o l o g i c a l p r o b l e m s . In particular, it runs the risk of attributing contemporary political patterns to antecedents far removed in time, without clearly demonstrating that those factors (or characteristics resulting from them) are operating at a later time and account for the failure or success of democracy. To overcome this risk, each case study author reviews the c o u n t r y ' s political history, d e s c r i b i n g its m a j o r experiences with democratic and undemocratic governments, including the structure, nature, and characteristic conflicts and tensions of each regime; and explains the fate of each regime (especially each democratic one)—why it persisted, failed, or evolved as it did, and why successive regimes emerged as and when they did. Finally, each author offers a summary theoretical judgment of the factors that have been most important in determining the c o u n t r y ' s overall degree of success or f a i l u r e with democratic government, and considers its prospects for democracy, along with any policy implications he or she might wish to derive. Each country's overall experience is assessed along a six-point scale of ideal types, ranging from stable and consolidated democratic rule to the failure or absence of democracy. 4 Our readers are cautioned, however, that the case studies provide no more than capsulized surveys of a country's experience, which will hopefully inspire wider study. Culturally, the cases in this book encompass much of the enormous variation in the developing world: Brazil, Chile, and Mexico—Christian (largely Catholic) societies of Latin America; India with its mosaic of traditions, including the distinctive Hindu culture; two largely Islamic societies—Senegal and Turkey (whose secularization is linked historically with its democratization); largely Buddhist Thailand; South Korea with its mixture of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity; multiethnic Zimbabwe; and a m a j o r e x a m p l e — N i g e r i a — o f what Ali Mazrui calls the "triple heritage" of Christianity, Islam, and traditional African religion and culture. One of the most complex and intractable problems in our world is the tension between the model of ethnically, linguistically, and culturally homogeneous societies that satisfy the ideal of the nation-state and the

INTRODUCTION

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multiethnic, multilingual societies that face the difficult task of nation- or state-building in the absence of the integration and identification we normally associate with the idea of the nation-state. Even in Europe, before the massive and forced transfers (if not destruction) of populations, most states did not satisfy that ideal, but outside of Europe, even fewer do. Virtually no African or Asian countries and only a few Latin American countries (in this book, only Chile) seem to satisfy that model. Others, such as Brazil and Mexico, include not only descendants of the conquistadores and European immigrants but also substantial populations (intermixed to varying degrees with the above) of Indians and descendants of black slaves. To the list of the relatively homogeneous countries could be added South Korea and Turkey (with some significant minorities, such as the longsuffering Kurds). Our remaining cases confront us with the problem of democracy in ethnically and culturally divided societies. In some of our cases, most prominently India and Nigeria, these cultural divisions have generated conflicts that have cost dearly in terms of political trauma and human bloodshed, and that continue to endanger the prospects for democracy and political stability. One experience that almost all of these countries share is a previous history of domination by an outside imperial power. Only Turkey and Thailand have been continuously independent and only in the latter do we find a continuity with a premodem traditional monarchy. Our study therefore does not cover a sufficient number of countries to deal with the question: Does continuous legitimacy of rule by an indigenous state facilitate both modernization and, ultimately, democratization, by contrast with the historical trauma of conquest and colonial domination? For those who have raised the question of the relation between size and democracy, 5 our larger, twenty-six-country study includes the largest (most populous) democracy—India—and some of the smallest. Because the larger countries are generally of wider interest for classroom consideration of crossregional comparisons, we have tended to favor them in the selection of cases for this book. Unfortunately, this required us to exclude the fascinating and theoretically informative cases of several small countries that have experienced unusual democratic success (Costa Rica, Uruguay, Botswana) or crisis (Sri Lanka). Since the major countries—with their political influence and their capacity to serve as models—occupy a special position in their respective areas, leading some to speak of subimperialisms, we feel our selection on this account is justified. Save for the deliberate exclusion of countries with no prior democratic or semidemocratic experience, or no prospect of an opening to freedom, our study encompasses virtually every type of democratic experience in the developing world. As the decade turns, several of the cases in this book can be classified as democratic, albeit with some important qualifications (India, Turkey, Brazil, and South Korea); some are semidemocratic but moving in different directions (Thailand toward greater democracy, Zimbabwe toward

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less); and two are authoritarian military regimes embarked on transitions to democracy, with Chile transferring power to an elected civilian president (but not yet fully repealing military prerogatives), while Nigeria is not s c h e d u l e d to reach the s a m e p o i n t until O c t o b e r 1992. A l t h o u g h its democratic institutions and cultural commitments have been wearing thin over the past twenty years, India's democracy has persisted for four decades (interrupted only by Indira Gandhi's emergency rule from 1975 to 1977). The democracies in Turkey, Brazil, South Korea, and now Chile, are only recently renewed after long, traumatic periods of authoritarian rule or, in Turkey's case, unstable alternation between civilian-democratic and military regimes. From these cycles of r e g i m e c h a n g e , Turkey has m a n a g e d to emerge with a generally longer and more-successful democratic experience than has Thailand or Nigeria, although the increasing historical and political distance from its last successful coup in 1977 suggests that Thailand may be well on the road to the institutionalization of a stable (if not yet fully democratic) parliamentary regime.

• CONCEPTS, DEFINITIONS, AND CLASSIFICATIONS •

D e p e n d i n g on the individual, ideology, p a r a d i g m , c u l t u r e , or c o n t e x t , democracy may mean many different things. It is reflective of the political climate of our time that the word is used to signify the desirable end-state of many social, economic, and political pursuits, or else to self-designate and thus presumably legitimate many existing structures. Hence, it is imperative to be as precise as possible about exactly what is being studied. The term democracy is used in this book to signify a political system, separate and apart from the economic and social system to which it is joined. Indeed, a distinctive aspect of our approach is to insist that issues of socalled "economic and social democracy" be separated from the question of governmental structure. Otherwise, the definitional criteria of democracy will be so broadened and the empirical reality narrowed to a degree that m a k e s study of the p h e n o m e n o n very d i f f i c u l t . In addition, unless the economic and social dimensions are kept conceptually distinct from the political, there is no way to analyze how variation on the political dimension is related to variation on the others. Most of all, we distinguish the concept of political democracy out of a clear and frankly expressed conviction that it is worth valuing—and hence worth studying—as an end in itself. In t h i s b o o k , t h e n , d e m o c r a c y — o r w h a t R o b e r t D a h l t e r m s p o l y a r c h y — d e n o t e s a system of g o v e r n m e n t that m e e t s three essential conditions: meaningful and extensive competition a m o n g individuals and organized groups (especially political parties) for all effective positions of government power, at regular intervals and excluding the use of force; a "highly inclusive" level of political participation in the selection of leaders and policies, at least through regular and fair elections, such that no major

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( a d u l t ) s o c i a l g r o u p is e x c l u d e d ; a n d a l e v e l of civil and political liberties—freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations—sufficient to ensure the integrity of political competition and participation. 6 While this definition is, in itself, relatively straightforward, it presents a number of problems in application. For one, countries that broadly satisfy these criteria n e v e r t h e l e s s do so to d i f f e r e n t d e g r e e s (and n o n e do so perfectly, which is why Dahl prefers to call them polyarchies). The factors that explain this variation at the democratic end of the spectrum in degrees of popular control and freedom is an important intellectual problem, but it is different from the one that concerns us in this book, and so it is one we have had largely to bypass. We seek to determine why countries do or do not evolve, consolidate, maintain, lose, and reestablish more or less democratic s y s t e m s of g o v e r n m e n t , a n d e v e n t h i s l i m i t e d f o c u s l e a v e s us with conceptual problems. T h e b o u n d a r y between d e m o c r a t i c and u n d e m o c r a t i c is s o m e t i m e s blurred and imperfect, and beyond it lies a much broader range of variation in political systems. We readily concede the difficulties of classification this variation has repeatedly caused us. Even if we look only at the political, legal, and c o n s t i t u t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e s , several of our c a s e s a p p e a r to lie somewhere on the boundary between democratic and something less than democratic. The ambiguity is further complicated by the constraints on free political activity, organization, and expression, and the substantial remaining political prerogatives of military authorities, that may in practice make the system much less democratic than it might appear. In all cases, we have tried to pay serious attention to actual practice in a s s e s s i n g and c l a s s i f y i n g regimes. But still, this leaves us to make difficult and in some ways arbitrary judgments. The decision as to whether Thailand and Zimbabwe, for example, may today be c o n s i d e r e d full d e m o c r a c i e s is replete with n u a n c e and a m b i g u i t y . E v e n in the c a s e of Brazil, w h i c h w a s g e n e r a l l y p r e s u m e d democratic after the election of a civilian president in 1985, Alfred Stepan cautions that the extent of military prerogatives to participate in government and wield autonomous power put the country "on the margin of not being a democracy." 7 With the direct presidential election of December 1989, the transition may now be considered closed, but serious problems of democratic consolidation remain. We h a v e a l l e v i a t e d the p r o b l e m s o m e w h a t by r e c o g n i z i n g various grades of distinction among less than democratic systems. While isolated violations of civil liberties or modest and occasional vote-rigging should not disqualify a country from broad classification as a democracy, there is a need to c a t e g o r i z e s e p a r a t e l y t h o s e c o u n t r i e s t h a t a l l o w g r e a t e r p o l i t i c a l competition and freedom than would be found in a truly authoritarian regime but less than could justifiably be termed "democratic." Hence, we classify as semidemocratic those countries in which the e f f e c t i v e p o w e r of elected officials is so limited, or political party competition so restricted, or the

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freedom and fairness of elections so compromised, that electoral outcomes, while competitive, still deviate significantly from popular preferences; or where civil and political liberties are so limited that some political orientations and interests are unable to organize and express themselves. In different ways and to different degrees, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Thailand fit this category (so would the electoral but still heavily military-dominated regimes in Guatemala and Honduras, for example). Still more restrictive is a hegemonic party system, in which opposition parties are legal but denied, through pervasive electoral malpractices and frequent state coercion, any real chance to compete for power. Such a system has long prevailed under the domination of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Mexico, but the political reforms of the 1980s and especially the unprecedented gains of both right and left opposition parties in the 1988 elections, discussed by Daniel Levy in his chapter, justify a reclassification of the Mexican system as a "semidemocracy." Descending further on our scale of classification, authoritarian regimes permit even less pluralism, typically banning political parties (or all but the ruling one) and most forms of political organization and competition, while being more repressive than liberal in their level of civil and political freedom. Paying close attention to actual behavior, one may distinguish a subset of authoritarian regimes that we call pseudodemocracies because the existence of formally democratic political institutions, such as multiparty electoral competition, masks (often in part to legitimate) the reality of authoritarian domination. Central America has long lived under such regimes. While this regime type overlaps in some ways with the hegemonic regime, it is less institutionalized and typically more personalized, coercive, and unstable. Democratic trappings aside, authoritarian regimes vary widely in the degree to which they permit independent and critical political expression and organization. Judging by the level of what the regime allows, one can distinguish between what Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter call " d i c t a b l a n d a s , " or liberalized autocracies, and " d i c t a d u r a s , " harsher dictatorships that allow much less space for individual and group action. 8 Classifying by the level of what groups in the society recurrently demand (which may or may not overlap with what the regime allows), one can distinguish between authoritarian situations with strong democratic pressures and those with weak democratic pressures. In selecting cases for this book, our bias was toward the former. Finally, of course, are the totalitarian regimes, which not only repress all f o r m s of a u t o n o m o u s social and political o r g a n i z a t i o n , d e n y i n g completely even the most elementary political and civil liberties, but also demand the active commitment of citizens to the regime. 9 With the decay, collapse, or at least partial liberalization of most of the world's Communist regimes in the late 1980s, it is debatable whether the totalitarian distinction is any longer salient. Nevertheless, the totalitarian legacy shapes in distinctive

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w a y s t h e p o s s i b i l i t i e s a n d c o n d i t i o n s f o r d e m o c r a t i z a t i o n e v e n in a p o s t - t o t a l i t a r i a n age, and what s e e m e d in 1984 the dim possibilities f o r imminent transitions f r o m c o m m u n i s m led us to exclude all of these systems f r o m our larger comparative study. 1 0 The " d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e " of our study was c o n c e r n e d not only with d e m o c r a c y but also stability—the persistence and durability of democratic a n d o t h e r r e g i m e s o v e r t i m e , p a r t i c u l a r l y t h r o u g h p e r i o d s of u n u s u a l l y i n t e n s e c o n f l i c t , crisis and strain. A stable r e g i m e is o n e that is d e e p l y institutionalized and consolidated, making it likely to enjoy a high level of popular legitimacy. Partially stable regimes are neither fully secure nor in imminent danger of collapse. Their institutions have perhaps acquired some measure of depth, flexibility, and value, but not enough to ensure them safe p a s s a g e t h r o u g h s e v e r e c h a l l e n g e s . Unstable r e g i m e s are, by d e f i n i t i o n , highly vulnerable to breakdown or overthrow in periods of acute uncertainty a n d s t r e s s . N e w r e g i m e s , i n c l u d i n g t h o s e that h a v e r e c e n t l y r e s t o r e d democratic government, tend to fall in this category.

• FACILITATING AND OBSTRUCTING FACTORS FOR DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT • Legitimacy and P e r f o r m a n c e All g o v e r n m e n t s rest o n s o m e m i x t u r e of c o e r c i o n a n d c o n s e n t , but democracies are unique in the degree to which their stability depends on the consent of a majority of those governed. So intimately is legitimacy tied to d e m o c r a t i c stability that it is difficult to k n o w where definition ends and t h e o r i z i n g b e g i n s . A l m o s t as a g i v e n , t h e o r i e s of d e m o c r a c y stress that democratic stability requires a widespread belief a m o n g elites and masses in t h e l e g i t i m a c y of t h e d e m o c r a t i c s y s t e m : t h a t it is t h e b e s t f o r m o f government (or the "least evil"), "that in spite of shortcomings and failures, the existing political institutions are better than any others that might be e s t a b l i s h e d , " and h e n c e that the d e m o c r a t i c r e g i m e is morally entitled to d e m a n d o b e d i e n c e — t o tax and draft, to m a k e laws and enforce them, even "if necessary, by the use of force." 1 1 Democratic legitimacy derives, when it is most stable and secure, f r o m an instrinsic value c o m m i t m e n t rooted in the political culture at all levels of society, but it is also shaped (particularly in the early years of a democracy) by the p e r f o r m a n c e of the d e m o c r a t i c r e g i m e , b o t h e c o n o m i c a l l y a n d p o l i t i c a l l y ( t h r o u g h the " m a i n t e n a n c e of civil order, p e r s o n a l security, adjudication and arbitration of conflicts, and a m i n i m u m of predictability in the m a k i n g and i m p l e m e n t a t i o n of d e c i s i o n s " ) . 1 2 Historically, the m o r e successful a regime has been in providing what people want, the greater and more deeply rooted tends to be its legitimacy: A long record of successful p e r f o r m a n c e t e n d s to build a large r e s e r v o i r of legitimacy, e n a b l i n g the system better to endure crises and challenges. 1 3 As Arturo Valenzuela shows

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D I A M O N D , LINZ, L I P S E T

here in the case of Chile, however, such a long a c c u m u l a t i o n of d e m o c r a t i c legitimacy does not c o n f e r i m m u n i t y f r o m b r e a k d o w n and can be s q u a n d e r e d with great speed by a c o m b i n a t i o n of p o o r leadership, w r o n g choices, and o u t m o d e d political institutions. R e g i m e s that lack d e e p legitimacy d e p e n d more precariously on current p e r f o r m a n c e and are vulnerable to collapse in periods of e c o n o m i c and social d i s t r e s s . 1 4 T h i s has been a p a r t i c u l a r p r o b l e m f o r d e m o c r a t i c (as well as u n d e m o c r a t i c ) r e g i m e s in t h e d e v e l o p i n g w o r l d , g i v e n e s p e c i a l l y t h e i r t e n d e n c y t o e x p e r i e n c e an i n t e r a c t i o n o f l o w l e g i t i m a c y a n d l o w e f f e c t i v e n e s s . B e c a u s e of the c o m b i n a t i o n of w i d e s p r e a d p o v e r t y and the strains imposed by m o d e r n i z a t i o n , r e g i m e s that begin with low legitimacy a l s o f i n d it d i f f i c u l t t o p e r f o r m e f f e c t i v e l y , a n d r e g i m e s t h a t l a c k e f f e c t i v e n e s s , e s p e c i a l l y in e c o n o m i c g r o w t h , f i n d it d i f f i c u l t to b u i l d legitimacy. O u r o w n studies and m a n y others caution against d r a w i n g too d e t e r m i n i s t i c a linkage b e t w e e n the e c o n o m i c p e r f o r m a n c e of d e m o c r a t i c r e g i m e s and the probability of their survival. Nevertheless, the correlation remains both obvious and understandable. While they have not been i m m u n e to problems of recession, inflation, and corruption, the m o r e successful d e m o c r a c i e s in our study have generally experienced relatively steady e c o n o m i c growth, which in turn has benefited their legitimacy. O f t e n this is traceable not (just) to sound policies but to the b o u n t y of h i g h l y m a r k e t a b l e n a t u r a l r e s o u r c e s , but the d a n g e r s of s u c h d e p e n d e n c e ( a n d t h e f r e e - w h e e l i n g , p o p u l i s t n e g l e c t of s a v i n g s a n d i n v e s t m e n t to raise p r o d u c t i v e c a p a c i t i e s that o f t e n a c c o m p a n i e s it) a r e substantial. T h e s e were revealed in Venezuela, for e x a m p l e , in early 1989 w h e n the public erupted into violent rioting over the imposition by President Carlos Andres Pérez of harsh austerity measures, necessitated by the decline in oil revenues and by d e c a d e s of o v e r s p e n d i n g and o v e r b o r r o w i n g . 1 5 An important determinant of steadily successful e c o n o m i c p e r f o r m a n c e , however, is policy. B o t s w a n a has benefited f r o m great natural resources and high levels of foreign aid, but underlying its d e v e l o p m e n t p e r f o r m a n c e have been sound policies and e f f e c t i v e m a n a g e m e n t (which have helped attract f o r e i g n aid). S t a t e p o l i c i e s h a v e not s t r a n g l e d p r o d u c e r s of a g r i c u l t u r a l exports (in this case, cattle) as they did in m u c h of the rest of tropical A f r i c a . T h e state has prudently invested in basic infrastructure, and the elite has kept an e f f e c t i v e lid on political and administrative corruption. Parastatals have been m a n a g e d efficiently, and efforts have been m a d e to distribute growth t h r o u g h state i n v e s t m e n t in e d u c a t i o n , h o u s i n g , h e a l t h , and o t h e r social services; unusually e f f e c t i v e food distribution p r o g r a m s to relieve the e f f e c t s of drought; and i m p r o v e m e n t of w a g e s in the formal sector. 1 6 This record of p e r f o r m a n c e contrasts m a r k e d l y with the bloated, predatory state structures, w i d e s p r e a d c o r r u p t i o n , and ill-designed, poorly i m p l e m e n t e d d e v e l o p m e n t policies that sucked the e c o n o m i c breath f r o m putative democratic republics in Nigeria and e l s e w h e r e in Africa. Although it is o f t e n p r e s u m e d to h a v e done poorly in delivering material

INTRODUCTION

p r o g r e s s . I n d i a h a s a c t u a l l y a c h i e v e d s i g n i f i c a n t , if i n c r e m e n t a l , s o c i o e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , a n d w o u l d h a v e d o n e m u c h b e t t e r h a d its population not doubled in the past three d e c a d e s to 8 0 0 million people. As Jyotirindra Das G u p t a observes, since i n d e p e n d e n c e India has " e x p e r i e n c e d a partial renovation of agricultural p r o d u c t i o n leading to s e l f - s u f f i c i e n c y in food, developed a structure of industrialization that produces most products that the c o u n t r y n e e d s , e x p a n d e d t h e s u p p l y of e d u c a t e d a n d t e c h n i c a l personnel . . . , consistently held d o w n the level of inflation to one of the lowest in the world, and in the process ensured a level of self-reliance and payment ability that kept it away f r o m debt crisis." A m p l e e v i d e n c e f o r these claims may be f o u n d in Table 1.1, which d e m o n s t r a t e s the steady e c o n o m i c a n d s o c i a l g a i n s I n d i a h a s c o n t i n u e d to m a k e s i n c e t h e m i d - 1 9 6 0 s , significantly improving such crucial social indicators as education and life e x p e c t a n c y (to a m o n g the highest levels f o r l o w - i n c o m e c o u n t r i e s ) while restraining inflation and foreign b o r r o w i n g (as a percentage of gross national product ( G N P ) , India's foreign debt burden is the lowest of any of the ten cases in this book). High levels of poverty and inequality remain, along with a need to rationalize the highly inefficient public sector, but such e c o n o m i c prudence and steady d e v e l o p m e n t progress, which has dramatically e x p a n d e d the size of the middle class in a generation, m a y be one of the least appreciated foundations of India's d e m o c r a t i c persistence. It a p p e a r s that c o n s i s t e n c y , p r u d e n c e , a n d m o d e r a t i o n in e c o n o m i c policy, as in politics, are c o n d u c i v e to d e m o c r a t i c stability. In C o l o m b i a , eclectic, pragmatic, undoctrinaire economic policies produced steady e c o n o m i c growth with low inflation, f o l l o w i n g the transition to d e m o c r a c y in 1957. C o l o m b i a ' s flexibility and p r a g m a t i s m , which m o t i v a t e d a relatively early partial reorientation of the e c o n o m y f r o m import substitution to export promotion, enabled it to avoid some of the disastrous e x p e r i e n c e s in import s u b s t i t u t i o n and s h a r p p e n d u l a r s w i n g s in p o l i c y ( b e t w e e n p o p u l i s m and radical neoliberalism) that so devastated the e c o n o m i e s of Chile, Argentina, Peru, and U r u g u a y . 1 7 A s Table 1.1 s u g g e s t s , a similar e m p h a s i s on p r u d e n t a n d c o n s i s t e n t e c o n o m i c policies, and on controlling inflation, fiscal deficits, and f o r e i g n b o r r o w i n g (with a particular e m p h a s i s on export p r o m o t i o n ) has p r o d u c e d an impressive record of e c o n o m i c growth in T h a i l a n d , which at the beginning of the 1990s ranks as one of the m o s t d y n a m i c e c o n o m i e s in the world, g r o w i n g at an a n n u a l rate of 9 - 1 0 p e r c e n t . W h i l e it is a c c e n t u a t i n g p r o b l e m s of corruption and inequality, rapid e c o n o m i c growth in T h a i l a n d is p r o d u c i n g m a n y of the same social forces f o r democratization that arose in South K o r e a and T a i w a n d u r i n g the 1960s, 1 9 7 0 s , and 1980s: the e x p a n s i o n of a u t o n o m o u s (and increasingly politically conscious) entrepreneurial and professional middle classes (including social scientists and intellectuals); the m o v e m e n t of labor into m a n u f a c t u r i n g , f u r t h e r i n g the d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n of the urban sector; and i m p r o v e m e n t s in literacy, e d u c a t i o n , a n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n , w h i c h b r i n g m u c h w i d e r c i r c u l a t i o n of p e o p l e ,

Table

1.1. Selected

Development

1965-19873

Indicators,

Chile

Brazil

Mexico

Turkey

1965 1987

1965 1987

1965 1987

1965 1987

Civil and Political 12 Liberties, 1975 & 1989 b Population in 8.7 Millions, 1966 & 1987 Population Growth Rate, 1.7 1965-1980 & 1980-1987 Projected Rate of Population Growth, 1987-2000 Projected Population 15 in Millions, 2000 & 2025 Current GNP per Capita in US Dollars, 0 740 1966 & 1987 Average Annual Growth Rate, GNP per Capita, in Percentages, 1965-1987 Average Annual Growth Rate of GDP, 1.9 1965-1980 & 1980-1987 Average Annual Rate of Inflation, 129.9 1965-1980 & 1980-1987 Urban Population as 72 Percentage of Total1* Percentage of Labor Force in Agriculture, 27 1965 & 1980 Life Expectancy at Birth 56 Male 62 Female Infant Mortality Rate 103 per 1,000 Births Percentage Enrolled in Primary School, 124 1965 & 1986 e Percentage Enrolled in Secondary 34 School, 1965 & 1986 Total External Public Debt as Percentage of GNP, 25.8 1970 & 1987

7

8

4

7

7

12.5

86.5

141.4

44.9

81.9

1.7

2.4

2.2

3.1

2.2

1.4

1.8

5

6

31.9 52.60 2.5

2.3

1.9

1.9

19

178

234

105

141

67

90

1310

280

2020

490

1830

310

1210

4.1

0.2

3.3

6.5

0.5

6.3

5.2

31.3 166.3

13.0

68.9

20.7

37.4

9.0

1.0

20.6

2.6

2.5

85

50

75

55

71

34

47

17

49

31

50

37

75

58

68 75

55 59

62 68

58 61

65 72

52 55

63 66

20

105

63

82

47

165

76

110

108

105

92

114

101

117

70

16

36

17

55

16

44

89.4

8.2

29.1

8.7

59.5

14.7

46.6

Sources: World Bank, World Development Report 1983,1987,1989 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1983, 1987, 1989); World Bank, World Tables 1987, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1987); and (for the ratings of political and civil liberties) Raymond D. Gastil, Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1987-88 ( Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), and Freedom at Issue 112 (January-February 1990), with permission of Freedom House. a

The figures are for the years 1965 and 1987, unless otherwise indicated in the labels for each row.

k Combined score of civil and political liberties, each rated on a 1 to 7 scale with 1 being freest and 7 least free. A score of 5 or less (with a 2 on political rights) is regarded as "free," 6 to 11 as partly free, and 12 to 14 as "not free."

12

India 1965 1987

Thailand 1965 1987

South Korea 1965 1987

Nigeria 1965 1987

Senegal 1965 1987

Zimbabwe 1965 1987

5

8

5

11

5

10

11

11

7

11

10

498.8 797.5

32.0

53.6

29.5

42.1

60.0

106.6

4.0

7.0

4.5

9.0

2.1

2.9

2.0

2.0

1.4

2.5

3.4

2.5

2.9

3.1

3.7

5

2.3

1.5

1.8

3.0

1.0

3.0

3.1

1010

1365

65

82

48

56

157

286

10

20

13

22

90

300

150

850

130

2690

70

370

210

520

220

580

6.4

3.9

1.8

-0.6

1.1

0.9

3.7

4.6

7.2

5.6

9.5

8.6

6.9

-1.7

2.1

3.3

4.4

2.4

7.6

7.7

6.3

2.8

18.8

5.0

13.7

10.1

6.5

9.1

6.4

12.4

19

27

13

21

32

69

17

33

33

37

14

26

73

70

82

71

55

36

72

68

83

81

79

73

46 44

58 58

53 58

63 66

55 58

66 73

40 43

49 53

40 42

46 49

46 49

56 60

151

99

90

39

64

25

179

105

172

128

104

72

74

92

78

99

101

94

32

92f

40

55

110

129

27

35

14

29

35

95

5

29 f

7

13

6

46

14.7 15.1

4.6 29.6

20.3 20.7

3.4 109.8

11.9 68.3

15.5 36.2

c GNP per capita is expressed in current U.S. dollars for each year. Comparison between 1966 and 1987 figures therefore is not controlled for (U.S.) inflation.

^ Because these estimates (taken from UN data) are based on different national definitions of what is urban, cross-country comparisons should be interpreted with caution. e In some countries with universal primary education, the gross enrollment ratios may exceed 100 percent because some pupils are younger or older than the country's standard primary school age. f Figure is for 1983.

13

14

DIAMOND, LINZ, LIPS ET

information, and ideas. Together, these changes increase the proportion of the population desiring political liberalization, draw the country increasingly into contact and exchange with the advanced, industrialized democracies, and e n h a n c e the r e s o u r c e s and skills n e c e s s a r y f o r people to o r g a n i z e autonomously to pursue their interests, as Sung-joo Han explains for the case of South Korea. 1 8 Such c h a n g e s help us to u n d e r s t a n d why a u t h o r i t a r i a n ( e s p e c i a l l y military) regimes do not derive from successful economic performance the same enduring benefits for their legitimacy that democratic regimes do. Unlike democratic regimes, most authoritarian regimes are not intrinsically a p p l a u d e d and a d m i r e d for their o r g a n i z a t i o n of power. R a t h e r , their monopoly of power, and their limitation and repression of political and civil liberties, is accepted by the people only to a c h i e v e some h i g h e r g o o d (economic growth, socialism, the Islamic society, Utopia). Such regimes, therefore, f a c e a legitimacy c o n t r a d i c t i o n , a kind of c a t c h - 2 2 . If they d o not p e r f o r m , they l o s e l e g i t i m a c y b e c a u s e p e r f o r m a n c e is t h e i r o n l y j u s t i f i c a t i o n f o r h o l d i n g p o w e r . H o w e v e r , like S o u t h K o r e a or Peru ( u n d e r V a l a s c o ' s r e f o r m i s t military r u l e ) , if they d o p e r f o r m in d e l i v e r i n g s o c i o e c o n o m i c p r o g r e s s , t h e y t e n d to r e f o c u s p o p u l a r a s p i r a t i o n s a r o u n d political g o a l s for voice and p a r t i c i p a t i o n that they c a n n o t satisfy w i t h o u t t e r m i n a t i n g their e x i s t e n c e . Similarly, if they s u c c e e d in m e e t i n g the critical threat or c h a l l e n g e (e.g., s u b v e r s i o n , t e r r o r i s m , political v i o l e n c e ) that j u s t i f i e d their s e i z u r e of p o w e r , they b e c o m e d i s p e n s a b l e , j u s t as the g e n e r a t i o n of n e w c h a l l e n g e s and interests w i t h the p a s s i n g of t i m e m a k e s t h e m , with their inability to a d a p t , i r r e l e v a n t . 1 9

At the same time, democracies also have their peculiar vulnerabilities. O n e of these is the p a r t i c u l a r l y c o r r o s i v e e f f e c t of c o r r u p t i o n on the legitimacy of democratic regimes, even more than of authoritarian ones. This is so in part because under conditions of freedom, with competitive elections, an independent judiciary, an opposition in parliament, and a f r e e press, corruption is likely to be more visible than under authoritarianism. Its scale and its extension to the whole democratic political class—as has repeatedly o c c u r r e d in G h a n a and N i g e r i a , f o r e x a m p l e — d e l e g i t i m i z e the w h o l e political system rather than disqualifying a particular politician or party. Further, the prevalence of political corruption as the primary motive for the pursuit of power (because of the dominance of the state over economic life) reduces the political process to a struggle for power rather than a debate about policies, and taints the electoral process while generating cynical and a p a t h e t i c r e s p o n s e s in the electorate (or at least the bulk of it o u t s i d e patronage networks). Such widespread corruption also undermines economic development and is one of the m a j o r a r g u m e n t s used by the military to justify its overthrow of elected governments, even though its own corruption will likely be as great or greater in time. 2 0

INTRODUCTION

15

Political Leadership W h i l e o u r t h e o r e t i c a l o r i e n t a t i o n g i v e s s u b s t a n t i a ! e m p h a s i s to t h e i m p o r t a n c e of v a r i o u s s t r u c t u r a l f a c t o r s in s h a p i n g the p r o s p e c t s f o r democracy, these are never wholly d e t e r m i n a t i v e . As we have just seen, regime performance and viability, not only economically but politically, are the o u t c o m e in part of the p o l i c i e s a n d c h o i c e s that p o l i t i c a l l e a d e r s m a k e — a c t i n g , to b e s u r e , w i t h i n t h e c o n s t r a i n t s of t h e s t r u c t u r a l c i r c u m s t a n c e s they inherit. E v e n s t r u c t u r e s and i n s t i t u t i o n s , e s p e c i a l l y political ones, are shaped by the actions and options of political leaders. The more constraining and unfavorable are the structural circumstances, the more skillful, innovative, courageous, and democratically committed must political l e a d e r s h i p be for d e m o c r a c y to s u r v i v e . E v e n w h e r e the o b s t a c l e s are formidable, democratic breakdowns are not inevitable but are accelerated by poor leadership and bad choices. 2 1 In this book, we see the way in which inefficacious, weak, and often m i l i t a n t a n d u n c o m p r o m i s i n g p o l i t i c a l l e a d e r s h i p h a s c o n t r i b u t e d to democratic breakdown in Chile. Brazil, Turkey, South Korea, Thailand, and N i g e r i a . In s o m e of t h e s e c a s e s , it c o u l d b e a r g u e d t h a t s t r u c t u r a l circumstances were highly unfavorable, but often this was due in part to the failure of politicians to produce needed economic reforms and institutional i n n o v a t i o n s . C e r t a i n l y , V a l e n z u e l a a n d E r g u n O z b u d u n s h o w , f o r the b r e a k d o w n s in C h i l e ( 1 9 7 3 ) a n d T u r k e y ( 1 9 8 0 ) , h o w m u c h t h e miscalculations and intransigence of political leaders contributed. We see also the importance of strong democratic c o m m i t m e n t s on the part of political leaders—what Juan Linz calls " l o y a l t y " to the democratic system. Democratically loyal leaders reject the use and rhetoric of violence and illegal or u n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l m e a n s for the pursuit of p o w e r , and they refuse to condone or tolerate antidemocratic actions by other participants. 2 2 The Nigerian case portrays graphically h o w electoral violence and f r a u d , thuggery, demagoguery, and widespread political corruption delegitimated and destroyed the Second R e p u b l i c — e v e n in the absence of the polarized ethnic conflict that further contributed to the failure of the First Republic. In the c a s e of India, w e see the central role of I n d i r a G a n d h i ' s e q u i v o c a l commitment to democratic values in motivating not only her declaration of emergency rule in 1975 but her centralization and personalization of political p o w e r in t h e p r e c e d i n g y e a r s a n d a f t e r h e r r e t u r n to p o w e r in 1 9 8 0 . T h r o u g h o u t A f r i c a a n d A s i a , the e r o s i o n or d e s t r u c t i o n of d e m o c r a t i c institutions has c o m e through the actions of self-aggrandizing, authoritarian elected leaders such as M a r c o s in the Philippines, Syngman Rhee in South Korea, Nkrumah in Ghana, and Obote in Uganda. This confirms G. B i n g h a m Powell's generalization that democratic breakdown (by executive or military coup) is commonly preceded by "renunciation of the democratic faith by its elected leaders." 2 3 T h e story, of course, is not all negative. T h r o u g h o u t the d e v e l o p i n g world, flexible, accommodative, consensual leadership styles have

16

D I A M O N D . LINZ, L i r S E T

c o n t r i b u t e d n o t a b l y to d e m o c r a t i c d e v e l o p m e n t , as in the early years of institution-building under Gandhi and Nehru and a gifted crop of Congress party leaders in India. A c c o m m o d a t i n g and shrewd political leadership, showing keen timing and some political courage, by Roh Tae Woo in South Korea and Chiang C h i n g - k u o in Taiwan must be partially credited for the democratic transformations of those two countries in recent years. Similarly, the personal leadership decisions and skills of Leopold Senghor and Abdou Diouf were important, as Christian Coulon shows, in opening up Senegal's p o l i t i c s to m o r e d e m o c r a t i c p l u r a l i s m a n d c o m p e t i t i o n . D e m o c r a c y in Colombia and Venezuela c a m e into being as the result of creative negotiation a m o n g contending party elites who, learning from past political mistakes, a g r e e d to t r a n s c e n d t h e i r r i v a l r i e s a n d a r r a n g e a s h a r i n g of p o w e r . 2 4 Valenzuela shows how important able, democratically committed, and even visionary political leadership was in the founding of democracy in Chile in the early nineteenth century, its adaptation and expansion during periods of t u r b u l e n t c h a n g e a n d g r o w t h , a n d its m a i n t e n a n c e d u r i n g t h e G r e a t Depression of the 1930s. D e m o n s t r a t i n g a different, corollary rule. Levy shows in his case study of M e x i c o how consistently skilled and effective leadership, with many undemocratic values, contributed to the stability of an undemocratic regime for several decades.

Political Culture O n e i m p o r t a n t d i m e n s i o n of r e g i m e p e r f o r m a n c e is the m a n a g e m e n t of conflict. As Seymour Martin Lipset has argued, in a long theoretical tradition dating back to Aristotle, "a stable d e m o c r a c y requires relatively moderate tension a m o n g its c o n t e n d i n g political f o r c e s . H e r e again, d e m o c r a t i c r e g i m e s r e q u i r e an u n u s u a l l y h i g h d e g r e e of e f f e c t i v e n e s s . A s institutionalized s y s t e m s of c o m p e t i t i o n and conflict, they are especially liable to witness the disintegration of competition into enmity, of conflict into c h a o s . If political f r e e d o m and c o m p e t i t i o n are not to d e s c e n d into extremism, polarization, and violence, there must be mechanisms to contain conflict within certain behavioral b o u n d a r i e s . One of the most important factors in this regard is a country's political culture; that is, the beliefs and values concerning politics that prevail within both the elite and the mass. Theorists in the pluralist or liberal tradition identify several values and b e l i e f s as c r u c i a l f o r s t a b l e d e m o c r a c y : b e l i e f in t h e l e g i t i m a c y of d e m o c r a c y ; t o l e r a n c e f o r o p p o s i n g p a r t i e s , b e l i e f s , and p r e f e r e n c e s ; a willingness to c o m p r o m i s e with political opponents, and, underlying this, p r a g m a t i s m a n d f l e x i b i l i t y ; s o m e m i n i m u m of t r u s t in t h e p o l i t i c a l e n v i r o n m e n t , and c o o p e r a t i o n , p a r t i c u l a r l y a m o n g political c o m p e t i t o r s ; m o d e r a t i o n in political p o s i t i o n s and partisan i d e n t i f i c a t i o n s ; civility of political discourse; and political efficacy and participation—tempered by the addition of two other roles—the subject (which gives allegiance to political authority) and the primordial (which involves the individual in traditional,

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nonpolitical p u r s u i t s ) . 2 6 D a h l in p a r t i c u l a r e m p h a s i z e s the i m p o r t a n c e of such a democratic culture a m o n g the political elite, especially early on. O u r larger study p r o v i d e s c o n s i d e r a b l e e v i d e n c e that such p r e s u m e d f e a t u r e s of d e m o c r a t i c c u l t u r e a r e c l o s e l y c o r r e l a t e d w i t h d e m o c r a t i c stability. T h o s e c o u n t r i e s that have been the m o s t strongly and stably d e m o c r a t i c also a p p e a r to h a v e the m o s t d e m o c r a t i c political v a l u e s and beliefs. In Venezuela, survey data on m a s s beliefs " s h o w consistently strong support for d e m o c r a c y as a political s y s t e m " and f o r such basic d e m o c r a t i c p r i n c i p l e s as t h e l e g i t i m a c y of e l e c t i o n s , o p e n o p p o s i t i o n , a n d o p e n criticism. M o r e o v e r , p e a s a n t s and political leaders alike c o m m o n l y stress the need for caution, c o m p r o m i s e , and conciliation in politics.- 7 Similarly, survey data in C o s t a Rica s h o w broad support f o r d e m o c r a t i c institutions within both elites and m a s s e s , and a striving toward c o m p r o m i s e and c o n s e n s u s . In particular, the political elite d i s a v o w s violence and r e s p o n d s to protest and c o n f r o n t a t i o n with m o d e r a t i o n and conciliation. Costa Rica also m a n i f e s t s unusually high levels of m a s s political participation, interest, and a w a r e n e s s , c o m p a r a b l e in m a n y respects to the w o r l d ' s m o s t - d e v e l o p e d democracies.2X Democratic success in developing countries may be traced not only to t h e g r o w t h of d e m o c r a t i c v a l u e s b u t a l s o to t h e i r r o o t s in a c o u n t r y ' s historical and cultural traditions. Das G u p t a points out that f r o m the time of the f o u n d i n g of the Indian National C o n g r e s s a c e n t u r y ago, " d e m o c r a t i c rules of procedure, tolerance of adversaries and reconciliation of conflicting claims b e c a m e part of the political education of the participants." This liberal tradition w a s f u r t h e r d e e p e n e d by G a n d h i ' s e m p h a s i s on a c c o m m o d a t i o n , c o m p r o m i s e , and n o n v i o l e n c e . In B o t s w a n a , the political culture of public discussion, c o m m u n i t y c o n s e n s u s , and nonviolence is a m a j o r f o u n d a t i o n of d e m o c r a t i c stability. John H o l m traces this to the cultural tradition of popular consultation and pursuit of c o n s e n s u s k n o w n as the kgotla, which the ruling party has amplified through the practice of discussing "all new policies with the local c o m m u n i t y in kgotla before any local i m p l e m e n t a t i o n . " 2 9 A m b i v a l e n c e in a c o u n t r y ' s p o l i t i c a l c u l t u r e is a l s o a s s o c i a t e d with a m b i v a l e n c e in its experience with democracy. Turkey, O z b u d u n tells us, has been torn between a strong c o n s e n s u s on the legitimacy of popular, elective g o v e r n m e n t and the c o n t i n u i n g predilection (dating back to O t t o m a n rule) f o r o r g a n i c t h e o r i e s of s t a t e , w h i c h s p a w n e x c e s s i v e f e a r of d i v i s i o n , intolerance of political opposition and individual deviation, and a tendency to see politics in absolutist terms. T h e b e h a v i o r a l m a n i f e s t a t i o n s of these v a l u e s h a v e f i g u r e d p r o m i n e n t l y in T u r k e y ' s d e m o c r a t i c b r e a k d o w n s . Similarly, as Larry D i a m o n d shows, Nigeria has been torn b e t w e e n a d e e p a n d b r o a d l y b a s e d c o m m i t m e n t to p o l i t i c a l f r e e d o m w i t h p o p u l a r , accountable government, and a weak inclination toward tolerance and a c c o m m o d a t i o n . T w i c e this c o n t r a d i c t i o n h a s m a d e f o r p o l i t i c a l c h a o s , v i o l e n c e , a n d d e m o c r a t i c b r e a k d o w n . In b o t h c o u n t r i e s , t h e s e c u l t u r a l tendencies have been shaped in part by the o v e r b e a r i n g state.

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Coulon shows the c o r r e s p o n d e n c e b e t w e e n the " m i x e d " political culture of S e n e g a l and t h e s e m i d e m o c r a t i c c h a r a c t e r of the r e g i m e . T r a d i t i o n a l political cultures in Senegal balanced authoritarian values with "a propensity f o r debate, political g a m e - p l a y i n g , " and constitutional limits on monarchical authority. Liberal, Western cultural influences further press in a democratic direction, but this is u n d e r m i n e d by the lack of support for d e m o c r a c y a m o n g t h e n e g l e c t e d a n d a l i e n a t e d l o w e r c l a s s e s a n d t h e g r o w i n g i n t e r e s t in a u t h o r i t a r i a n I s l a m i c d o c t r i n e s felt by a s e g m e n t of the elite. C h a i - A n a n S a m u d a v a n i j a suggests that repeated military intervention in the politics of Thailand derives in part f r o m a military conception of d e m o c r a c y that values "national security, stability, and o r d e r " over f r e e d o m and participation, and dislikes pressure groups and conflict. And, as Masipula Sithole demonstrates, t h e v i o l e n c e a n d i n s t a b i l i t y of d e m o c r a t i c p o l i t i c s in p o s t i n d e p e n d e n c e Z i m b a b w e o w e s much to a political culture that, despite its appreciation in p r i n c i p l e f o r d e m o c r a t i c i n s t i t u t i o n s , b e a r s the s c a r s of the " i n t o l e r a n t , violent, and c o m m a n d i s t " culture of the liberation struggle. Strong d e m o c r a t i c currents in a c o u n t r y ' s political culture may m a k e it very d i f f i c u l t f o r an a u t h o r i t a r i a n r e g i m e to i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e its rule. T h e instability of dictatorial rule in Nigeria can be traced in part to the popular devotion to political f r e e d o m , which has m a d e it impossible for any military r e g i m e to survive long in p o w e r without c o m m i t t i n g itself to a firm date f o r transition to civilian, elected g o v e r n m e n t . Authoritarian rule w a s never really a c c e p t e d in t h e P h i l i p p i n e s as a l o n g - t e r m p r o p o s i t i o n b e c a u s e of that c o u n t r y ' s c o m m i t m e n t to d e m o c r a t i c values and t r a d i t i o n s — i n contrast to Indonesia and Thailand, f o r e x a m p l e . 3 0 In Uruguay, the military's failure to p e r p e t u a t e a u t h o r i t a r i a n r u l e w a s d u e in p a r t t o " t h e r e s i l i e n c e of t h e d e m o c r a t i c p o l i t i c a l c u l t u r e p e r m e a t i n g e v e n t h e a r m e d f o r c e s , a n d the i n h o s p i t a b l e c l i m a t e f o r a u t h o r i t a r i a n d i s c o u r s e . " 3 1 A similar o b s e r v a t i o n could be m a d e of Chile.

Social Structure and Socioeconomic Development T h e f a v o r a b l e e f f e c t s of a d e m o c r a t i c p o l i t i c a l c u l t u r e are r e i n f o r c e d by social s t r u c t u r e s that m i n i m i z e the p o s s i b i l i t y of social and political polarization. In particular, m a n y theorists h a v e argued that s o c i o e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t c h a n g e s f u n d a m e n t a l l y t h e w a y in w h i c h i n d i v i d u a l s a n d g r o u p s r e l a t e to t h e p o l i t i c a l p r o c e s s . A n a d v a n c e d l e v e l of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , p r o d u c i n g g r e a t e r e c o n o m i c s e c u r i t y and m o r e - w i d e s p r e a d e d u c a t i o n , is a s s u m e d to r e d u c e s o c i o e c o n o m i c i n e q u a l i t y a n d m i t i g a t e feelings of relative deprivation and injustice in the lower class, thus reducing the likelihood of extremist politics. 3 2 Increased national wealth also tends to enlarge the middle class, which has long been associated in political theory with moderation, tolerance, and d e m o c r a c y . 3 3 O v e r the past three d e c a d e s , a large n u m b e r of q u a n t i t a t i v e a n a l y s e s have supported the thesis of a positive relationship between s o c i o e c o n o m i c

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development and democracy. Theoretically, the more interesting question now is not whether the relationship exists but how it is manifested over time. As Samuel Huntington has argued, while modernity tends eventually to bring democratic stability, the process of modernization may be destabilizing: " S o c i a l and e c o n o m i c c h a n g e — u r b a n i z a t i o n , increases in literacy and e d u c a t i o n , i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n , m a s s m e d i a e x p a n s i o n — e x t e n d political consciousness, multiply political demands, broaden political participation."- 14 Political institutions must expand and adapt to incorporate this increasing (and increasingly autonomous) participation or risk breaking down. Thus, the relationship is best framed in probabilistic terms: "As countries develop economically, they can be conceived of moving into a zone of transition or choice, in which traditional forms of rule become increasingly difficult to maintain and new types of political institutions are required to aggregate the demands of an increasingly complex society."-1-^ Whether the new institutions chosen are democratic—and whether, if chosen, democratic institutions can be maintained—depends on a host of other factors. T h e evidence indicates that the most c o m m o n and in the long run probably the most important effect of rapid socioeconomic development under authoritarian rule has been to generate pressures and create social structural conditions more conducive to democracy. At different historical periods and to different degrees, this has been true of Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea. In addition, an important foundation for democracy in Peru and especially (much earlier) in Taiwan was generated by land r e f o r m s and other steps that reduced socioeconomic inequality, eliminated semifeudal relations, and created a significant middle peasantry. (Because Peru's reforms were insufficiently extensive and sustained, however, poverty and regional and class inequalities continue to threaten its democratic future). Similarly, in South Korea the social reform and substantial improvement in the welfare of lower-income groups that accompanied rapid growth stimulated political consciousness and democratic opposition. Of course, slow or negative growth has also helped to destabilize and bring down authoritarian regimes, as in the Philippines and Haiti, but changes made under such conditions do not bode so well for the future of democracy. Socioeconomic inequality. Comparative evidence supports the proposition that democracy and socioeconomic equality are related. In particular, deep, cumulative social inequalities represent a poor foundation for democracy. H i s t o r i c a l l y , this h a s b e e n a c o n t r i b u t i n g f a c t o r to the i n s t a b i l i t y of democracy in much of Latin America, including the Dominican Republic and Peru, and most of Central America. By contrast, the historic absence of hacienda agriculture ar.d large landholdings in Costa Rica, and the shortage of agricultural labor that kept rural wages high, bred an egalitarian social culture and what John Booth terms an "interdependence among classes" that helped significantly to foster the development of democracy. 3 6

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Perhaps nowhere in the coming years will inequality pose a more acute and urgent problem for democracy than in Brazil, where the wealthiest tenth of the population controls a higher percentage of income (about half) than in any other country for which the World Bank reports d a t a . 3 7 Bolivar Lamounier shows that the marked failure to reduce inequality was an i m p o r t a n t s t r u c t u r a l f a c t o r w e a k e n i n g the d e m o c r a t i c s y s t e m and contributing to its breakdown in 1964. As Brazil has become even more urbanized and socially mobilized in the past quarter-century—while income inequality and, by some accounts, even absolute poverty worsened, despite the s t u n n i n g o v e r a l l r a t e s of e c o n o m i c g r o w t h u n d e r m i l i t a r y rule—"déconcentration" of wealth has become imperative, Lamounier maintains, f o r democratic c o n s o l i d a t i o n . And yet, policies to reduce inequality, such as land reform, carry serious short-term political risks, while reducing absolute poverty requires long-term policy commitments that may be politically d i f f i c u l t to sustain. The potential polarizing e f f e c t s of inequality in Brazil have recently been evidenced in the growth of urban labor militancy and strife, violent rural land conflicts, and electoral support for populist and radical candidates, including labor leader Luis Inâcio (Lula) da Silva, who finished second to free-market advocate Fernando Collor de Mello in the December 1989 run-off presidential election. Population growth. A socioeconomic problem that is often overlooked in evaluating democratic performance and prospects is that of rapid population growth. Although birthrates do tend to decline with higher standards of living and improved socioeconomic opportunities for women (as suggested by the data in Table 1.1), population growth rates nevertheless remain high in most of Asia, Latin America, and, especially, Africa. Even if countries reduce these annual growth rates down toward 2 percent, as Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, and India (nearly) managed to do in the 1980s, populations will double in thirty-five years or less. With populations growing annually at rates closer to 3.5 percent, as in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and some other African countries, the doubling time is reduced to about twenty years. In countries with such rapid growth rates, the age structure is heavily tilted toward children and adolescents, with 40 to 50 percent of the population typically under fifteen years of age. 3 8 Thus, not only is there a much larger dependent population to be cared for, schooled, and ultimately somehow gainfully employed, but there is a hidden momentum to population growth that will only be f u l l y felt when these children in turn bear children of their o w n — e v e n if social, e c o n o m i c , and cultural c o n d i t i o n s are by then transformed so that they do so only at the rate of replacement fertility (i.e., two children per couple). The political consequences of such rapid population growth follow closely, but not entirely, from the economic ones. To the extent that its population is growing rapidly, a country's economic growth each year is absorbed in providing for its additional people at existing levels of nutrition,

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schooling, health care, and so on, rather than improving per capita standards. Thus, improvement in per capita income and services—in real standard of living—lags well behind the gross gains in national income. The annual increments of population are often quite large in absolute terms: at current growth rates, more than 3 million additional people each year in Nigeria and Brazil; more than a million a year in Turkey and Thailand; more than 16 million annually in India. And increasingly, as these countries also become more urbanized, these burgeoning numbers are concentrated in the cities. To the extent that e c o n o m i c g r o w t h is rapid e n o u g h to p r o v i d e a d e q u a t e schooling, training, jobs, and opportunities for these young populations, political stability may not be a f f e c t e d , and population growth rates will decline to the more m a n a g e a b l e levels (1 percent or less) found in the advanced industrial countries. But only in South Korea, among our cases, is this projected to occur in the next decade, although birthrates are forecast to approach this reduced level in Chile and Thailand as well (see Table 1.1). In the seven other cases in this book, population growth in the next decade is expected to remain near 2 percent or higher, generating exploding economic and political d e m a n d s and e x p e c t a t i o n s that these systems will be hard pressed to meet. T h e p r o b l e m is e x a c e r b a t e d by substantial e c o n o m i c inequality, since the poor typically have higher birthrates while being less able to provide for their children's future. If c u r r e n t a s s u m p t i o n s are not a l t e r e d , the r e s u l t i n g s t a g n a t i o n , f r u s t r a t i o n , a n d p o l i t i c a l t u r m o i l m a y be b l a m e d on e c o n o m i c mismanagement, but rapid population growth should not be overlooked as a c o n t r i b u t i n g factor. N a t i o n a l p r o g r a m s to f o s t e r f a m i l y p l a n n i n g and p o p u l a t i o n c o n s c i o u s n e s s must be a c c e l e r a t e d — a l o n g with e f f o r t s to improve health care and education for women and the poor—if population growth rates are to be slowed sufficiently to allow these developing countries a r e a s o n a b l e c h a n c e to c o n s o l i d a t e a n d m a i n t a i n s t a b l e d e m o c r a t i c government.

Associational Life Both theoretical work, going back to Alexis de Tocqueville, and empirical e v i d e n c e a r g u e s t r o n g l y f o r the i m p o r t a n c e to s t a b l e d e m o c r a c y of a pluralistic, autonomous, vigorously organized civil society that can balance and limit state power while providing additional channels for the articulation and practice of democratic interests. A rich associational life can supplement the role of political parties in stimulating political participation, increasing citizens' efficacy, recruiting and training political leaders, and enhancing commitment to the democratic system. 3 9 In each of the three countries in our twenty-six-nation study that have enjoyed the most successful experience w i t h d e m o c r a c y in t h e p a s t f e w d e c a d e s — I n d i a , C o s t a R i c a , a n d V e n e z u e l a — a v i g o r o u s n e t w o r k of a u t o n o m o u s a n d i n c r e a s i n g l y sophisticated voluntary associations has been an important foundation of

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democratic stability and robustness. F r o m its e a r l i e s t b e g i n n i n g s in the n a t i o n a l i s t m o b i l i z a t i o n a g a i n s t colonial rule a century ago, democracy in India has been invigorated by the p r e s e n c e o f a rich array o f voluntary a s s o c i a t i o n s d i r e c t e d to l a n g u a g e reform, legal reform, educational modernization, defense o f press freedom, civil liberties, and w o m e n ' s rights. W h i l e strong trade unions and peasant, student, and business associations today often align with political parties, they also act autonomously to pursue their own interests, and this political autonomy has increased as new leadership groups within them give greater emphasis to e c o n o m i c issues. In addition, notes Das Gupta, the Indian scene is today replete with a vast network o f issue-oriented movements, "bringing t o g e t h e r v a r i o u s p a r t i e s , g r o u p s , and c o n c e r n e d p u b l i c s " in a g g r e s s i v e c a m p a i g n s f o r s o c i a l and p o l i t i c a l r e f o r m . I n d e e d , as f o r m a l

political

institutions have deteriorated in the past two decades, India's associational life has b e c o m e an increasingly crucial resource for democratic articulation and accountability. W h e r e associational life is dense, institutionalized, and autonomous, it may also undermine authoritarian rule and generate effective pressure for democratization, as was dramatically e v i d e n c e d during 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 8 6 in the P h i l i p p i n e s . T h e r e ( w h e r e 9 5 percent o f the population is C a t h o l i c ) the Catholic church was the one institution that M a r c o s was not able to co-opt in his two decades in power, and it proved to be a vital source o f protest against government repression and abuse o f power. A s s o c i a t i o n s o f lawyers, intellectuals, and students also helped to keep democratic aspirations alive and, with key s e g m e n t s o f the m o d e r n b u s i n e s s c o m m u n i t y , j o i n e d the church in the broad popular mobilization that ultimately brought down the M a r c o s dictatorship. Throughout Latin A m e r i c a in the 1 9 7 0 s and 1980s, the Catholic church has played a similar role in opposition to political tyranny and in defense o f social and political pluralism. And in South K o r e a , the Protestant denominations, along with the much smaller but still-influential Catholic church, endorsed and gave encouragement to the campaign for an end to authoritarian rule. O n e asset o f religious institutions in the struggle for political freedom and pluralism is the special moral legitimacy they have almost by definition, but religious institutions may also be advantaged by the fact that they are less explicitly politically self-interested in character than are other types o f interest groups that seek rewards and resources from the state. In N i g e r i a , e f f o r t s to sustain authoritarian rule in the 1 9 7 0 s , and to deepen its repressive character under the military regime o f General Buhari ( 1 9 8 4 - 1 9 8 5 ) , were frustrated by the vigilance and organizational strength o f the p r e s s , the b a r a s s o c i a t i o n , s t u d e n t g r o u p s , trade u n i o n s , b u s i n e s s a s s o c i a t i o n s , and i n t e l l e c t u a l s and o p i n i o n l e a d e r s . T h e s e g r o u p s were responsible for the popular resistance to authoritarian decrees that helped p r e c i p i t a t e B u h a r i ' s d o w n f a l l in a c o u p , and they have e x e r t e d s i m i l a r p r e s s u r e on his m i l i t a r y s u c c e s s o r , I b r a h i m B a b a n g i d a , f o r l i b e r a l and

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a c c o u n t a b l e g o v e r n m e n t . T h e a s s e r t i v e a n d e x t e n s i v e l y o r g a n i z e d civil s o c i e t y is p r o b a b l y the s i n g l e m o s t - i m p o r t a n t f o r c e h o l d i n g the m i l i t a r y r e g i m e to its stated c o m m i t m e n t to w i t h d r a w f r o m p o w e r in 1992. M o r e g e n e r a l l y , s u b - S a h a r a n A f r i c a has been e x p e r i e n c i n g a p r o m i s i n g , and in s o m e countries prodigious, e f f l o r e s c e n c e of i n f o r m a l participation as a result of the growth of independent associational life. A l t h o u g h this d e v e l o p m e n t h a s c o m e in response to the pervasive a b u s e of state p o w e r and what N a o m i C h a z a n calls the d i s e n g a g e m e n t of the state f r o m society, it has important d e m o c r a t i c i m p l i c a t i o n s . M a n y of t h e e m e r g i n g p o p u l a r o r g a n i z a t i o n s provide "small-scale settings for meaningful political participation," c o n s t i t u t i o n a l m e a n s f o r the t r a n s f e r and r o t a t i o n of p o w e r , c o n s u l t a t i v e p r o c e s s e s of d e c i s i o n m a k i n g , a n d " i n n o v a t i v e m e a n s of i n f o r m a t i o n c o l l e c t i o n and c o m m u n i c a t i o n . " 4 0 C o l l e c t i v e l y , t h e y c o n s t i t u t e a m a j o r m e a n s for the creation of an i n f o r m e d , e f f i c a c i o u s , and vigilant citizenry, and for the r e c o n s t r u c t i o n — f r o m the g r o u n d u p — o f d e m o c r a t i c political processes. As a strong and a u t o n o m o u s associational life m a y buttress or foster d e m o c r a c y , so the absence of a vigorous sector of voluntary associations and interest groups, or the control of such o r g a n i z a t i o n s by a corporatist state, m a y reinforce authoritarian rule and obstruct the d e v e l o p m e n t of democracy. P e r h a p s the classic demonstration of this in our study is M e x i c o , where, as Levy points out, the early encapsulation of m a s s organizations (especially of peasants and workers) by a h e g e m o n i c ruling party has been an important foundation of the stability of the authoritarian r e g i m e , and where the struggle of labor and other popular m o v e m e n t s to break f r e e of corporatist controls is n o w critical to the struggle f o r d e m o c r a c y . In T h a i l a n d , a n d m a n y o t h e r A s i a n c o u n t r i e s as well, state c o r p o r a t i s t c o n t r o l s h a v e stunted the d e v e l o p m e n t of a u t o n o m o u s associational life, and thus of democracy.

State and Society O n e of the crucial p r o b l e m s f o r d e m o c r a t i c t h e o r y is h o w to restrain the p o w e r of the state so that its i n c u m b e n t s remain responsive and accountable to the people. This is why so m u c h e m p h a s i s is appropriately given to the n e e d f o r a p l u r a l i s t i c , i n d e p e n d e n t a s s o c i a t i o n a l life. B u t , as with o t h e r factors, the relationship b e t w e e n state and society m u s t m a n i f e s t a certain balance if d e m o c r a c y is to be viable. T h e state must not b e c o m e too p o w e r f u l and a u t o n o m o u s , but if it is too weak and easily penetrated it may be unable to deliver the social and e c o n o m i c goods that g r o u p s expect or to maintain order in the f a c e of conflicting g r o u p d e m a n d s . T h e state bureaucracy must be s u b j e c t e d to d e m o c r a t i c control by elected politicians, but at the s a m e time the relative a u t o n o m y and continuity of the b u r e a u c r a c y constitute an i m p o r t a n t c h e c k o n the p o t e n t i a l f o r p a t r o n a g e a n d c o r r u p t i o n , a n d f o r absolute and arbitrary power, by party politicians. A problem for d e m o c r a c y in s o m e Asian countries, such as Thailand and

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South Korea, has been the excessive p o w e r of the state, and its bureaucratic a n d c o e r c i v e i n s t i t u t i o n s , in r e l a t i o n to c i v i l s o c i e t y . In T h a i l a n d , t h e d o m i n a n c e f o r t h e p a s t h a l f - c e n t u r y of c e n t r a l a n d h i g h l y c e n t r a l i z e d b u r e a u c r a t i c i n s t i t u t i o n s — w i t h the m i l i t a r y in an i n c r e a s i n g l y a s c e n d a n t p o s i t i o n — d i s c o u r a g e d the d e v e l o p m e n t of strong and a u t o n o m o u s interest groups, village associations, and political parties. W h e n these did begin to e m e r g e , t h e y w e r e c o - o p t e d or o v e r r u n by t h e b u r e a u c r a c y a n d by t h e military, which e x t e n d e d its control into vast sectors of society, including the m a s s m e d i a , rural d e v e l o p m e n t , and civic e d u c a t i o n . A s i m i l a r historical process was at work in South Korea, with a similar effect: T h e w e a k n e s s of i n d e p e n d e n t c i v i c i n s t i t u t i o n s c r e a t e d both the o p p o r t u n i t y and the j u s t i f i c a t i o n f o r c o n t i n u e d m i l i t a r y - b u r e a u c r a t i c i n t e r v e n t i o n and c o n t r o l . A l t h o u g h the trend abated in both c o u n t r i e s d u r i n g the late 1980s, as the process of s o c i o e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t gives new organizational resources and m o m e n t u m to independent interests, repealing state corporatist controls over the f l o w of information and the expression and organization of diverse i n t e r e s t s r e m a i n s an i m p o r t a n t p r i o r i t y f o r t h e t h o r o u g h a n d l a s t i n g democratization of these societies. A m o n g the most important d i m e n s i o n s of the state-society relationship is the strong t e n d e n c y w e find for state d o m i n a n c e o v e r the e c o n o m y and society to u n d e r m i n e democratic politics in developing countries. In the least d e v e l o p e d region, sub-Saharan Africa, this tendency has been most p o w e r f u l b e c a u s e t h e r e t h e s t a t e ' s e x t e n s i v e o w n e r s h i p a n d m e d i a t i o n of s o c i o e c o n o m i c r e s o u r c e s and r e w a r d s is not c o u n t e r b a l a n c e d by p r i v a t e m e a n s of e c o n o m i c a c c u m u l a t i o n and o p p o r t u n i t y . H e n c e , u p w a r d social m o b i l i t y and the a c c u m u l a t i o n of personal w e a l t h d e p e n d on g e t t i n g and m a i n t a i n i n g c o n t r o l o f , or at least a c c e s s to. the s t a t e . 4 1 T h i s r a i s e s the p r e m i u m on p o l i t i c a l p o w e r to t h e p o i n t w h e r e n o c o m p e t i n g p a r t y or candidate is willing to entertain the prospect of defeat. T h e result is a zerosum g a m e — t h e politics of intolerance, desperation, violence, and f r a u d . 4 2 T h i s z e r o - s u m c h a r a c t e r of p o l i t i c s in t h e s w o l l e n A f r i c a n state has heavily m o t i v a t e d the p o s t i n d e p e n d e n c e drive by ruling parties and elites to m o n o p o l i z e p o w e r in such c o u n t r i e s as S e n e g a l and helps to e x p l a i n the c u r r e n t u n w i l l i n g n e s s of the political b o s s e s of S e n e g a l ' s ruling Socialist Party to allow the opposition parties a fully free and fair chance to c o m p e t e f o r p o w e r . In N i g e r i a , w h e r e m o s t of t h e c o u n t r y ' s w e a l t h is m e d i a t e d t h r o u g h g o v e r n m e n t c o n t r a c t s , j o b s , l i c e n s e s , d e v e l o p m e n t p r o j e c t s , and other state largesse, it has been a p r i m a r y f a c t o r u n d e r l y i n g the failure of b o t h t h e First a n d S e c o n d r e p u b l i c s . O z b u d u n n o t e s a s i m i l a r e f f e c t in Turkey, w h e r e public enterprises proliferated to the point w h e r e they p r o d u c e d about half of T u r k e y ' s industrial output. T h e ruling p a r t y ' s access to such i m m e n s e resources in relation to the resource base of society, and the clientelistic traditions that give the political class wide scope in distributing state resources, m a d e being out of p o w e r in Turkey very costly. T h i s in turn h e l p e d to g e n e r a t e the political p o l a r i z a t i o n and u n w i l l i n g n e s s to

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c o m p r o m i s e that have repeatedly destabilized democratic regimes. Statism also intensifies ethnic political conflict in Africa and Asia. The fact that the state is the biggest employer in Sri Lanka, for example, has heightened the s t a k e s in t h e e t h n i c s t r u g g l e a n d m a d e a c c o m m o d a t i o n ( a n d so t h e reequilibration of democracy) more difficult. 4 - 1 Excessive state control over the e c o n o m y and society may also reduce d e m o c r a t i c r e g i m e p e r f o r m a n c e in t w o i m p o r t a n t r e s p e c t s . As we h a v e already implied, it feeds corruption. And, throughout the world, the evidence is accumulating that huge public sectors and pervasive state subsidies and controls have hampered economic efficiency and c o m e to represent a m a j o r o b s t a c l e to v i g o r o u s e c o n o m i c g r o w t h . T h i s h a s b e c o m e i n c r e a s i n g l y apparent in India, where state ownership has led to higher waste of capital and labor, to corruption, and to a heavy drag of unprofitable, inefficient state enterprises, d e p r e s s i n g growth potential. Similar p r o b l e m s exist in m a n y other c o u n t r i e s , including such p r o m i n e n t e x a m p l e s as Turkey, M e x i c o , N i g e r i a , S e n e g a l , t h e P h i l i p p i n e s , a n d A r g e n t i n a . It is p r o b a b l y n o c o i n c i d e n c e that the country in Latin A m e r i c a that has done the most to p r u n e b a c k s t a t e c o n t r o l of its e c o n o m y a n d o p e n it to n a t i o n a l a n d international market f o r c e s — C h i l e — a l s o showed the most robust economic performance in the final years of the 1980s; a fact not lost on its neighbors or even on the bulk of the democratic opposition to the dictatorship. O n e must be cautious, h o w e v e r , about d r a w i n g blanket c o n c l u s i o n s . T h e r e are c a s e s , s u c h as C o s t a R i c a , B o t s w a n a , a n d U r u g u a y , w h e r e extensive state economic ownership and control has not had such destructive c o n s e q u e n c e s f o r d e m o c r a c y . B u t e a c h of t h e s e c o u n t r i e s h a s h a d i n s t i t u t i o n a l m e c h a n i s m s or s o c i o c u l t u r a l t r a d i t i o n s (like t h o s e in the European social d e m o c r a c i e s ) that have tended to insulate the state f r o m brazen partisan abuse and widespread corruption.

Political Institutions Constitutional and party structures play an important role in s h a p i n g the conflict-regulating capacity of democratic systems. While these conditions of political structure are not intrinsically necessary for stable democracy, they become particularly significant as social, cultural, and economic conditions become less favorable. Parties and party systems. Political scientists have long debated the ideal n u m b e r of p a r t i e s f o r stable d e m o c r a c y . Lipset c o n s i d e r s the t w o - p a r t y system most likely to produce moderation, accommodation, and aggregation of diverse interests because it compels each party to fashion broad political appeals, in contrast to the strident and ideological appeals small parties tend to make in a multiparty system in order to consolidate and mobilize their l i m i t e d b a s e s . 4 4 H o w e v e r , the t w o - p a r t y s y s t e m r e q u i r e s c r o s s c u t t i n g c l e a v a g e s ; if the t w o - p a r t y c l e a v a g e c o i n c i d e s with o t h e r a c c u m u l a t e d

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DIAMOND, LINZ, U P S E T

c l e a v a g e s ( s u c h as e t h n i c i t y a n d r e l i g i o n ) , it m i g h t s o f u r t h e r p o l a r i z e c o n f l i c t as to p r o d u c e d e m o c r a t i c b r e a k d o w n and civil s t r i f e . 4 5 Linz and G i o v a n n i Sartori d r a w the distinction instead between m o d e r a t e (with f e w e r than f i v e relevant parties) and e x t r e m e , polarized m u l t i p a r t y systems, the latter increasing significantly the probability of democratic b r e a k d o w n . 4 6 Yet Powell argues, f r o m empirical examination of twenty-nine d e m o c r a c i e s o v e r t i m e , that a " r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l " p a r t y s y s t e m , in w h i c h n u m e r o u s p a r t i e s e x h i b i t s t r o n g l i n k a g e s to d i s t i n c t s o c i a l g r o u p s , m a y c o n t r i b u t e t o d e m o c r a t i c stability by facilitating the involvement of potentially disaffected g r o u p s in legitimate p o l i t i c s — p r o v i d e d that extremist parties are unable to gain significant s u p p o r t . 4 7 It is difficult and probably inadvisable to derive a single, genera! rule about the ideal n u m b e r of parties, since this d e p e n d s in important ways on the social structure and related institutional arrangements. Because the party system is a crucial institutional d e v i c e not only for r e p r e s e n t a t i o n but f o r conflict m a n a g e m e n t , what appears most important is that the party system suit the social and cultural conditions, and that it articulate in a coherent way with other political institutions. T h u s , if the constitutional system is designed to induce a two-party s y s t e m — a s tends strongly to result f r o m a presidential system with election of legislators f r o m s i n g l e - m e m b e r districts, by simple p l u r a l i t y a n d s i n g l e b a l l o t 4 8 — i t m a k e s s e n s e to h a v e in p l a c e o t h e r institutional i n d u c e m e n t s to c r o s s c u t t i n g c l e a v a g e , such as f e d e r a l i s m or e v e n , as in the N i g e r i a n case, s p e c i f i c l a w s r e q u i r i n g parties to establish t r a n s e t h n i c o r g a n i z a t i o n s , b a s e s , and s y m b o l s . If t h e " r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l " system is sought, proportional representation (in a parliamentary system) is its e l e c t o r a l m e a n s , a n d t h e e n c o u r a g e m e n t of c r o s s c u t t i n g c l e a v a g e s b e c o m e s a less pressing c o n c e r n . 4 9 O u r t w e n t y - s i x - n a t i o n study does o f f e r s o m e support f o r the proposition that a system of t w o or a f e w parties, with broad social and ideological bases, may be c o n d u c i v e to stable democracy. Of the five most-stable d e m o c r a t i c s y s t e m s in o u r s t u d y , t w o ( V e n e z u e l a a n d C o s t a R i c a ) h a v e t w o - p a r t y s y s t e m s c o m p o s e d of broad, multiclass parties, in societies that lack d e e p social c l e a v a g e s ; t w o (India and B o t s w a n a ) have had o n e - p a r t y d o m i n a n t s y s t e m s in which the ruling parties incorporate and aggregate a wide range of ethnic and social interests (although with the displacement of the C o n g r e s s party f r o m p o w e r in D e c e m b e r 1989, India's system appears to h a v e broken d o w n ) ; and one (Papua N e w G u i n e a ) has a m o d e r a t e multiparty system in which t w o parties are dominant. Certainly, f r a g m e n t a t i o n into a large n u m b e r of p a r t i e s — a s has occurred historically in Thailand, as well as Pakistan and I n d o n e s i a — i s associated with d e m o c r a t i c instability and b r e a k d o w n . This is not only because such party systems tend toward the conditions of polarized p l u r a l i s m o u t l i n e d by L i n z a n d S a r t o r i but a l s o b e c a u s e p a r t i e s in s u c h s y s t e m s are poorly institutionalized. A critical consideration f o r d e m o c r a c y is not just the n u m b e r of political parties but their overall institutional strength, as indicated by H u n t i n g t o n ' s

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27

criteria of coherence, complexity, autonomy, and adaptability. 5 0 Among the twenty-six cases of our larger study, we find that where at least one and eventually two or more parties were able to d e v e l o p some substantive c o h e r e n c e about policy and p r o g r a m p r e f e r e n c e s , some organizational coherence and discipline, some complexity and depth of internal structure, some autonomy from dominance by individual leaders or state or societal interests, and some capacity to adapt to changing conditions—incorporating n e w g e n e r a t i o n s and newly e m e r g e n t g r o u p s — d e m o c r a c y has usually d e v e l o p e d c o n s i d e r a b l e d u r a b i l i t y a n d v i t a l i t y . T h e e a r l y and d e e p institutionalization of the Congress party became an important foundation for democratic consolidation in India, just as the personalization of party power a n d d e c a y of p a r t y o r g a n i z a t i o n u n d e r I n d i r a G a n d h i r e f l e c t e d a n d heightened the overall deterioration of democratic institutions since the mid1960s. The strength of Chilean parties likewise contributed for many decades to stable democracy, with breakdown resulting not from their institutional deterioration but from the polarization of relations among them. In Brazil, the "deinstitutionalization" of the party system that began in the mid-1950s, fragmenting or dividing each of the major parties and so undercutting their capacity to respond to and harness changing economic and social forces, heavily contributed, as Lamounier shows, to the democratic breakdown in 1964. T h a i l a n d s h o w s vividly the l i n k a g e b e t w e e n e x t r e m e party fractionalization and the institutional weakness of parties and the party system. With 143 parties crossing the Thai political stage between 1946 and 1981, political elites have been unable to build strong bases of popular s u p p o r t , to a r t i c u l a t e , a g g r e g a t e , and m o b i l i z e p o l i t i c a l i n t e r e s t s , to incorporate emerging interests into the political process, and to cooperate with one another in achieving policy innovations. As a result, the military and bureaucracy have been able to claim many of these functions, making it more difficult for independent democratic forces to establish themselves. The weakness and fragmentation of Thailand's party system was a leading factor in the failure of past democratic attempts (notably the 1974—1976 regime), and, with fifteen parties having won legislative seats in the 1988 elections, remains an obstacle to the evolution and consolidation of a fully democratic system today. D e m o c r a t i c c o n s o l i d a t i o n r e q u i r e s in part the c o n s o l i d a t i o n of a reasonably stable and workable party system. In two important efforts at engineering the reconstruction of democracy, the Turkish military—seeking to prevent the classic conditions of polarized pluralism that brought down democracy in 1980—adopted measures (a 10 percent electoral threshold for representation in parliament; banning of extremist, religious, and separatist parties) to encourage a two- or three-party system that would yield stable p a r l i a m e n t a r y m a j o r i t i e s and p r e c l u d e c e n t r i f u g a l pulls. T h e N i g e r i a n military mandated that the new Third Republic would have two and only two parties. When none of the parties that vied for recognition in 1989 proved to

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the liking of Nigeria's Armed Forces Ruling Council, it took the further, and unprecedented, step of establishing two new parties by fiat.51 Constitutional structure. Although presidential government is associated with the world's longest and most successful democratic experience, in the United States, its record in the developing world exhibits several characteristic problems. For one, a presidential system tends to concentrate power and legitimacy in the executive branch, which may be unhealthy for nascent democracies where the separation of powers and checks and balances are not well e s t a b l i s h e d . S e c o n d , p r e s i d e n t i a l i s m , with its " w i n n e r - t a k e - a l l " distribution of power, "tends to make democratic politics a zero-sum game, w i t h all t h e p o t e n t i a l f o r c o n f l i c t s u c h g a m e s p o r t e n d . " 5 2 T h i r d , presidentialism, with its fixed terms, rigidifies outcomes, possibly sticking a nation, even for several years, with a government that has utterly lost public confidence and support. The advantages of a parliamentary system lie in its greater flexibility. An executive who has lost popular support can be turned out of office before his term is up. Coalitions can be formed to reach across significant political divisions, and these can be reformed in light of shifting political issues and f o r t u n e s , m a k i n g f o r a m o r e than z e r o - s u m g a m e . B e c a u s e they are associated with a greater n u m b e r of parties, parliamentary s y s t e m s are somewhat less conducive to the polarization of politics between two or three major political parties, each identified with major class or ethnic cleavage groups. Moreover, presidential coalitions typically have little incentive to cohere (and often real incentives to fragment) after the election, while in a parliamentary multiparty system the parties have to assume responsibility in supporting a government that would otherwise fall. 5 3 The theoretical case for these advantages lies largely with the experience of parliamentary democracy in Western Europe and the disastrous experience with presidentialism of some Latin American countries, especially Chile. Valenzuela demonstrates the lack of fit between a highly polarized and c o m p e t i t i v e m u l t i p a r t y s y s t e m — w h i c h , b e c a u s e it could not g e n e r a t e electoral majorities, necessitated bargaining and coalition-making—and a presidential system of centralized authority, zero-sum outcomes, and fixed terms. The contradictions " c a m e to a tragic head in the Allende y e a r s , " culminating in 1973 in a breakdown of democracy that could have been a v o i d e d . In the late 1980s, the debilitating rigidities of p r e s i d e n t i a l i s m became manifest in Brazil and Peru, where presidents whose programs had failed catastrophically and whose political support had evaporated were forced to limp through their remaining terms with virtually no capacity to respond effectively to the deepening economic and political crises. We also stress the importance to democracy of a strong and independent j u d i c i a r y . A p o w e r f u l j u d i c i a r y c a n be the b u l w a r k of a d e m o c r a t i c constitution, defending both its integrity (and hence political f r e e d o m and due process) and also its preeminence as the source of democratic legitimacy.

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More generally, the judiciary is the ultimate guarantor of the rule of law, and thus of the accountability of rulers to the ruled, which is a basic premise of democracy. During the authoritarian emergency in India, "a beleaguered and partially ' c a p t u r e d ' S u p r e m e C o u r t still struck d o w n a c o n s t i t u t i o n a l amendment, enacted by parliament, that would have destroyed an 'essential feature' of the constitution."'' 4 Similarly, in Zimbabwe an independent and sophisticated judiciary has at times played an important role in the defense of human rights and democracy as they have come under increasing pressure. 5 5

Ethnic and Regional Conflict One of the stronger generalizations emerging from our larger study is the danger for democracy of excessive centralization of state power. Where there are m a j o r ethnic or regional c l e a v a g e s that are territorially based, the relationship is by now self-evident and axiomatic: The absence of provisions for devolution and decentralization of power, especially in the context of ethnoregional disparities, feeds ethnic insecurity, violent conflict, and even secessionist pressures. These, in turn, are poisonous to democracy. Secessionist pressures carry a dual threat. Unless resolved by political m e a n s , through i n s t i t u t i o n s such as a u t o n o m y , f e d e r a l i s m , o r — i n the extreme—separate statehood, they can lead to the imposition of authority by force and the deterioration or breakdown of democratic rule. Alternatively, a democratic center may be questioned for its inefficiency in creating or its weakness in handling the secessionist crisis, opening the way for military intervention. In differing ways and to differing degrees, these dangers have threatened or damaged democratic regimes in recent years not only in Peru and Sri Lanka but in India, the Philippines, and Sudan (contributing in no small way to the failure of that democratic experiment in 1989). Historically, they figured prominently in the failure of Nigeria's first democratic attempt in the 1960s. And though India benefits in some ways from the multiple, complex character of religious, linguistic, and regional identities—fragmented and c r o s s c u t by caste and class f o r m a t i o n s — i t s m o r e recent failure to integrate diverse ethnic communities (especially Sikhs and Muslims) into t h e n a t i o n a l p o l i t y , o r at l e a s t to f i n d s o m e s t a b l e f o r m u l a f o r a c c o m m o d a t i n g and m a n a g i n g d i v e r s i t y , has b e e n a m a j o r s o u r c e of instability. Das Gupta's conclusion from the Indian experience is confirmed by our wider evidence: "When ethnic leaders are allowed to share power, they generally act according to the rules of the regime," but when the state responds to ethnic mobilization with exclusion and repression, violence festers. Democracy in plural societies requires not just a federal structure but a properly balanced one. An important reason for the failure of the First Nigerian Republic, and for the subsequent descent into civil war, was the gross inadequacy of the three-region federal system, which reified the major tripartite ethnic cleavage while assuring one group political hegemony. By

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contrast, the nineteen-state federal structure in the Second Republic went a long way toward giving Nigeria's many ethnic groups a much greater sense of political security and also crosscut ethnicity to some extent. Moreover, as in India—where federalism has functioned, even in a context of virtually continuous one-party dominance, to give opposition parties a stake in the system and to expand access to new groups—federalism in Nigeria disperses the stakes in electoral competition and so reduces the fixation on the center. It is n o t o n l y to m a n a g e e t h n i c a n d r e g i o n a l c l e a v a g e t h a t decentralization is important to democracy. Centralization of power, by its very nature, tends to undermine democracy and thus constitutes an important obstacle to democratization in several of our cases. In Mexico, centralization a n d s t r o n g p r e s i d e n t i a l i s m h a v e b e e n i m p o r t a n t p i l l a r s of o n e - p a r t y hegemony and have become major targets of groups seeking democratic reform. In Turkey, state centralization—as reflected in the absence of any tradition of autonomous municipalities and the dependence of municipal and provincial administrations on the central g o v e r n m e n t — h a s increased the stakes riding on control of the central government, and so the tendency toward violence and intolerance in the electoral struggle. In Thailand, a highly centralized state bureaucracy manifests cynicism and suspicion of democratic politics. In Senegal, the unresponsiveness to popular concerns and distance from popular reach of a highly centralized state have not only f u e l e d a s o m e t i m e s violent resistance m o v e m e n t in the g e o g r a p h i c a l l y isolated and culturally distant Casamance region, but have also undermined the legitimacy of the semidemocratic regime throughout the country. By contrast, the substantial power of local elected councils over community development and services can be a source of democratic vitality, as it has been in Botswana, where opposition party control of some local councils has mitigated somewhat the effect of continuing one-party dominance at the center and so enhanced commitment to the system.

The Military In most of the countries in our larger study, democracy is threatened and in t h e p a s t h a s b e e n o v e r t u r n e d by m i l i t a r y e s t a b l i s h m e n t s that r e g a r d t h e m s e l v e s "as the p r i v i l e g e d d e f i n e r s a n d g u a r d i a n s of t h e n a t i o n a l interest." 5 6 However, the military variable is not independent of political o n e s . Typically, m i l i t a r y role e x p a n s i o n is induced by the c o r r u p t i o n , stagnation, and malfunctioning of democratic institutions, to the point where the military is increasingly called upon to maintain order and comes to see itself as the only s a l v a t i o n of t h e c o u n t r y . In v i r t u a l l y e v e r y c o u n t r y considered here that has experienced democratic breakdown by military coup, these interventions have come in the wake of manifest political and, often, economic crises: This is true for the military coups in Brazil in 1964, in Chile in 1973, in Turkey in 1960 and 1980 (and the "half-coup" in 1971), in South Korea in 1961, in Thailand in 1976, and in Nigeria in 1966 and

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1983. The military's size, autonomy, professional doctrine, and role conception may determine its threshold for intervention but d o not constitute an independent cause of democratic breakdown. This is not to say that factors external to the political process d o not shape the military disposition to intervene. External C o m m u n i s t threats, or p e r c e p t i o n s of C o m m u n i s t s u p p o r t f o r i n d i g e n o u s i n s u r g e n c i e s , h a v e h e i g h t e n e d the m i l i t a r y ' s r e a d i n e s s to i n t e r v e n e a n d rule on b e h a l f of "national security" not only in much of Latin America, but in Thailand and, especially, in South Korea. In fact, the "militarized" nature of South Korean society was, as Han e x p l a i n s , a m a j o r f a c t o r c r e a t i n g a political setting conducive to authoritarian rule. The contemporary problem, however, is that repeated interventions in politics over decades have shaped the mentality of m a n y officers, and the formal role conception and organization of the armed forces, in ways that generate a higher probability of future intervention at a lower threshold of civilian m a l f u n c t i o n i n g (witness the f o u r serious c o u p attempts in Argentina during 1987-1988). As Stepan has shown, once military role expansion occurs, it tends to e n d u r e a n d a d v a n c e , d i m i n i s h i n g n o t o n l y the s t a b i l i t y but a l s o t h e authenticity of d e m o c r a c y , as n u m e r o u s areas of public policy pass f r o m elected civilian to unaccountable military control. It is thus imperative that n e w l y r e s t o r e d d e m o c r a c i e s r e o r i e n t the m i l i t a r y role a r o u n d e x t e r n a l d e f e n s e ; reduce military prerogatives to control or i n f l u e n c e vast reaches (military and nonmilitary) of the state, the political system, and even civil society; and assert civilian control and oversight even over strictly military functions. These steps require, Stepan forcefully argues, "democratic e m p o w e r m e n t . " By this p r o c e s s , civilian scholars a n d policy specialists acquire credible expertise in military and intelligence affairs, legislatures d e v e l o p the i n s t i t u t i o n a l c a p a c i t y to m o n i t o r m i l i t a r y a n d i n t e l l i g e n c e systems effectively and routinely, and democratic state leaders implement "a well conceived, politically led strategy" to narrow military involvement in conflict regulation, enhance military professional capacities, and build effective procedures for civilian control. 5 7

International Factors In an influential theoretical m o v e m e n t that dominated academic thinking in the 1970s, various dependency theorists maintained that political exclusion and r e p r e s s i o n of p o p u l a r m o b i l i z a t i o n w e r e inevitable c o n c o m i t a n t s of peripheral status in the global division of labor and the dependent character of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t . 5 8 T h e authors of the case studies in this b o o k reject that assumption and attribute the course of political development and regime change primarily to internal structures and action. Nevertheless, they do recognize how structures have been been shaped historically by a variety of i n t e r n a t i o n a l f a c t o r s , i n c l u d i n g c o l o n i a l rule, c u l t u r a l d i f f u s i o n , a n d demonstration effects f r o m a b r o a d . 5 9

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A n y a c c o u n t i n g of t h e c o l o n i a l l e g a c y h a s to i n c l u d e n o t o n l y t h e a u t h o r i t a r i a n a n d s t a t i s t c h a r a c t e r of t h e c o l o n i a l s t a t e , w h i c h h e a v i l y influenced indigenous n o r m s and m o d e l s (especially in A f r i c a ) , but also the liberal and democratic values c o m m u n i c a t e d by the French and, especially, British colonizers that provided India and, to a lesser extent, countries such as Nigeria and Senegal s o m e p r e i n d e p e n d e n c e experience in self-governance and s c o p e f o r d e m o c r a t i c , pluralist e x p r e s s i o n and o r g a n i z a t i o n . 6 0 In the postcolonial period, and for Turkey and Thailand, which were never colonized, cultural d i f f u s i o n of d e m o c r a t i c n o r m s and m o d e l s has remained an i m p o r t a n t s t i m u l a n t of d e m o c r a t i c p r o g r e s s . R e g i o n a l d e m o n s t r a t i o n e f f e c t s h a v e also h e l p e d to induce w a v e s of c h a n g e , such as the military c o u p s in S o u t h A m e r i c a of the late 1960s and early 1970s, i n s p i r e d b y doctrines of national security; the Latin A m e r i c a n redemocratizations of the 1980s; and the sudden collapse of C o m m u n i s t r e g i m e s throughout Eastern E u r o p e in 1989. In East Asia, the transition to d e m o c r a c y in South Korea w a s spurred on by the demonstration of " p e o p l e p o w e r " toppling M a r c o s in the Philippines, but the m o r e potent international pressure may have c o m e f r o m the s e n s e that full a c c e p t a n c e into the c l u b of a d v a n c e d , c a p i t a l i s t nations required a d e m o c r a t i c political system (this has helped to motivate the d e m o c r a t i c o p e n i n g in Taiwan as well). U n d e r certain c i r c u m s t a n c e s (including q u e s t i o n a b l e or eroding internal l e g i t i m a c y ) , d e m o c r a t i c and authoritarian r e g i m e s in d e v e l o p i n g c o u n t r i e s can be v u l n e r a b l e to direct i n t e r n a t i o n a l political and m i l i t a r y p r e s s u r e s . International p r e s s u r e alone c a n n o t e f f e c t d e m o c r a t i c c h a n g e , but the potential for d e m o c r a t i c influence f r o m the United States or other external actors should not be underestimated. Of course, neither should o n e overlook past Western and U.S. support f o r authoritarian regimes, and willingness to conspire against, sabotage, or even overthrow popularly elected r e g i m e s that s e e m e d t h r e a t e n i n g . 6 1 O n e s u p p o r t i n g f a c t o r in t h e c o n s o l i d a t i o n of d e m o c r a c y in Venezuela w a s the fact that the K e n n e d y administration "bet h e a v i l y on d e m o c r a c y in V e n e z u e l a , the k i n d of bet later a d m i n i s t r a t i o n s have m a d e all too rarely." 6 2 In Argentina, U.S. h u m a n rights pressure under the Carter administration did not force the withdrawal of the military, but it " s a v e d m a n y victims of indiscriminate repression in the late 1970s and was a factor in the international isolation of the military r e g i m e . " 6 3 By the same token, the absence of pressure can be taken as a sign of tacit support f r o m which an authoritarian r e g i m e m a y draw strength. During the later 1960s and 1 9 7 0 s , t h e lack of U . S . p r e s s u r e f o r d e m o c r a t i z a t i o n w a s an i m p o r t a n t " p e r m i s s i v e " f a c t o r in the c o n s t r u c t i o n a n d c o n s o l i d a t i o n of a u t h o r i t a r i a n rule in South Korea, yet U.S. diplomatic pressure m a y have played a critical r o l e in d i s s u a d i n g P r e s i d e n t C h u n D o o H w a n f r o m u n l e a s h i n g m a s s i v e repression against the p o p u l a r mobilization f o r d e m o c r a c y during the tense d a y s of m i d - 1 9 8 7 w h e n d e m o c r a t i c t r a n s i t i o n w a s a l m o s t a b o r t e d . U . S . s u p p o r t f o r m u l t i l a t e r a l l o a n s to C h i l e — $ 2 . 2 b i l l i o n b e t w e e n 1 9 8 0 a n d 1986—helped perpetuate the Pinochet regime, "yet on the one occasion

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w h e n s u b s t a n t i v e p r e s s u r e w a s t h r e a t e n e d — t h e 1985 m u l t i l a t e r a l l o a n a b s t e n t i o n s — t h e dictator quickly lifted the state of s i e g e . " 6 4 Of course, there are still m o r e direct f o r m s of foreign influence. A s Dahl o b s e r v e s , m a n y of the w o r l d ' s now-established d e m o c r a c i e s were imposed by f o r e i g n p o w e r s t h r o u g h a r m e d c o n q u e s t or c o l o n i z a t i o n . 6 i Needless to say, external military intervention can help rescue a d e m o c r a t i c g o v e r n m e n t t h r e a t e n e d by c o u p — s u c h as A q u i n o ' s in t h e P h i l i p p i n e s — o r t o p p l e a d i c t a t o r s h i p s u c h as N o r i e g a ' s , b u t s u c h a c t i o n s o f t e n h a v e d e l e t e r i o u s c o n s e q u e n c e s for the legitimacy of the d e m o c r a t i c g o v e r n m e n t so saved or installed—especially w h e n , as in the Philippines and P a n a m a , the external intervention is unilateral and by a nation w h o s e previous interventions have historically been viewed with resentment and suspicion by indigenous actors. It r e m a i n s to be seen whether these dramatic U.S. actions at the close of 1989 will contribute to real and lasting d e m o c r a c y in these two countries. E x t e r n a l m i l i t a r y p r e s s u r e or i n s e c u r i t y c a n a f f e c t t h e democraticprospect by strengthening the military establishment and its claim to power, as we h a v e a l r e a d y n o t e d in t h e c a s e of S o u t h K o r e a . In T h a i l a n d , the C o m m u n i s t insurgency heightened the military's fear of competitive politics, so that, as C h a i - A n a n tells us, " a n y d e m o c r a t i c m o v e m e n t that a i m e d at m o b i l i z i n g and gaining support f r o m the m a s s e s w a s usually suspected of being c o m m u n i s t - i n s p i r e d . " At the current time, however, and no doubt in m a n y previous decades, the most important international influences on the prospects for d e m o c r a c y in d e v e l o p i n g c o u n t r i e s a p p e a r to be e c o n o m i c o n e s . W h i l e w e reject the a r g u m e n t that i n t e r n a t i o n a l e c o n o m i c d e p e n d e n c e or c a p i t a l i s t i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n is i n c o m p a t i b l e with d e m o c r a c y , w e c a n n o t i g n o r e the d e g r e e to which international e c o n o m i c c o n s t r a i n t s — s e v e r e i n d e b t e d n e s s , w e a k or o b s t r u c t e d e x p o r t m a r k e t s , s l u g g i s h g r o w t h a n d d e m a n d in the industrialized countries, and steep balance of p a y m e n t s c r i s e s — m a y severely limit the maneuverability and d a m a g e the legitimacy of d e m o c r a t i c regimes, especially relatively new ones, in developing countries. To be sure, d e m o c r a t i c legitimacy rests on other f o u n d a t i o n s than shortterm e c o n o m i c p e r f o r m a n c e , and the task of d e m o c r a t i c consolidation is, to a s u b s t a n t i a l d e g r e e , a m a t t e r of w h a t L i n z and S t e p a n t e r m " p o l i t i c a l c r a f t i n g . " 6 6 T h u s , even in a recently established d e m o c r a c y such as Spain, t h e c o n s o l i d a t i o n of d e m o c r a c y m a y p r o c e e d f o r a t i m e in t h e f a c e of relatively weak e c o n o m i c p e r f o r m a n c e and sharply d e c l i n i n g belief in the s o c i o e c o n o m i c e f f i c a c y of d e m o c r a c y . 6 7 H o w e v e r , t h e r e is a l w a y s s o m e d a n g e r in e x t r a p o l a t i n g f r o m o n e historical c a s e to another. T h e recently reestablished d e m o c r a c i e s of Latin A m e r i c a , the Philippines, and Pakistan, and the liberalizing r e g i m e s of A f r i c a f a c e even d e e p e r e c o n o m i c crises and social tensions, with less w o r k i n g capital of system legitimacy and without t h e b e n e f i t s o f b e i n g p a r t o f t h e d e m o c r a t i c c o m m u n i t y of E u r o p e (something f r o m which the Eastern E u r o p e a n countries, even with all their u n i q u e p r o b l e m s of t r a n s i t i o n f r o m b a n k r u p t s o c i a l i s t e c o n o m i e s , a r e

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n e v e r t h e l e s s u n i q u e l y p o i s e d to b e n e f i t ) . T h e n e w d e m o c r a c i e s of the developing world are deeply threatened by grave and urgent economic crises, the relief (not to mention resolution) of which depends in part on a host of factors in the world economy over which they can have only very limited if any influence—interest rates, growth rates, trade barriers, levels of economic assistance, and so on. Consolidating these new democracies requires skilful political crafting and courageous and wise policy choices by their leaders. Economies must be reoriented to compete in international markets, state e c o n o m i c ownership and control must be reduced, and the enormous inequalities between rich and poor must be considerably narrowed. Foreign capital must find it attractive to invest, at a time when there are still many investment opportunities in the a d v a n c e d industrial countries as w e l l as n e w o n e s e m e r g i n g in Eastern E u r o p e . At the s a m e t i m e , d e m o c r a t i c c o n s o l i d a t i o n w i l l d e m a n d considerable patience and forbearance from their publics and interest groups. But, it is also likely to depend on the flexibility and vision of powerful international e c o n o m i c actors, and e s p e c i a l l y the major industrialized democracies, in dealing with the critical issues of developing countries' debt and trade. The more hostile and inflexible is this international environment, the more heroic must be the performances and compromises of leaders and the sacrifices and forbearance of publics. History suggests that heroism and sacrifice are not promising conditions on which to depend for the survival, much less consolidation, of new democratic regimes.

• NOTES• 1. For all twenty-six case studies, see Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds.. Democracy in Developing Countries, vols. 2, Africa; 3, Asia; and 4, Latin America. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988 and 1989). Vol. I, containing the theory and conclusions of the project and subtitled Persistence. Failure, and Renewal is forthcoming from the same publisher 2. Although the larger comparative project does not incorporate cases from the Communist world, these recent regime changes in Eastern Europe indicate the salience of the kind of variables we consider—including historical traditions, political culture, state-society relations, and regime type—for explaining the types of processes of democratization that occur, and their likelihood of success. 3. This neglect is to some extent overcome in Arend Lijphart's creative and enterprising study, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries (New Haven. CT: Yale University Press, 1984). However, Lijphart's focus is mainly on political structure, and the comparison is limited to the continuous and stable democracies of the advanced, industrial countries. 4. Specifically, the points on this scale are: (1) high success—stable and uninterrupted democratic rule, with democracy now deeply institutionalized and stable; (2) progressive success—the consolidation of relatively stable democracy after one or more breakdowns or serious interruptions; (3) mixed success—democratic and unstable (e.g., democracy has returned following a period of breakdown and authoritarian rule but has not yet been consolidated); (4) mixed success—partial or semidemocracy; (5) failure but promise—democratic rule has broken d o w n , but there are c o n s i d e r a b l e pressures and prospects for its return; (6) failure or absence—democracy has never functioned for any significant period of time, and there is little prospect that it will in the coming years.

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5. S e e Robert A. Dahl and E d w a r d T u f t e , Size and Democracy (Stanford, C A : S t a n f o r d University Press, 1973). 6. R o b e r t A . D a h l , Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition ( N e w H a v e n , CT: Yale University Press, 1971), pp. 3 - 2 0 ; Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy ( N e w York: H a r p e r and Row, 1942); S e y m o u r M a r t i n Lipset, Political Man, e x p a n d e d and u p d a t e d ed. ( B a l t i m o r e , M D : J o h n s H o p k i n s University Press, 1981), p. 27; Juan Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Reequilihration (Baltimore, M D : J o h n s H o p k i n s University Press, 1978), p. 5. 7. A l f r e d Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 123. 8. G u i l l e r m o O ' D o n n e l l and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 9. T h e distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian r e g i m e s has a long intellectual history. S e e Juan J. Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian R e g i m e s , " in Handbook of Political Science, ed. Fred I. Grcenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975), vol. 3, pp. 175—411. 10. T h e possibilities and conditions for transition f r o m c o m m u n i s m to democracy are quite d i f f e r e n t in E a s t e r n E u r o p e — p a r t i c u l a r l y in H u n g a r y , C z e c h o s l o v a k i a , P o l a n d , and E a s t G e r m a n y , with their p r e v i o u s , pluralist party t r a d i t i o n s and the heavy d e p e n d e n c e of their C o m m u n i s t regimes on the prop of Soviet troops. The time is clearly now ripe for a comparative study of transitions f r o m c o m m u n i s m . 11. L i n z , Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, pp. 1 6 - 1 7 . See also Lipset, Political Man, p. 64; and Dahl, Polyarchy, pp. 129-131. 12. Linz, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, p. 20. 13. Lipset, Political Man. pp. 6 7 - 7 1 . 14. Ibid., pp. 6 4 - 7 0 ; Dahl, Polyarchy, pp. 1 2 9 - 1 5 0 ; and Linz, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, pp. 1 6 - 2 3 15. F o r insights into the p r o b l e m s such p o p u l i s t political s t r a t e g i e s h a v e g e n e r a t e d f o r Venezuela's democratic institutions, see Anibal R o m e r o , " T h e Political Culture of Democratic P o p u l i s m : T h e C a s e o f V e n e z u e l a , " in Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, ed. Larry Diamond (forthcoming). 16. J o h n D. H o l m , " B o t s w a n a : A Paternalistic D e m o c r a c y , " in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Africa, pp. 196—199. 17. J o n a t h a n H a r t l y n , " C o l o m b i a : T h e P o l i t i c s of V i o l e n c e a n d A c c o m m o d a t i o n , " in D i a m o n d . Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, pp. 3 1 0 - 3 1 1 . 18. F o r e v i d e n c e a n d analysis of h o w rapid social and e c o n o m i c c h a n g e has ultimately c o n t r i b u t e d to d e m o c r a t i z a t i o n in T a i w a n , see T u n - j e n C h e n g , " D e m o c r a t i z i n g the Q u a s i Leninist R e g i m e in T a i w a n , " World Politics 41, no. 4 (July 1989): esp. 4 8 0 - 4 8 3 ; Tun-jen C h e n g a n d S t e p h a n H a g g a r d , " R e g i m e T r a n s f o r m a t i o n in T a i w a n : T h e o r e t i c a l a n d C o m p a r a t i v e Perspectives," in Political Change in the Republic of China on Taiwan, ed. C h e n g and Haggard (forthcoming); and (with particular reference to the democratizing effects on political culture) A m b r o s e Y. C. King, " A Non-Paradigmatic Search for D e m o c r a c y in a Post-Confucian Culture: T h e Case of T a i w a n , R . O . C . , " in D i a m o n d , Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries. 19. L a r r y D i a m o n d , " B e y o n d A u t h o r i t a r i a n i s m a n d T o t a l i t a r i a n i s m : S t r a t e g i e s f o r D e m o c r a t i z a t i o n , " The Washington Quarterly 12, no. 1 (Winter 1989): 150. 20. N e w or n e w l y r e s t o r e d d e m o c r a c i e s are p a r t i c u l a r l y v u l n e r a b l e in this r e g a r d . H e r inability t o control the widespead venality around h e r — d e s p i t e her own integrity and honorable i n t e n t i o n s — w a s , for e x a m p l e , a key factor not only in the erosion of Corazon A q u i n o ' s base of political support during 1989, but in the c o u p that almost toppled the Philippines' democratic system n e a r the end of the year. 21. J u a n J. L i n z and A l f r e d Stepan, eds.. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, 4 vols. (Baltimore, M D : J o h n s H o p k i n s University Press, 1978). 22. L i n z , Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, pp. 2 7 - 3 8 . F o r extensive evidence of the role o f v i o l e n c e a n d t e r r o r , a n d p a r t y r e a c t i o n s to t h e m , in t h e b r e a k d o w n or p e r s i s t e n c e of d e m o c r a c i e s , see G . B i n g h a m Powell, Jr., Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence ( C a m b r i d g e , M A : Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 155-170. 23. Ibid, p. 174. 24. Daniel H. Levine, "Venezuela: T h e Nature, Source, and Future Prospects of Democracy,"

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and Hartlyn, " C o l o m b i a , " in Diamond, Linz, and Lipsel. Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, pp. 2 4 7 - 2 9 0 . 2 9 1 - 3 3 4 , respectively. 25. Lipset, Political Man, pp. 7 8 - 7 9 . 26. G a b r i e l A. A l m o n d and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture ( P r i n c e t o n , NJ: P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1963); S i d n e y V e r b a , " C o n c l u s i o n : C o m p a r a t i v e P o l i t i c a l C u l t u r e , " in Politica! Culture and Political Development, ed. Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 5 1 2 - 5 6 0 ; Dahl, Polyarchy, pp. 1 2 9 - 1 6 2 ; Lipset, Political Man; and S e y m o u r Martin Lipset, The First New Nation ( N e w York: W. W. Norton, 1979), part 3. 27. Levine, "Venezuela," pp. 2 7 8 - 2 7 9 . 28. John A. Booth, "Costa Rica: The R o o t s of Democratic Stability," in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset. Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, pp. 4 0 2 ^ 1 0 4 . 29. Holm, " B o t s w a n a , " p. 195. 30. Karl J a c k s o n , " T h e P h i l i p p i n e s : T h e S e a r c h f o r a S u i t a b l e D e m o c r a t i c S o l u t i o n , 1 9 4 6 - 1 9 8 6 , " in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia. 31. C h a r l e s G i l l e s p i e and Luis E d u a r d o G o n z a l e s , " U r u g u a y : T h e Survival of O l d and A u t o n o m o u s Institutions." in Diamond. Linz, and Lipset. Democracy in Developing Countries Latin America, p. 223. 32. Lipset. Political Man, p. 45. 33. Ibid., p. 51; Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 81. 34. S a m u e l P. H u n t i n g t o n , Political Order in Changing Societies ( N e w H a v e n , CT: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 5. 35. Samuel P. Huntington, "Will More Countries B e c o m e D e m o c r a t i c ? " Political Science Quarterly 99, no. 2 ( S u m m e r 1984): 201. 36. Booth, "Costa Rica," pp. 3 8 9 - 3 9 1 . 37. World Bank, World Development Report Ì9H9 ( N e w York: O x f o r d University Press, 1989), table 30, pp. 2 2 2 - 2 2 3 . For more-extensive discussion of the comparative data, see Larry Diamond and Juan J. Linz,"Introduction: Politics. Society, and D e m o c r a c y in Latin A m e r i c a , " in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, pp. 4 0 - 4 1 . 38. M i c h a e l P. T o d a r o , Economic Development in the Third World, 2d e d . ( N e w York: L o n g m a n , 1981), p. 165. 39. Levine, "Venezuela," pp. 2 7 9 - 2 8 0 . 40. N a o m i C h a z a n . " T h e New Politics of Participation in Tropical A f r i c a , " Comparative Politics 14, no. 2 (January 1982): 174-176. For her analysis of the state's disengagement f r o m society, and society's subsequent disengagement from the state, see Chazan, " G h a n a : P r o b l e m s of G o v e r n a n c e and the Emergence of Civil Society," in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Africa, pp. 9 3 - 1 4 0 . An i m p o r t a n t t h e o r e t i c a l a n d c o m p a r a t i v e treatment of the problem is found in Victor Azarya and N a o m i C h a z a n , " D i s e n g a g e m e n t f r o m the State in Africa: Reflections on the Experience of G h a n a and G u i n e a , " Comparative Studies in Society and History 29, no. 1 (1987): 106-131. 41. R i c h a r d L. Sklar, " T h e Nature of C l a s s D o m i n a t i o n in A f r i c a , " Journal of Modern African Studies 17, no. 4 (December 1979): 5 3 1 - 5 5 2 . 42. Larry D i a m o n d , " C l a s s Formation in the Swollen A f r i c a n State," Journal of Modern African Studies 25, no. 4 (December 1987): 5 6 7 - 5 9 6 . 43. Urmila Phadnis, "Sri Lanka: Crises of Legitimacy and Integration," in D i a m o n d , Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia. pp. 1 4 3 - 1 8 6 . 44. Lipset, First New Nation, pp. 3 0 7 - 3 0 8 . 45. Ibid., pp. 3 0 8 - 3 1 0 ; Linz, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, p. 24. 46. Linz, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, pp. 2 5 - 2 7 ; Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1976), p p . 1 3 1 - 1 4 0 . F r o m this p e r s p e c t i v e , to b e r e l e v a n t a party m u s t be p o t e n t i a l l y u s e f u l in t h e f o r m a t i o n of a coalition g o v e r n m e n t or h a v e " p o w e r of i n t i m i d a t i o n " politically. P o l a r i z e d pluralism e n c o m p a s s e s not just e x t r e m e m u l t i p a r t y i s m but such other factors as a n t i s y s t e m parties, irresponsible oppositions, outbidding between parties, and ideological polarization. 47. Powell, Contemporary Democracies, pp. 154-157, 206, 2 2 2 - 2 2 3 . 48. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State ( N e w York: John Wiley and Sons, 1954), pp. 2 1 7 - 2 2 8 ; Lipset, First New Nation, pp. 3 0 7 - 3 0 8 ; and Powell, Contemporary Democracies, pp. 8 2 - 8 3 . 49. Electoral systems, of course, have other c o n s e q u e n c e s as well, s o m e t i m e s u n i n t e n d e d . T h e single-member district, plurality m e t h o d of election enables a dominant party, such as the

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Congress in India for so long, to muster a disproportionate share of seats, greatly exaggerating its political power beyond its real level of support. By allocating seats with minimal or lesser distortion, and making it easier for smaller parties to win representation, systems of proportional representation are viewed by many as inherently more democratic. However, when the small parties w h o win entry into the parliament have extremist agendas and the capacity to blackmail large but not dominant competitors, the c o n s e q u e n c e s may be undemocratic. 50. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 12-24. 51. Despite President Babangida's vow not to copy foreign models, the t w o new parties were dubbed the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican C o n v e n t i o n . T h e National Electoral C o m m i s s i o n was c h a r g e d by the military with the task of s y n t h e s i z i n g , f r o m the submissions of the various aspiring parties, constitutions and m a n i f e s t o s for the D e m o c r a t s and Republicans. Nigerians were then invited to j o i n the party of their choice, with party leaderships to emerge by successive elections beginning at the local level. 52. Juan J. Linz. " T h e Perils of Presidentialism," Journal of Democracy 1, no. 1 (January 1990): 56. 53. For a full analysis of these issues, see ibid., pp. 5 1 - 6 9 , and a f o r t h c o m i n g enlarged version of that article to appear in a v o l u m e edited by Arturo Valenzuela and Juan Linz on parliamentary versus presidential government. 54. Richard L. Sklar, " D e v e l o p m e n t a l D e m o c r a c y , " Comparative Studies in Society and History 29, no. 4 (October 1987): 694. 55. Ibid., p. 695. 56. C a r l o s H. W a i s m a n . " A r g e n t i n a : A u t a r k i c I n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n a n d I l l e g i t i m a c y , " in Diamond. Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, pp. 5 9 - 1 1 0 . 57. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, especially ch. 8. Q u o t e d passage is f r o m p. 137 (emphasis in the original). 58. See the review in Peter Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton, N j : Princeton University Press. 1979), pp. 2 5 - 5 4 . 59. For theoretical consideration of these factors, see Dahl, Polyarchy, pp. 1 7 1 - 1 7 5 , and Huntington, "Will More Countries B e c o m e D e m o c r a t i c ? " p. 207. 60. For an analysis of the impact of colonial rule on subsequent political d e v e l o p m e n t in A f r i c a , see L. H. G a n n a n d P e t e r D u i g n a n , Burden of Empire: An Appraisal of Western Colonialism in Africa South of the Sahara (Stanford, CA: H o o v e r Institution Press, 1967), pp. 2 5 3 - 2 7 2 ; Robert J a c k s o n and Carl R o s b e r g , " P o p u l a r L e g i t i m a c y in A f r i c a n M u l t i - E t h n i c S t a t e s , " Journal of Modern African Studies 22, n o . 2 ( J u n e 1 9 8 4 ) : 1 7 7 - 1 9 8 ; M i c h a e l C r o w d e r , " W h o s e Dream Was it A n y w a y ? Twenty-five Years of African I n d e p e n d e n c e , " African Affairs 86, no. 342 (January 1987): 11-18; and Larry Diamond, "Introduction: Roots of Failure, Seeds of H o p e , " in Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Africa, pp. 6-10.

61. For an analysis of "political development doctrines" in U.S. foreign policy between 1947 and 1968, and the frequent conflict between the goals of fighting the expansion of c o m m u n i s m and p r o m o t i n g d e m o c r a c y a b r o a d , see R o b e r t P a c k e n h a m , Libera! America and the Third World: Political Development Ideas in Foreign Aid and Social Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973). 62. Levine, "Venezuela," p. 281. 63. Waisman, "Argentina," pp. 9 8 - 9 9 . 64. Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela, "Is Chile N e x t ? " Foreign Policy 63 (1986): 74-75. 65. Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 197. 66. J u a n L i n z a n d A l f r e d S t e p a n , " P o l i t i c a l C r a f t i n g of D e m o c r a t i c C o n s o l i d a t i o n or Destruction: E u r o p e a n and South A m e r i c a n C o m p a r i s o n s , " in Democracy in the AmericasStopping the Pendulum, ed. Robert A. Pastor (New York: H o l m e s and Meier, 1989), pp. 4 1 - 6 1 . 67. Ibid., pp. 4 3 ^ 6 .

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• CHAPTER TWO •

Chile: Origins, Consolidation, and Breakdown of a Democratic Regime ARTURO VALENZUELA

Chile, under the rule of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, experienced the longest single government in the nation's history and one of the harshest dictatorships of the contemporary world. For years after the military coup of September 11, 1973, elections for public office, and even elections within private organizations and associations were circumscribed or monitored by the authorities. The doors of Congress were closed, and all major public decisions were made by the general, officials appointed by him, or a junta consisting of the commanders of the four military services. Elected local governments, which had dated back to colonial times, were replaced by mayors who served at the pleasure of the commander-in-chief of the army and president of the republic. Even the nation's universities were not spared. Soon after the coup, high-ranking army officers were appointed to head both private and public institutions of higher education, with a mandate to purge government opponents and administer with an iron hand. Political parties were banned or dismantled, and their leaders persecuted. Rights of assembly and free speech were restricted. The press was severely censored, while the authorities made ample use of television to project their own vision of the world. An elaborate security apparatus operating with broad formal and informal powers sent regime opponents into internal and external exile without trial. Thousands were arrested, "disappeared," or killed. 1 Despite serious economic difficulties and international isolation, Chile's authoritarian regime resisted the trend in Latin America back to democratic forms of government. A new constitution, written by a handful of government advisers and ratified in a highly suspect plebiscite in 1980, extended Pinochet's term until 1989 and made it legally possible for him to continue in office until 1997 or beyond. Although the constitutional framework specified the return to elective politics in 1989, the document contained many features that sharply restricted democratic practices and the accountability of government authorities to popular will. It created a powerful executive and a weak Congress and gave the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces veto power over public-policy is-

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sues. T h e Constitution also declared illegal all political parties that advocate philosophical doctrines based on class struggle. 2 T h i s state of affairs, though not u n c o m m o n in the Third World, was a sharp and historic departure for Chile. Before the 1973 b r e a k d o w n , the country would have been classified, following the criteria used in this b o o k , as a high success, a stable and uninterrupted case of democratic rule. For most of the preceding one hundred years, Chilean politics had been characterized by a high level of party competition and popular participation, open and fair elections, and strong respect for democratic f r e e d o m s . Indeed, Bollen, in one of the most c o m p r e h e n sive cross-national efforts to rank countries on a scale of political democracy, placed Chile in the top 15 percent in 1965, a score higher than that of the United States, France, Italy, or West Germany. For 1960, Chile's score was higher than that of Britain. 1 However, synchronic studies such as Bollen's fail to account for the fact that Chile's democratic tradition was not a recent p h e n o m e n o n but goes back several generations. In the nineteenth century, Chile developed democratic institutions and procedures, setting the country apart f r o m many of its European counterparts, as well as its Latin A m e r i c a n neighbors. As Epstein has noted, in Europe "political p o w e r was not often effectively transferred from hereditary rulers to representative assemblies n o matter how narrow their electorates until late in the nineteenth century." 4 By contrast, Chile h a d , by the turn of the century, experienced several d e c a d e s in which political authority was vested in elected presidents, and C o n g r e s s wielded substantial influence over the f o r m u lation of public policy. 5 I n d e e d , f r o m 1830 until 1973, all Chilean presidents were followed in o f f i c e by their duly elected successors. Deviations to this pattern occurred only in 1891, in the aftermath of a brief civil war, and in the turbulent period between 1924 and 1932, w h e n f o u r chief executives felt pressured to resign in an atmosphere of political and social unrest and military involvement in politics. In 143 years, Chile experienced only thirteen months of unconstitutional rule under s o m e f o r m of j u n t a , and only f o u r m o n t h s under a j u n t a d o m i nated exclusively by the military. A n d , though the executive was preeminent in the decades after i n d e p e n d e n c e , C o n g r e s s gradually increased its prerogatives, b e c o m i n g an important arena for national debate and one of the most p o w e r f u l legislatures in the w o r l d . Dahl has noted that the d e v e l o p m e n t of d e m o c r a c y entails not only establishing institutions for public contestation and leadership renewal, but also popular sovereignty. 6 In nineteenth-century Chile, citizenship was sharply restricted, first to men w h o o w n e d property and later to those who w e r e literate. T h u s , Chile was only a partial democracy, according to the definition used here, until well into the twentieth century, when w o m e n ' s s u f f r a g e w i s established, the literacy requirement abolished, and 18-year-olds given the right to vote. 7 It must be stressed, however, that Chile did not deviate substantially f r o m other nascent democracies in extending citizenship. In 1846, only 2 percent of the Chilean population voted, but this figure was c o m p a r a b l e to that in Britain in

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1830, L u x e m b o u r g in 1848, the Netherlands in 1851, and Italy in 1871. In 1876, t w o years after it had abolished the property requirement, Chile had 106,000 registered voters, c o m p a r e d to 8 4 , 0 0 0 in Norway for a c o m p a r a b l e adult male population. Secret voting was established in Chile shortly after its adoption in Britain, S w e d e n , and Germany, and before its adoption in B e l g i u m , D e n m a r k , France, Prussia, and Norway." Reflecting the profound social c h a n g e s brought about by urbanization, incipient industrialization, and a b o o m i n g export economy, Chile's middle- and then working-class groups were incorporated into the democratic political g a m e by the second d e c a d e of the twentieth century. With the rise of an organized L e f t , Chilean politics b e c a m e sharply polarized between vastly different conceptions of what the country's future should be. This division, articulated by p o w e r f u l and institutionalized parties functioning within the f r a m e w o r k of Chile's presidential system, placed increasing strains on democracy. In the 1970s, these strains contributed to the the breakdown of d e m o c r a c y soon after the first leftist candidate in Chilean history had been elected to the nation's highest o f f i c e . In the a f t e r m a t h of the defeat of President Pinochet in a plebiscite prescribed by his own constitution, Chile can be characterized as a democratic failure with promise according to the terminology e m p l o y e d by the editors of this v o l u m e . Ironically, though authoritarian rule and the sharp divisions that persist in Chilean politics, and the complexities of partisan relationships, have m a d e the transition to d e m o c r a c y unusually difficult, there is reason to believe that because of Chile's long history of democratic practices, once a transition is instituted it may be more durable than in many other countries of the Third World. T h e historical overview provides a sketch of the m a j o r trends in Chilean politics. It is not intended to cover all periods in equal depth; rather, it gives disproportionate attention to those historical d e v e l o p m e n t s that are especially important to m a k i n g analytical arguments about the d e v e l o p m e n t and breakdown of Chilean democracy. Following this is a theoretical assessment of the applicability to the Chilean case of several leading hypotheses generated by social scientists to account f o r the e m e r g e n c e of democratic politics. T h e third part analyzes the b r e a k d o w n of democracy, highlighting those variables that best explain the c o m p l e x process resulting in the 1973 military c o u p . T h e fourth gives an overview of military rule in Chile, explaining how authoritarian politics was first institutionalized and w h y the transition back to d e m o c r a c y was so slow and p a i n f u l . It ends by speculating about the future course of Chilean democracy.

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• HISTORICAL OVERVIEW • Origins and Consolidation of Chilean Democracy, 1830s-1960s As in the rest of Latin A m e r i c a , attempts in Chile to inaugurate republican institutions, based on democratic principles inspired by the f r a m e r s of the U.S. Constitution, met with resounding failure. 9 For a quarter-century after Chile's declaration of independence f r o m Spain in 1810, the new nation alternated between dictatorship and anarchy. T h e war of i n d e p e n d e n c e was a prolonged and bloody civil " w a r to the d e a t h , " as m u c h as a war to end colonial rule, as many Chileans supported the royalist cause. T h e final defeat of Spanish forces ¡eft the territory's administrative and governing institutions in shambles, and local elites bitterly divided by regional, family, ideological, and personal disputes. G o n e were the c o m p l e x , far-flung patrimonial bureaucracy and the mediating p o w e r of the crown, which for centuries had imposed a traditional style of political authority over a distant colony. In 1830, the clear military victory of one coalition of forces permitted the inauguration of a concerted effort to institute political order and encourage e c o n o m i c progress. However, despite the able leadership of Cabinet Minister Diego Portales and military President Joaquin Prieto, and the establishment of a new constitution in 1833, c o u p attempts and conspiracies continued to plague Chile; Portales himself was assassinated in 1837 by troops he had thought loyal. Portales' death was widely, though probably erroneously, blamed on interference in Chilean affairs by General Andrés Santa C r u z , the ruler of the PeruBolivia Confederation and a powerful rival for h e g e m o n y in Pacific c o m m e r c e . T h e Bolivian dictator, after gaining control over Peru, had m a d e no secret of his ambition to extend his empire southward. In response, Portales engineered, in 1836, a declaration of war, an unpopular move widely c o n d e m n e d in political circles. Ironically, Portales' death helped galvanize support for the war a m o n g disparate Chilean political factions; incensed at foreign intervention, several groups agreed to back an expeditionary force to Peru. T h e war effort and the resounding victory achieved by the Chilean military had a profound impact. Individuals of all stations enthusiastically w e l c o m e d h o m e the returning expeditionary force. T h e victory ball at the presidential palace was attended by rival families w h o had not spoken to each other in years, helping to heal long-standing w o u n d s and forge a sense of c o m m o n purpose. In the wake of triumph, authorities decreed a broad amnesty and the restitution of military ranks and pensions for those defeated in the ci vil war of 1830. As historian Encina notes, defeat of the Chilean forces would have magnified political divisions and seriously imperiled the already tenuous governmental stability. Military success gave the Prieto g o v e r n m e n t and Chile's fledgling institutions a new lease on life. "' T h e 1837-1838 war had another, equally important consequence for Chile's

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political development. It created a national hero, the first Chilean leader to rise unambiguously above factional disputes. General Manuel Bulnes, the embodiment of national unity, was easily able to succeed Prieto in the presidential elections of 1840, a transition facilitated by Prieto's willingness to leave office in favor of his nephew. In his two terms, Bulnes took two important steps to implement the principles set forth in the nation's republican Constitution, principles that were nothing less than revolutionary at the time." In the first place, Bulnes refused to rule autocratically, giving substantial authority to a designated cabinet carefully balanced to represent some of the most important factions of the loose governing coalition. And though executive power was paramount, Bulnes permitted growing autonomy of the courts and the legislature. In time, Congress became increasingly more assertive, delaying approval of budget laws in exchange for modifications in cabinet policy. The cabinet's response to growing congressional activism was not to silence the institution but to capture it by manipulating the electoral process. Ironically, while this practice was condemned by opponents as a perversion of suffrage, it contributed to reinforcing the legitimacy of the legislature as a full-fledged branch of government. Eventually, as presidents changed ministers or as political coalitions shifted, even legislatures originally elected through fraud became centers for the expression of opposition sentiments, reinforcing presidential accountability to legislative majorities. In the second place, Bulnes firmly exchanged his role as commander-inchief of the armed forces for that of civilian president. Under his guidance, the professional military was sharply cut back, its personnel thinned out, and many of its assets sold. Instead, and to the dismay of his former military colleagues, Bulnes poured resources into the National Guard, a force of citizen soldiers closely tied to the government patronage network, who served as a ready pool of voters for government-sponsored candidates. In his last presidential address to the nation, Bulnes proudly described the reduction of the regular army and the expansion of the militia as the most convincing evidence of his administration's fidelity to republican institutions. 12 The transition to a new president, however, was not easy. Many of the country's elites rejected the candidacy of Manuel Montt, a civil servant and cabinet minister of middle-class extraction, to succeed Bulnes. His candidacy was also rejected by elements in the professional army, who believed Bulnes would support a revolt to prevent Montt's accession to power and thus ensure the continuity of leadership from his native area of Concepción. When a revolt was attempted, however, Bulnes personally led the National Guard to defeat the rebel forces. With the mid-nineteenth-century development of a new class of government functionaries and political leaders who espoused the liberal creed, the state gained substantial autonomy from the traditional landed elite, the pillar of social and economic power. State autonomy was reinforced by the government's success in promoting economic progress, particularly the booming export trade

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in wheat and minerals, which e n c o u r a g e d e c o n o m i c elites to give the authorities substantial leeway in policy formulation and i m p l e m e n t a t i o n . Just as important, however, the export-import trade gave the authorities a ready and expanding source of i n c o m e f r o m c u s t o m s duties, without their having to make the politically risky decision to tax property or income. Ironically, had the Chilean e c o n o m y been more balanced and less dependent on foreign trade, the state would have been much more vulnerable to the immediate and direct pressures of e c o n o m i c elites. In Chile, e c o n o m i c d e p e n d e n c y contributed to strengthening, not w e a k e n i n g , the s t a t e . " From 1830 to 1860, c u s t o m s revenues, which represented 6 0 percent of all revenues, increased s e v e n f o l d , enabling the Chilean state to undertake extensive public-works projects, including constructing Latin America's second railroad, and to invest large sums of money in education, which officials believed to be the key to prosperity and national greatness. In time, however, the state, rapidly extending its administrative jurisdiction and public-works projects throughout the national territory and actively promoting domestic programs in education and civil registries, clashed sharply with landowners, the church, and regional interests. Discontent in the ranks of the conservative landed elite was such that it led to the formation of the country's first real party, the Conservative Party, in direct opposition to Montt's administration. T h e Conservatives were committed to preserving the traditional order, and d e f e n d i n g the values and interests of the church. At the same time, and also in opposition to the state, a group of ideological liberals, influenced by the Revolution of 1848 in France, pressed to accelerate secularization and decentralization and to expand s u f f r a g e and democratization. T h e secularreligious issue, with state elites taking a middle g r o u n d , would b e c o m e the most salient political cleavage in nineteenth-century Chile, and the basis for crystalizing partisan alignments. By 1859, discontent with the government f r o m various quarters was such that a disparate coalition, c o m p o s e d of aristocratic C o n s e r v a t i v e s , regional groups, and the newly f o r m e d Radical Party representing the anticlerical and mining interests, challenged the g o v e r n m e n t by force. In particular, the dissidents objected to the widespread state intervention in the 1858 congressional election, in which the g o v e r n m e n t obtained a large majority in the C h a m b e r of Deputies. O n c e again, however, state officials, with strong support f r o m provincial interests and urban g r o u p s , were able to m a k e use of the National Guard to put down the revolt. In the process, they put to rest the lingering centerperiphery cleavages that had challenged central authority f r o m the days of ind e p e n d e n c e . T h e new president, following earlier precedents, granted a national amnesty and incorporated many dissidents into p o l i c y m a k i n g positions. Even the Radical Party obtained congressional representation in the next election. T h e m o n o p o l y that the g o v e r n m e n t had obtained over the country's most effective fighting forces made it difficult for Conservatives and other opposition elements to contemplate victory through armed challenge. B e c a u s e of offi-

CHILE

45

cial intervention in the electoral process, moreover, opponents were unable to wrest control of the state from incumbents. Ironically, Conservatives soon realized that they had no choice but to push for expanded suffrage if they were to succeed in capturing the state. Even more oddly, in opposing the government they structured alliances of convenience in Congress with their nemeses, the staunchly ideological liberals, who were worried about electoral intervention and the authorities' refusal to press for increased democratization. This strategic adoption of a "liberal" creed by Conservative forces in a traditional society explains one of the most extraordinary paradoxes of Chilean history: the legislative alliance of ultramontane Catholics and radical liberals, both seeking for different reasons the fulfilment of democratic ideals. Clearly, the Conservatives did not become democrats because of an ideological conversion, though many with close ties to England had come to believe that parliamentary government was a requirement for any civilized nation-state. But they correctly perceived that representative institutions were in their best interest, and the only real alternative once military solutions to domestic conflicts no longer seemed viable. Conservatives were forced to make the liberal creed their own precisely because they had lost ground to a new political class, which had gained strength by dominating the state. In turn, the pragmatic "liberals" (known as the Montt-Varistas) were not acting irrationally when they resisted attempts to expand suffrage and bar official manipulation of the electoral process. They fully realized that in an overwhelmingly rural society, with traditional landlord-peasant relationships, the Conservatives would beat them at the polls and challenge their monopoly of power. Under the leadership of Conservative José Manuel Irarrazaval, who became a champion of electoral reform, the Right sought to advance its interests through the democratic electoral process, rather than through military conspiracies or direct ties with elements of the central bureaucracy, as was the case in many other countries at the time. As a result, the church, hostile to electoral democracy in much of Latin Europe, also came to accept the legitimacy of suffrage in generating public officials. From a position of strength in Congress, the Conservatives, together with Radicals and ideological liberals and over the objections of the executive, successfully pressed for a series of reforms that restricted presidential power. The president was limited to a single 5-year term, and his veto power was restricted. The adoption of the Electoral Reform Act in 1874 tripled the electorate from 50,000 to 150,000 voters over the 1872 total. 15 Nevertheless, official intervention in the electoral process did not end with electoral reform, and the stakes in controlling the state continued to increase. With its victory in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), Chile gained vast new territory and rich nitrate deposits. Customs duties climbed to over 70 percent of government income, eliminating the need for property taxes and swelling state coffers. President José Manuel Balmaceda (1886-1891) refused to give in to congressional demands that ministers serve with congressional approval. He also balked at proposals that local governments be given substantial autonomy

46

VALENZUELA

from the central administration, and that local notables be given control of the electoral process. When his cabinet was censured, Balmaceda sought to govern without congressional approval, adopting the national budget by decree. Finally, a civil war broke out between Congress, backed by the navy, and the president, backed by the army; Balmaceda was defeated in August 1891 and committed suicide. With the country in disarray and the president dead, a junta headed by a navy captain, the vice-president of the Senate, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies assumed control of the government for three months. This marked the first time since 1830 that political power had been exercised in a manner not prescribed by the Constitution. But the brief period of unconstitutional rule did not involve imposing an authoritarian regime, nor did the military as an institution involve itself in politics except to take orders from civilian leaders. The cabinet continued to be a civilian cabinet, and Congress remained in session with virtually no interruption. The victory of the congressional forces ushered in almost four decades of parliamentary government (1891-1927), in which the center of gravity of the political system shifted from the executive to the legislature, from the capital to local areas, and from state officials and their agents to local party leaders and political brokers. Politics became an elaborate log-rolling game centered in Congress, in which national resources were divided for the benefit of local constituents. Democratization, implied by these changes, had important effects on the political system. With the expansion of suffrage and local control of elections, parliamentary parties expanded beyond the confines of congressional corridors and became national networks with grassroots organizations. Just as significant, however, was the emergence of parties outside the congressional arena (in Duverger's terms) in response to increased democratization and to other dramatic changes taking place in Chilean society. 16 While the Conservatives initially gained from electoral reform and were able to dominate the politics of the Parliamentary Republic, they did not foresee that the country's social structure would change so quickly in a quarter-century, and that electoral reform would soon benefit a new group of parties with far different agendas. The urban population, which accounted for 26 percent of the total in 1875, had soared to 45 percent by 1900. Nitrate production, employing between 10 and 15 percent of the population, spawned a host of ancillary industries and created a new working class, which soon found expression in new political parties when the traditional parties, particularly the modern Radicals, failed to provide the leadership required to address its grievances. Both the state and private employers were slow to recognize the legitimacy of working-class demands and often brutally repressed the infant labor movement. But the openness of the political system, and the sharp competition among traditional parties searching for alliances to maximize electoral gain, permitted the development of electorally oriented class-based parties. By 1921, the year the Chilean Communist Party was officially founded, it had elected

CHILE

47

t w o members to Congress; four years later, it achieved representation in the Senate. Thus, to the secular-religious cleavage of the nineteenth century was added the worker-employer cleavage of the early twentieth century—generative cleavages that would shape the basic physiognomy of Chile's contemporary party system. The 1920s were years of considerable political upheaval. The invention of synthetic nitrates during World War I led to the collapse of the Chilean nitrate industry, with far-reaching ramifications for the whole economy. The cumbersome and venal Parliamentary Republic fell increasingly into disrepute, criticized by the Right for allowing politics to become corrupt and overly democratic; denounced by the Center and Left for its inability to address national problems. President Arturo Alessandri (1920-1924) violated political norms by becoming an activist president and pressing for change in the face of congressional inaction and opposition. In September 1924, a group of young military officers unsheathed their swords in the congressional galleries, demanding reforms and the defeat of a congressional pay increase. Bowing to the unprecedented pressure, Alessandri resigned his post and left the country in the hands of a military j u n t a — t h e first time in over 100 years that military men had played a direct role in governing the nation. Senior officers, however, objected to the reform agenda of their younger colleagues; uncomfortable with the responsibility of governing, they soon began to defer to civilian leaders of the Right. This prompted a national movement to have Alessandri return, backed by younger officers who identified with the September pronunciamiento. In January 1925, the president resumed his position, marking the end of the first extraconstitutional government since 1891. During Alessandri's term, the 1925 Constitution was adopted with the expectation that it would increase the power of the president. It was the first full reform of the basic document since the Constitution of 1833, but it also embodied many elements of continuity. Alessandri's elected successor, Emiliano Figueroa, proved unable to stand up to political pressures and the growing influence of Minister of War Colonel Carlos Ibañez, a military officer who had participated in the 1924 movement. In 1927 Figueroa resigned, and Ibañez was elected with broad support from all major parties, who sensed the country's and the military's demand for a "nonpolitical" and forceful chief executive. During his administration, Ibañez sought to alter fundamentally Chilean politics by introducing "efficient and modern" administrative practices, disdaining the role of Congress in cabinet appointments and resorting to emergency and executive measures, such as forced exile, in attempting to crush labor and opposition political parties. It is important to stress, however, that Ibañez's government was not a military dictatorship. While his authority derived in large measure from support in the barracks, army officers did not govern. The vast majority of cabinet officials were civilians, though most were newcomers to politics who criticized the intrigues of the traditional political class.

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VALENZUELA

Ibañez soon discovered that he, too, could run out of political capital. His inability to curb the influence of parties, and his growing isolation, c o m b i n e d with the catastrophic e f f e c t s of the Great Depression (in which Chilean exports dropped to a fifth of their former value) and m o u n t i n g street unrest, finally led the demoralized president to submit his resignation in July 1931. After a period of political instability, which included the resignation of yet another president and the 90-day "Socialist Republic" proclaimed by a civil/military junta that attempted to press for social c h a n g e , elections were scheduled in 1932. O n c e again, Arturo Alessandri was elected to a full constitutional t e r m , thereby restoring the continuity of Chile's institutional system. During his second administration, Alessandri was far more cautious than during his first, successfully bringing the country out of the depression with firm austerity measures and reaffirming the value of institutions based on democratic values and procedures at a time when they were under profound attack in Europe. T h e 1938 presidential election represented another m a j o r turning point in Chilean politics and a vivid confirmation of the extent to which ordinary citizens had b e c o m e the fundamental source of political authority. In an extremely close election, the Center, in an alliance with the Marxist Left called the Popular Front, captured the presidency, and Radical Pedro Aguirre Cerda was elected. Despite the often-bitter opposition of the Right, the g o v e r n m e n t for a d e c a d e expanded social-welfare policies, encouraged the rise of legal unionism, and actively pursued import-substituting industrialization through a new Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (Corporation for the D e v e l o p m e n t of Production). T h e trend toward urbanization continued: in 1940, 53 percent of the population lived in cities; by 1970, that figure had increased to 76 percent. By 1948, the new Cold War climate abroad and the increased local electoral successes of the C o m m u n i s t Party were making both Socialists and Radicals increasingly uneasy. Encouraged by Radical leaders, President Gabriel G o n zález Videla dissolved the Popular Front, outlawed the C o m m u n i s t Party, and sent many of its m e m b e r s to detention c a m p s . T h e s e actions, combined with the wear of incumbency and general dissatisfaction with the opportunistic Radicals, contributed to the election of Carlos Ibañez as president in 1952 on an antiparty platform. But Ibañez, unable to govern without party support, was forced to shift his initial populist programs to a severe austerity plan that contributed to w a g e and salary declines. He w a s succeeded in 1958 by Conservative businessman Jorge Alessandri, the f o r m e r president's son, w h o edged out Socialist Salvador Allende by only 2 . 7 percent of the vote. Alessandri applied more austerity measures, provoking cries for p r o f o u n d reform f r o m a populace tired of spiraling inflation and e c o n o m i c stagnation. In the 1964 presidential elections, fear of the growing strength of the Left led Chile's traditional rightist parties to reluctantly support Eduardo Frei, the candidate of the new Christian Democratic Party, which had replaced the Radicals as the largest party in Chile and the most powerful party of the Center. With massive financial assistance f r o m the United States, the Frei government attempted to implement far-reaching r e f o r m s , but

CHILE

49

after dissolving their tacit alliance with the Right, the Christian Democrats were unable to increase their share of the vote. In 1970, claiming to have been betrayed by Frei's reformist policies, the Right refused to support Christian Democratic candidate RadomiroTomic, making possible the election of leftist candidate Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity coalition, with only 36.2 percent of the vote. The Christian Democratic and Popular Unity governments are treated in more detail in the discussion of the breakdown of Chilean democracy, below. Characteristics of Chilean Politics at Mid-Century' 7 By the 1930s, with the rise of Marxist parties at a time of electoral expansion, the Chilean party system, in Lipset and Rokkan's terms, had become comp l e t e . " In addition to the traditional Conservative and Liberal parties that had emerged from church-state cleavages in the early nineteenth century, and the Radical Party that had developed later in that century out of similar divisions, Communist and Socialist parties had now developed in response to a growing class cleavage. The only new party to emerge after the 1930s, the Christian Democratic Party, was an offshoot of the Conservatives, which sought to address social and economic issues from the vantage point of reform Catholicism. Yet this "complete" system was characterized by sharp social polarizations in which the organized electorate was divided almost equally a m o n g the three political tendencies. Although numerous small parties appeared after 1932, the six major parties continued to dominate politics, c o m m a n d i n g over 80 percent of the vote by the 1960s. Elections and politics became a national "sport," as parties became so deeply ingrained in the nation's social fabric that Chileans would refer to a Radical or a Communist or a Christian Democratic "subculture." Parties helped to structure people's friendships and social life. Partisan affiliation continued to be reinforced by both class and religion, so that Christian Democratic elites were more likely to go to Catholic schools and universities and come from upper-middle-class backgrounds, while Socialist elites went to public schools and state universities and came from lower-middle-class backgrounds. Communist strength was heavily concentrated in mining communities and industrial areas, Christian Democrats appealed to middle-class and women voters, while the Right retained substantial support in rural Chile. The major parties framed political options not only in municipal and congressional elections but also in private and secondary associations. The penetration of parties into Chilean society was such that even high school student associations, community groups, universities, and professional societies selected leaders on party slates. Political democracy helped democratize social groups and erode historic patterns of authoritarian social relations. It is crucial to stress that there were no giants in the Chilean political system. No single party or tendency could win a majority and impose its will. This pattern had clear implications for the functioning of Chile's presidential system.

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Since majorities were impossible to achieve, Chilean presidents were invariably elected by coalitions or were forced to build governing coalitions with opposing parties in Congress after the election. However, because preelection coalitions were constituted primarily for electoral reasons, in an atmosphere of considerable political uncertainty, they tended to disintegrate after a few months of the new administration. Ideological disputes were often at the root of coalition changes, as partisans of one formula would resist the proposals of opponents. But narrow political considerations were also important. Since a president could not succeed himself, leaders of other parties in his coalition often realized they could best improve their fortunes in succeeding municipal and congressional elections by disassociating themselves from the difficulties of incumbency in a society fraught with economic problems. In the final analysis, only by proving their independent electoral strength in nonpresidential elections could parties demonstrate their value to future presidential coalitions. Since Chilean presidents could not dissolve Congress in case of an impasse or loss of congressional support, they needed to build alternative alliances in order to govern. Parties assured their influence by requiring that candidates nominated for cabinet posts seek their party's permission {pase) to serve in office. Presidents, required continually to forge working coalitions, were repeatedly frustrated by the sense of instability and permanent crisis that this bargaining process gave Chilean politics. An image of Chile's party system as excessively competitive and polarized, however, is incomplete and inaccurate. The collapse of party agreements, the censure of ministers, and the sharp disagreement over major policy issues captured the headlines and inflamed people's passions. But the vast majority of political transactions were characterized by compromise, flexibility, and respect for the institutions and procedures of constitutional democracy. Over the years, working agreements among political rivals led to implementing farreaching policies, including state-sponsored industrialization; comprehensive national health, welfare, and educational systems; agrarian reform; and copper nationalization. Agreements were also structured around the more mundane aspects of politics. Congressmen and party leaders of different stripes would join in efforts to promote a particular region or to provide special benefits to constituency groups and individuals." This pattern of give-and-take can be attributed to three mutually reinforcing factors: a pragmatic center; the viability of representative arenas of decisionmaking and neutrality of public institutions; and the imperatives of electoral politics. Compromise would have been difficult without the flexibility provided by Center parties, notably the Radical Party, which inherited the role of the nineteenth-century Liberals as the fulcrum of coalition politics. The Radicals supported, at one time or another, the rightist presidencies of the two Alessandris in the 1930s and 1960s and governed with support of the Right in the late 1940s. In the late 1930s and through most of the 1940s, however, they allied

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with the Left to form Popular Front governments under a Radical president, and in the 1970s, a substantial portion of the party supported Salvador Allende, though by then the party's strength had been severely eroded. Accommodation and compromise were also the hallmarks of democratic institutions such as the Chilean Congress, whose law-making, budgetary, and investigatory powers provided incentives for party leaders to set aside disagreements in matters of mutual benefit. Indeed, the folkways of the legislative institution, stemming from years of close working relationships in committees and on the floor, contributed to the development of legendary private friendships among leaders who were strong public antagonists. Just as significant, however, were such prestigious institutions as the armed forces, the judiciary, and the comptroller general, respected for their "neutrality" and remoteness from the clamor of everyday politics. These institutions provided an important safety valve from the hyperpoliticization of most of public life. The legitimacy of public institutions was further reinforced by a strong commitment to public service, which extended from the presidential palace to the rural police station. Although electoral fraud and vote-buying by political party machines were common, financial corruption remained very rare in Chilean public life, and the vigilance of the Congress and the courts helped prevent wrongdoing for personal gain by public office-holders. Finally, the press of continuous elections forced political leaders to turn away from ideological pursuits and attend to the more mundane side of politics, such as personal favors and other particularistic tasks inherent in a representative system. Congressmen and senators had to look after their party brokers in municipalities and neighborhoods, making sure to provide public funds for a local bridge or jobs for constituents. Often political leaders from different parties joined in advancing the common interests of their constituencies, setting aside acrimonious, abstract debates over the role of the state in the economy or Soviet policy in Asia. In Chile, the politics of ideology, rooted in strong social inequalities, was counterbalanced by the clientelistic politics of electoral accountability reinforced by that same inequality. As will be noted below, many of these elements disappeared during the later 1960s and early 1970s, putting the democratic system under great strain and ultimately contributing to its total collapse.

• ORIGINS OF CHILEAN DEMOCRACY: A THEORETICAL ASSESSMENT • Because it is one of the few cases in which a democratic government was successfully established in the mid-nineteenth century, and an especially dramatic example of democratic failure, Chile constitutes a valuable paradigmatic case in the effort to construct theoretical propositions explaining the origins, consolidation, and breakdown of democratic regimes. Its theoretical utility is enhanced

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b y the f a c t that t h e r e are n o c o m p a r a b l e c a s e s o f d e m o c r a t i c d e v e l o p m e n t o u t s i d e the W e s t e r n E u r o p e a n - N o r t h A m e r i c a n c o n t e x t , o r a m o n g p r i m a r i l y C a t h o lic o r e x p o r t - o r i e n t e d c o u n t r i e s . A s a d e v i a n t c a s e , w h i c h h a s b e e n

largely

n e g l e c t e d in s c h o l a r l y l i t e r a t u r e , C h i l e c a n s e r v e a s a u s e f u l test f o r t h e v a l i d i t y o f t h e o r e t i c a l p r o p o s i t i o n s g e n e r a t e d b y o b s e r v i n g the e x p e r i e n c e o f o t h e r c o u n tries, primarily European.2" T h e m o s t p r o m i n e n t t h e s e s a i m e d at e x p l a i n i n g the d e v e l o p m e n t o f d e m o c r a c y a s s u m e that p o l i t i c a l p r a c t i c e s a n d i n s t i t u t i o n s c a n b e u n d e r s t o o d b y r e f e r e n c e to a s e r i e s o f h i s t o r i c a l , c u l t u r a l , o r e c o n o m i c d e t e r m i n a n t s . It is t h e c e n tral a r g u m e n t o f this c h a p t e r that s u c h a p p r o a c h e s f a l l short in a c c o u n t i n g f o r C h i l e a n e x c e p t i o n a l i t y , a n d that the C h i l e a n c a s e c a n b e b e s t e x p l a i n e d b y c o n s i d e r i n g p o l i t i c a l f a c t o r s a s i n d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e s in t h e i r o w n r i g h t . T h i s s e c t i o n w i l l r e v i e w the " d e t e r m i n a n t s " o f d e m o c r a c y e m b o d i e d in w h a t c a n b e called

the

colonial-continuity

thesis,

the

political-culture

thesis,

and

the

e c o n o m i c - c l a s s - s t r u c t u r e t h e s i s . - 1 It w i l l t h e n turn to an a n a l y s i s o f t h o s e p o l i t i c a l v a r i a b l e s that are m o s t h e l p f u l in u n d e r s t a n d i n g C h i l e ' s p o l i t i c a l e v o l u t i o n , v a r i a b l e s that c a n a d d to the d e v e l o p m e n t o f t h e o r e t i c a l p r o p o s i t i o n s to b e t e s t e d in o t h e r c o n t e x t s . N a t u r a l l y , a n y h y p o t h e s e s d e r i v e d f r o m the C h i l e a n c a s e o r a n y s i n g l e c a s e w i l l r e m a i n t e n t a t i v e until s u b j e c t e d to s y s t e m a t i c c o m p a r a t i v e a n a l y s i s d r a w ing on a broader s a m p l e o f carefully c h o s e n observations. Without c o m p a r a t i v e e v i d e n c e it w o u l d b e d i f f i c u l t to i d e n t i f y t h o s e f a c t o r s that are g e n e r a l i z a b l e a n d c o n s t i t u t e n e c e s s a r y c o n d i t i o n s f o r the d e v e l o p m e n t o f d e m o c r a t i c

practices

a n d i n s t i t u t i o n s , a n d t h o s e that are u n i q u e to a n d u l t i m a t e l y i n c o r r e c t f o r e x p l a i n i n g the s i n g l e c a s e .

T h e Colonial-Continuity Thesis A c c o r d i n g to the c o l o n i a l - c o n t i n u i t y t h e s i s , d e m o c r a t i c p r a c t i c e s w i l l f l o u r i s h in p o s t c o l o n i a l r e g i m e s if i n s t i t u t i o n s f o r s e l f - r u l e , e v e n i f l i m i t e d , w e r e in p l a c e f o r s e v e r a l g e n e r a t i o n s d u r i n g c o l o n i a l t i m e s , a n d if the t r a n s i t i o n f r o m c o l o n y t o i n d e p e n d e n t state w a s a c c o m p l i s h e d w i t h o u t t o o m u c h v i o l e n c e a n d d e s t r u c t i o n o f t h o s e i n s t i t u t i o n s . B o t h t h e s e c o n d i t i o n s f i g u r e p r o m i n e n t l y in a c c o u n t s o f the o u t c o m e o f the B r i t i s h d e c o l o n i z a t i o n e x p e r i e n c e s o f the e i g h t e e n t h a n d t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r i e s . 2 2 It is c l e a r that this t h e s i s c a n n o t a c c o u n t f o r the C h i l e a n c a s e . A l t h o u g h C h i l e w a s a m o r e i s o l a t e d c o l o n y than the m a j o r c e n t e r s o f S p a n i s h r u l e in the n e w w o r l d , t h e r e is n o e v i d e n c e that the c o l o n y w a s a b l e to g a i n t h e n e c e s s a r y a u t o n o m y to d e v e l o p i n s t i t u t i o n s o f s e l f - r u l e that w o u l d c a r r y it i n t o the p o s t i n d e p e n d e n c e p e r i o d . C h i l e w a s s u b j e c t to t h e s a m e patrim o n i a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d m e r c a n t i l i s t i c p o l i c i e s that d i s c o u r a g e d e x p r e s s i o n s o f political or e c o n o m i c independence and f r o w n e d on participatory institutions a s c o n t r a r y to t h e f u n d a m e n t a l c o n c e p t i o n o f m o n a r c h i c a l r u l e . T h e c o l o n i e s w e r e t h e p e r s o n a l p r o p e r t y o f the k i n g , s u b j e c t to h i s d i r e c t c o n t r o l . M o r e o v e r , the C h i l e a n w a r s o f i n d e p e n d e n c e w e r e p r o f o u n d l y d i s r u p t i v e o f the p r e v i o u s

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political order, plunging the nation into a fratricidal conflict that tore asunder institutions and political practices that had been in place for generations. Although Chileans later established democratic rule, this a c c o m p l i s h m e n t had little to d o with the political experiences gained in colonial times. 2 1 There is, however, a variant of the continuity thesis that must be addressed because it constitutes the principal explanation found in the historiographical literature dealing with Chilean exceptionality. According to this thesis, Chile deviated f r o m the pattern that held sway in nineteenth-century Latin A m e r i c a not because its colonial institutions were more liberal, but because its postindependence institutions were more conservative. This argument holds that Diego Portales, the cabinet minister w h o d o m i n a t e d the g o v e r n m e n t of President Prieto during the 1830s, helped to establish firm and authoritarian rule equivalent to that of the Spanish crown during the colonial era, thus rescuing Chile f r o m misguided liberals e n a m o r e d with unrealistic federal f o r m u l a e and excessive freedoms. 2 4 Chile succeeded not because it broke f r o m the colonial past, this argument holds, but because it reimposed that past. Morse articulates the point: Chile was an example perhaps unparalleled of a Spanish American country which managed, after a twelve-year transitional period, to avoid the extremes of tyranny and anarchy with a political system unencumbered by the mechanisms and party rhetoric of exotic liberalism. . . . [T]he structure of the Spanish patrimonial state was recreated with only those minimum c o n c e s s i o n s to Anglo-French constitutionalism that were necessary for a nineteenth century republic which had just rejected monarchical rule. 25

It is disingenuous to a r g u e , as most Chileans d o , that Portales forged Chile's institutions singlehandedly. T h e minister was in o f f i c e for only a total of three years, had little to d o with drafting the 1833 Constitution, and died in office at a time when his g o v e r n m e n t was under serious challenge. 2 6 Regardless of Portales' role, it is also profoundly mistaken to argue that Chile's concessions to Anglo-French constitutionalism were m i n i m a l . T h e political system established by the Constitution of 1833 was qualitatively different f r o m the colonial system of the past, bearing far greater resemblance to the institutions and practices followed in the North A m e r i c a n colonies, and the c o m p r o m i s e s struck at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, than to the institutions set u p by the Castilian rulers. In Weberian terms, Chile's new constitutional f o r m u l a substituted rationallegal authority for traditional authority; that is, it replaced the authority of an hereditary monarch, w h o s e p o w e r was inherent in his person by virtue of divinely ordained practices going back generations, with the authority of an elected president w h o s e p o w e r derived f r o m the o f f i c e as defined by law. Moreover, rather than recreating colonial patterns of political d o m i n a t i o n , nineteenth-century Chilean politics f r o m the outset e x p a n d e d the concept of citizenship (a radical notion at the time) and a f f i r m e d the legitimacy of elected assemblies to claim political sovereignty equally with the chief executive.

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When viewed in this light, the achievements of the forgers of Chilean institutionality are very significant in contrast to those of their North American counterparts, who fashioned their institutions and practices by drawing on generations of experience with self-rule within the political framework of Tudor England. 27 The Political-Culture Thesis Perhaps the most influential set of propositions associated with the development of democratic institutions are those that hold that democracy requires a country's citizens, or at the very least its politically active elites, to share the liberal beliefs and values that are the hallmark of the Enlightenment. These include values conducive to accepting the equality of all people and their fundamental worth, values tolerating opposition and the free expression of ideas, and values celebrating the legitimacy of moderation and compromise. In short, they are the values associated with participatory politics as opposed to authoritarian patterns of governance. These political-culture variables have figured prominently in efforts to explain the general failure of democracy in Latin America and in Latin Europe, and the success of democracy in Protestant Europe and the United States. Democracy succeeded in the United States, this argument holds, because the British colonies were populated by settlers already imbued with more egalitarian values stemming from the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the colonizers of Latin America brought aristocratic and feudal values reinforced by a Catholic faith stressing the importance of hierarchy, authority, corporativism, and the immutability of the traditional social order.28 But if the absence of democracy in Latin America is explained by the lack of appropriate beliefs, how can we account for the Chilean case? Were Chileans, located in one of the most remote colonies of the empire and dominated by an aristocracy of Basque descent, less tied to royal institutions? Or was the Chilean church more liberal or less influential in the social and political life of the colony? None of the historical evidence supports these contentions. To the contrary, Chile's isolation had made the colony one of the most traditional on the continent. Royalist sentiment was as strong in Chile as anywhere else, and troops who fought with the Spaniards to suppress the insurrection were recruited locally. Similarly, the church was as conservative as in other countries and retained the strong backing of the local aristocracy despite its close ties with the colonial power. Chilean elites were no less Catholic than the political elites of other former colonies. 29 A variant of the political-culture thesis holds that it is not so much the religious traditions or political practices of the past that condition political beliefs and attitudes, but the authority relations found in secondary spheres of society: the workplace, the family, or the educational system.30 Of particular importance in a predominantly agricultural society are the social relations of production re-

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suiting from the country's land-tenure system. Where land is concentrated in a small number of estates with traditional patron-client authority relations, this thesis argues, political values will be hierarchical and authoritarian. Where land is divided more equally and exploited by family farmers and contract labor, political values will be more egalitarian and democratic, facilitating the development of democratic politics. This is the argument that Booth makes in attempting to account for democratic development in Costa R i c a . " Dahl echoes this approach when he suggests that the Chilean case can be explained by "considerable equality in distribution of land and instruments of coercion, reinforced by norms favoring social and political equality. " 1 ; However, Dahl's argument also fails to stand up to historical scrutiny. Chile's system of social relations and stratification was one of the most rigid and traditional on the continent, based on large landed estates and semifeudal relationships of authority between landlord and peasant. Authority relations in the family and in the educational system, still under church tutelage, were also authoritarian and hierarchical. 1 1 The wars of independence disrupted the country's social structure less than they did elsewhere. As Domínguez notes, "Chile lagged behind the other colonies, although it had experienced economic growth and mobilization. Its society had been transformed the least. The social bonds within it remained strong. Centralization had not been advanced nor had society been pluralized. Traditional elites remained strong, and traditional orientations prevailed." 1 4 Throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, the traditional nature of social relations in the countryside remained one of the most striking features of the Chilean social structure. Despite the rise of an urban working class and the democratization of other spheres of social life, rural social relations were not significantly altered until the 1960s, when agrarian reform was finally undertaken as national policy. 15 There is no reason to assume that the evolution of democratic politics in Chile in the nineteenth century was due to more "favorable" political-culture variables. The failure of cultural explanations to account for the Chilean case raises serious questions about the underlying assumption that there is a direct fit between societal values and political institutions. It is very unlikely that Chile had societal values comparable to those of Norway, Australia, or the United States (though they may not have been too dissimilar to those found in classconcious Britain), yet the political outcomes were not dissimilar. Several students of democracy have argued that "stable" democracy is the product not only of liberal and participatory values, but of a mixture of participatory and deferential ones. However, in the absence of a clearly defined set of values that relate to democracy, it is difficult to ascertain which mix is appropriate. As a result, there is a real temptation to engage in circular reasoning: If a particular regime was stable or had the requisite democratic characteristics, it was assumed it had ipso facto the appropriate value structure. Although egalitarian and democratic values were not necessary to structure democratic institutions and procedures, the Chilean case suggests that the exer-

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cise of democratic practices over a period of time encourages the d e v e l o p m e n t of certain norms of political conduct and reinforces belief in the legitimacy of the rules of the g a m e . As early as the 1850s, Chilean political elites of different ideological persuasions worked together in Congress to a d v a n c e c o m m o n objectives, thus developing habits of flexibility and c o m p r o m i s e . T h e Radicals, w h o were excluded f r o m d e c i s i o n m a k i n g roles in Argentina until after the 1912 Saenz Pena law, were invited to serve in cabinets fifty years earlier in Chile. As an industrial working class d e v e l o p e d , moreover, Chilean elites, despite serious objections to accepting the principle of collective bargaining at the w o r k p l a c e and brutal repression of the incipient labor m o v e m e n t , accepted the legitimate role of working-class parties in the arena of electoral competition and eventually in the corridors of power. Democratic institutions c a m e to be accepted by most Chileans as the best way to resolve disagreements and set national policy. By mid-twentieth century, ordinary Chileans took great pride in their civic duties, participating enthusiastically in an electoral process that made Chile distinctive a m o n g Third World nations. In s u m , Chilean d e m o c r a c y emerged without strongly held democratic values. But the practice of d e m o c racy itself instilled norms of give-and-take, tolerance, and respect for f u n d a mental liberties that were widely shared by the population as a whole." 1 This does not m e a n that democratic politics in Chile were centrist-oriented and devoid of sharp conflict. In 1891, after thirty years of domestic tranquility, the strongly felt political a n a t a g o n i s m s generated by the executivecongressional impasse spilled o n t o the battlefield, a conflict that nonetheless pales by comparison with the U. S. Civil War, which also took place eighty years after the Declaration of I n d e p e n d e n c e . T h e deep ideological d i s a g r e e m e n t s of twentieth-century Chile continuously challenged the c o u n t r y ' s institutions and practices. T h e Chilean case and those of o t h e r h i g h l y polarized political s y s t e m s like Italy, France, and Finland show that consensus on the f u n d a m e n t a l s of public policy can be relatively low, while consensus on the rules and procedures f o r arriving at policy decisions can be high. It was not moderation that m a d e Chilean d e m o c r a c y function; It was Chilean d e m o c r a c y that helped moderate political passions and m a n a g e deep-seated divisions. A democratic political culture is not an abstract set of beliefs or psychological predispositions g o v e r n i n g interpersonal relations in the b o d y politic, but practical and ingrained traditions and working relations based on regularized patterns of political interaction in the context of representative institutions. A s will be noted below, with the breakdown of democracy, Chile lost not only representative rule, but the institutional fabric that helped d e f i n e m a n y of the values of democratic h u m a n conduct.

The Economic-Class-Structure Thesis While there is broad variation in studies e m p h a s i z i n g the e c o n o m i c determinants of democracy, they can be divided into two categories: those relating de-

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m o c r a c y to overall levels of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t ; and those focusing on the contribution to the creation of democratic institutions of particular groups or classes that e m e r g e as a result of e c o n o m i c transformations in society. T h e first group draws on the insights of " m o d e r n i z a t i o n " theory, arguing that e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t leads to more c o m p l e x , differentiated, secularized, and educated societies, o p e n i n g the way f o r the rise of new groups and institutions that find expression in democratic p r a c t i c e s . " In addition, economic growth is said to provide channels for upward mobility and for ameliorating the sharp social disparities f o u n d in poor societies, disparities that undermine d e m o c r a t i c p e r f o r m a n c e . Empirical evidence for these propositions was advanced in a host of cross-national studies conducted in the late 1960s, inspired by Lipset's classic article on the " e c o n o m i c correlates of democracy." 1 * The main difficulty with these studies in explaining the Chilean case is that they are ahistorical. Chile in the nineteenth century, like most incipient democracies of the time, was a rural, pre-industrial society with very low levels of personal wealth and literacy, yet it met many of the criteria for democratic p e r f o r m a n c e . In the twentieth century, as several authors have noted, Chile was clearly an outlier, exhibiting m a n y of the characteristics of e c o n o m i c underdevelopment while boasting high scores on democratic performance. 1 9 As Linz has argued, explanations that draw on levels of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t d o not contribute m u c h to our understanding of the origins and development of democratic politics. 4 " Scholars writing in a Marxist tradition have argued that the most important variable is not overall e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , but the rise of rural and urban middle classes capable of challenging the m o n o p o l y of landed elites and breaking their political power. Based on his reflections on the European case, Therborn attributes the rise of democracy to the e m e r g e n c e of agrarian bourgeois g r o u p s , giving particular e m p h a s i s to "the strength of these agrarian classes and the degree of their i n d e p e n d e n c e f r o m the landowning aristocracy and urban big capital." 4 1 M o o r e goes further, presenting a more c o m p l e x argument. For M o o r e , as f o r T h e r b o r n , the d e v e l o p m e n t of a bourgeoisie was central to the d e v e l o p m e n t of democracy. However, whether a country actually followed a democratic path d e p e n d e d on how agriculture was c o m m e r c i a l i z e d , whether or not it b e c a m e "labor repressive" or "market commercial." 4 2 As with the political-culture thesis, it is difficult to accept the applicability of the e c o n o m i c - c l a s s - s t r u c t u r e thesis to the Chilean case. As noted earlier, Chilean agriculture remained "labor repressive" well into the twentieth century, retaining a high concentration of land ownership. A n d t h o u g h , as D o m í n g u e z notes, Chilean agriculture w a s geared by the eighteenth century to the export of w h e a t , wheat production was never commercialized as in North A m e r i c a . As in czarist Russia, it was e x p a n d e d with only minimal m o d i f i c a t i o n s to the traditional manorial system. 4 1 By the same token, and despite s o m e interpretations of Chilean history that stress the rise of an urban bourgeoisie as the key liberalizing f o r c e , Chile did not d e v e l o p a strong and independent urban-based bour-

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g e o i s i e b e f o r e the d e v e l o p m e n t o f d e m o c r a t i c r u l e s a n d p r o c e d u r e s . A l t h o u g h m i n i n g i n t e r e s t s b e c a m e p o w e r f u l a n d s o m e o f the m o s t p r o m i n e n t m i n e o w n e r s w e r e i d e n t i f i e d w i t h t h e R a d i c a l P a r t y , it is m i s t a k e n t o i d e n t i f y C h i l e a n m i n i n g interests as representatives o f a n e w and differentiated b o u r g e o i s class. Other, e q u a l l y p r o m i n e n t m i n e o w n e r s h a d c l o s e t i e s to the C o n s e r v a t i v e P a r t y , a n d m a n y m e m b e r s o f the C h i l e a n e l i t e h a d b o t h m i n i n g a n d a g r i c u l t u r a l i n t e r e s t s . 4 4 H o w e v e r , the m o s t t e l l i n g a r g u m e n t a g a i n s t the e c o n o m i c - c l a s s - s t r u c t u r e t h e s i s h a s a l r e a d y b e e n a n t i c i p a t e d in the h i s t o r i c a l d i s c u s s i o n at the b e g i n n i n g o f t h i s c h a p t e r . T h e r i s e o f d e m o c r a c y in C h i l e — i n c l u d i n g the l i m i t a t i o n s o n p r e s i d e n t i a l a u t h o r i t y , the e x p a n s i o n o f l e g i s l a t i v e p r e r o g a t i v e s , a n d t h e e x t e n s i o n o f s u f f r a g e — t o o k p l a c e not o v e r the o b j e c t i o n s o f the c o n s e r v a t i v e l a n d e d e l i t e s b u t , a s in B r i t a i n , at t h e i r i n s t i g a t i o n . If the t r a d i t i o n a l l a n d o w n i n g c l a s s , w h i c h c h a m p i o n e d t h e R o m a n C a t h o l i c c h u r c h , d e c i d e d to s u p p o r t s u f f r a g e e x p a n s i o n and the d e v e l o p m e n t o f d e m o c r a t i c institutions, then theoretical e x p l a n a t i o n s that h o l d that d e m o c r a c y e m e r g e s o n l y w i t h t h e d e s t r u c t i o n o f that c l a s s are l e s s than a d e q u a t e . T h i s is a c e n t r a l p o i n t , to w h i c h w e w i l l r e t u r n .

T h e Political-Determinants Thesis A n e x a m i n a t i o n o f v a r i o u s t h e s e s d e a l i n g w i t h the h i s t o r i c a l , c u l t u r a l , a n d e c o n o m i c " d e t e r m i n a n t s " o f d e m o c r a c y s u g g e s t s that t h e y are not p a r t i c u l a r l y u s e f u l in e x p l a i n i n g the C h i l e a n c a s e . W h a t is m o r e , the C h i l e a n c a s e , a s o n e o f s u c c e s s f u l d e m o c r a t i c d e v e l o p m e n t that d o e s not c o n f o r m to the p r i n c i p a l a r g u m e n t s o f those theses, raises serious questions about their overall validity. H o w e v e r , f r o m this e v i d e n c e a l o n e it w o u l d b e c l e a r l y m i s t a k e n to a r g u e that t h e s e f a c t o r s p l a y n o s u b s t a n t i a l r o l e in d e m o c r a t i c d e v e l o p m e n t . A " l i b e r a l " c o l o n i a l tradition, egalitarian v a l u e s , e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , and a variegated social s t r u c t u r e are u n d o u b t e d l y c o n d u c i v e t o the i m p l e m e n t a t i o n and a c c e p t a n c e o f i n s t i t u t i o n s o f s e l f - g o v e r n a n c e . I n d e e d , a p e r s p e c t i v e s u c h a s the o n e a d v o c a t e d h e r e , the p o l i t i c a l - d e t e r m i n a n t s t h e s i s , w h i c h s t r e s s e s the i m p o r t a n c e o f d i s crete political variables and e v e n historical accidents as independent variables, n e e d n o t e s c h e w t h e e c o n o m i c a n d c u l t u r a l c o n s t a n t s n o r shy a w a y f r o m d e v e l o p i n g g e n e r a l i z a t i o n s that r e l a t e s o c i o e c o n o m i c to p o l i t i c a l v a r i a b l e s . T h e p o i n t is that t h e s e c u l t u r a l a n d e c o n o m i c v a r i a b l e s are h a r d l y d e t e r m i n a n t s o f democratic practices. T h e y m a y very well be important contributory or e v e n s u f f i c i e n t c o n d i t i o n s ; but t h e y a r e not n e c e s s a r y o n e s . A h i s t o r i c a l r e v i e w o f the d e v e l o p m e n t o f C h i l e a n p o l i t i c a l i n s t i t u t i o n s i m m e d i a t e l y s u g g e s t s the u t i l i t y o f the " p o l i t i c a l - c r i s i s " literature d e v e l o p e d b y p o l i t i c a l s c i e n t i s t s . A c c o r d i n g t o t h i s l i t e r a t u r e , all c o u n t r i e s f a c e s e v e r e c h a l l e n g e s in d e v e l o p i n g d e m o c r a t i c i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d , d e p e n d i n g o n the t i m i n g a n d s e q u e n c e o f t h o s e c h a l l e n g e s , h a v e g r e a t e r o r l e s s e r s u c c e s s in a c h i e v i n g d e m o c r a t i c s t a b i l i t y . 4 5 A l t h o u g h the c h a l l e n g e s v a r y in k i n d a n d n u m b e r , m o s t a u t h o r s v i e w the c r i s e s o f national identity (creating a sense o f national c o m m u n i t y o v e r p a r o c h i a l l o y a l t i e s ) , a u t h o r i t y ( e s t a b l i s h i n g v i a b l e state s t r u c t u r e s ) , a n d p a r t i c i -

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pation (incorporating the citizenry into the political system) as crucial. In addition, the sequence and timing of the appearance of these problems o n the historical scene can seriously affect the political o u t c o m e . As Nordlinger puts it, "the probabilities of a political system developing in a nonviolent, nonauthoritarian, and eventually democratically viable m a n n e r are maximized w h e n a national identity e m e r g e s first, followed by the institutionalization of the central g o v e r n m e n t , and then the e m e r g e n c e of mass parties and mass electorate." 4 " It can be argued that Chile followed this " o p t i m a l " sequence and that the timing was also favorable, particularly with respect to the e m e r g e n c e of the participation crisis, which did not b e c o m e a critical issue until after central authority structures had been consolidated. 4 7 National identity. It is doubtful that Chileans considered themselves a nation before independence, because there were far fewer m e c h a n i s m s of social c o m m u n i c a t i o n and e x c h a n g e than in North America and a far more ubiquitous set of colonial authority structures. 4 " However, the clear-cut military victory in the war against the Peru-Bolivia C o n f e d e r a t i o n , a victory without parallel in Latin A m e r i c a , gave the small, divided nation a powerful new sense of confid e n c e and purpose, creating tangible symbols of patriotism and nationality. T h e s e feelings were reinforced with the victory of Chilean forces in the War of the Pacific, which led to the incorporation of large portions of Peruvian and Bolivian territory into national boundaries. Political authority. Rustow has noted the importance of distinguishing b e t w e e n establishing and consolidating institutions of democracy. Consolidation involves a lengthy process of " h a b i t u a t i o n , " which is not necessarily unilinear; there can be reversals and even breakdown. 4 9 In consolidating political authority in Chile, five factors were critically important: leadership; state aut o n o m y ; g o v e r n m e n t e f f i c a c y ; civilian control of the armed forces; and conservative support for democratic rules. T h e first important element was leadership. General Bulnes, drawing on his c o m m a n d of the most p o w e r f u l armed forces in the country and his widespread popularity, could have easily used his position to establish personal rule, following the pattern of notable Latin American caudillos such as Paez in Venezuela, Rosas in Argentina, or Santa A n a in M e x i c o . Instead, like Washington in the United States, he insisted on working within the f r a m e w o r k of established political institutions and chose to leave o f f i c e at the end of his term, making way f o r his successor. His willingness while in o f f i c e to underscore the aut o n o m y of the courts, accept the role of C o n g r e s s in policy, and allow ministerial cabinets to formulate the g o v e r n m e n t ' s program set a precedent for his successor and future administrations, and helped to establish the legitimacy of democratic institutions.™ T h e second important factor was state autonomy. A crucial legacy of B u l n e s ' a n d , later, M o n t t ' s respect for constitutionally m a n d a t e d institutions

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was the development of politics and government service as a vocation. An impressive group of functionaries and legislators emerged who were committed to strengthening and expanding the secular state. By 1860, more than 2 , 5 0 0 people worked for the state, not including local officials, construction workers, and members of the armed forces. All of Chile's nineteenth-century presidents save one had extensive congressional experience before being elected to office, and five who took office before 1886 began their careers in the Bulnes administration. Between Bulnes and Pinochet, only two of Chile's twenty-two presidents were career military officers, and both of those were freely elected with political-party support in moments of political crisis. M The third element was governmental efficacy. Under the leadership of the first three presidents to serve after 1830, the Chilean economy performed relatively well. This not only brought credit to the new institutions and leaders of the independent nation, but more importantly, it gave the government elites time and autonomy to begin state consolidation. By the time important interests sought to stop the expansion of the secular state, it had garnered significant political, financial, and military strength. s The fourth factor was control of the armed forces by civilian governmental leaders. By deliberately refusing until after the War of the Pacific to create a professional military establishment, while retaining close political control over an effective national militia, Chilean officials were able to establish a monopoly over the control of force and a tradition of civilian supremacy over the military. The military challenges of 1851 and 1859 were defeated, discouraging dissident elites from gathering their own military force to challenge national authority structures. The fifth factor was conservative support for democratic rules. This factor is directly related to the development of state autonomy and control of the military. Control of the military prevented aggrieved sectors of the elites from resorting to insurrectionary movements in order to prevent state action or to capture the state by force. Thus such elites, including conservative landholders, were forced to turn to democratic procedures already in place, and indeed to seek their expansion, in order to preserve and advance their interests. Far from being a minor footnote in history, this support of the Chilean conservatives for liberal rules was of central importance. It led to the creation of a Conservative Party, committed to representative institutions, which had no exact parallel in Latin America or Latin Europe. This leads to a basic proposition: that the origins and evolution of democratic institutions and procedures are determined more by the choices made by key elites seeking to maximize their interests within the framework of specific structural and political parameters, than they are by abstract cultural or economic factors. Chilean elites, initially hostile to democracy, came to embrace democratic rules as a conscious choice for political survival, in the process contributing to the strengthening of those institutions over the years. 5 1 Where political elites have fewer incentives to support democratic institutions, and, in par-

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ticular, where resorting to force to prevent the distribution of p o w e r through the expansion of citizenship is a viable option for those elites, the consolidation of democratic authority structures is seriously j e o p a r d i z e d . Participation. Perhaps the greatest challenge to the consolidation of stable d e m o c r a c y is the expansion of citizenship rights to nonelite elements, and the incorporation into the political process of new groups and classes. Like Britain and Norway, but unlike Latin Europe, the consolidation of democratic institutions in Chile benefited f r o m a gradual extension of s u f f r a g e , less in response to pressures f r o m below than as a c o n s e q u e n c e of interelite rivalries and strategies to m a x i m i z e electoral gain. Like Britain, but unlike Latin Europe, Chile found in the elites of the Conservative Party the driving force in the first pivotal extension of s u f f r a g e in 1874. This took place a dozen years before the French Third Republic teetered on the brink of collapse with B o u l a n g i s m e , and twenty-five years before the French Right, still resisting republicanism and democracy, b e c a m e embroiled in the D r e y f u s Affair, it also took place forty years before the p o p e lifted the non-expedit that barred Catholics f r o m participating in Italian elections. T h e extension of s u f f r a g e in Chile clearly benefited the Conservatives w h o controlled the countryside, but it also benefited middle-class sectors w h o identified with the growing urban-based Radical Party. Forty-two years before the adoption of the Saenz Pena Law in Argentina, which forced reluctant Conservatives to suddenly e x p a n d the electoral system to permit the Radical Party's eruption on the political stage, Chile had initiated the gradual expansion of s u f f r a g e , permitting middle-class sectors to b e c o m e full participants in ministerial and congressional politics. In a classic case of what Merton calls the unanticipated c o n s e q u e n c e s of purposive social action, the expansion of s u f f r a g e in Chile also soon benefited the growing working class. M But the entry of the working class into politics in Chile was also gradual, c o m i n g both after the consolidation of parliamentary institutions and after middle-class parties had b e c o m e full actors in the political process. I n d e e d , in the 1910s, s u f f r a g e expansion was actually limited by c o m plex electoral rules and byzantine electoral pacts in which the working-class parties b e c a m e full participants. T h e gradual expansion of s u f f r a g e and incorporation of n e w groups in Chile had s o m e clear implications for the country's democratic d e v e l o p m e n t . Had the pressure for full participation coincided with attempts to set u p d e m o cratic institutions, it is difficult to see how these could have survived. At the same t i m e , however, it is important to stress that in Chile, s u f f r a g e expansion and party d e v e l o p m e n t occurred prior to the growth of a p o w e r f u l and centralized state bureaucracy. T h e growth of the public sector was consequently shaped by organizations w h o s e primary goals were electoral success and accountability. This reinforced the viability of representative institutions. W h e r e strong bureaucracies e m e r g e d before strong parties or legislatures, as in Brazil

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or Argentina, informal or officially sponsored linkage networks without popular representation were much more likely to develop, encouraging corporatist and authoritarian patterns of interest representation." In sum, the political-determinants thesis suggests that the development of democracy must be understood as a complex process that owes much to fortuitous events and variables, such as leadership, that defy quantification and precise definition. It is a long and difficult course, subject to challenges and reversals as societal conditions and the correlations of political forces change. Its chances of success are better in some contexts than others and may depend on the timing and sequence of fundamental societal challenges. In the final analysis, however, democracy involves human choice by competing groups and leaders who must determine whether peaceful mechanisms for the resolution of conflict, based on the concept of popular sovereignty, provide them with the best possible guarantees under the circumstances. More often than not, this choice may stem from an inconclusive struggle for power; a situation of stalemate where there are no clear winners. That being so, democracy can be understood as resulting from a set of compromises—secondpreference choices—in which the concurrence of nondemocrats may be as important as the support of democrats. Once democracy is structured, it provides the key rules of the game, defining the parameters for action and the strategies to be pursued by relevant actors. In time, democratic rules may be accepted as the only proper norms for political conduct, but only if democracy continues to provide guarantees to all players, even if it is not the preferred system of all.

• THE BREAKDOWN OF CHILEAN DEMOCRACY • Chilean Politics and the Dialectic of Regime Breakdown The breakdown of Chilean democracy did not occur overnight. Several developments contributed to the erosion of the country's system of political compromise and accommodation, even before the 1970 election of President Salvador Allende. These included the adoption of a series of reforms aimed at making Chilean politics more "efficient," and the rise of a new and more ideological Center, less willing to play the game of political give-and-take. 56 In 1958, a coalition of the Center and Left joined in enacting a series of electoral reforms aimed at abolishing what were considered corrupt electoral practices. Among the measures was the abolition of joint lists, a longestablished tradition of political pacts that permitted parties of opposing ideological persuasions to structure agreements for mutual electoral benefit. While this reform succeeded in making preelection arrangements less "political," it also eliminated an important tool for cross-party bargaining. More important were reforms aimed at curbing congressional authority, promulgated in the guise of strengthening the executive's ability to deal with Chile's chronic

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economic troubles. Congressional politics were viewed by chief executives and party elites of various political persuasions as excessively incremental and oldfashioned; the antithesis of modern administrative practices. In the name of modernity, the executive was given control of the budgetary process in 1959, and Congress was restricted in its ability to allocate fiscal resources. Indeed, under the Christian Democratic administration (1964-1970), government technocrats pushed strongly to restrict entirely congressional allocations of funds for small patronage projects, even though these represented an infinitesimal portion of the total budget. The most serious blow to congressional authority came with the constitutional reforms enacted in 1970, this time through a coalition of the Right and Center. Among other provisions, the reforms prohibited amendments not germane to a given piece of legislation and sanctioned the use of executive decrees to implement programs approved by the legislature in very broad terms. More significantly, it barred Congress from matters dealing with social security, salary adjustments, and pensions in the private and public sectors—the heart of legislative bargaining in an inflation-ridden society." These reforms went a long way toward cutting back on many of the traditional sources of patronage and log-rolling, reducing the most important political arena for compromise in Chilean politics. Again, the principal motivation was to strengthen executive efficiency. It is clear, however, that the 1960 reformers were also convinced they would be able to win the 1970 presidential election and did not want to have to deal with a difficult Congress in which the Left had a strong presence. Ironically, it was the Left that won the presidency, leaving a legislature with reduced powers in the hands of the Right and Center. Although these changes were significant, they were symptomatic of other far-reaching changes in Chilean politics, the most notable of which was the rise in the 1960s of a new Center party with a markedly different political style. Unlike their predecessor, the pragmatic Radicals, the Chilean Christian Democrats conceived of themselves as a new and vital ideological force in Chilean politics, a middle road between Marxist transformation and preservation of the status quo. The Christian Democrats believed they would be capable of capturing the allegiance of large portions of the electorate from both sides of the political divide, and become a new majority force. In the early 1960s, they began an unprecedented effort at popular mobilization, appealing to women and middleclass voters, as well as factory workers and especially shanty-town dwellers. Their determination to transform the physiognomy of Chilean politics was strengthened by their success in capturing the presidency under the leadership of Eduardo Frei in 1964, in an electoral coalition with the Right, and by their impressive victory in the 1965 congressional race, the best showing by a single party in Chile's modern history. Their success presented a serious challenge to the parties of both the Right and Left. The Right was practically obliterated in the 1965 election, while the Left redoubled its efforts to maintain its constituents and to appeal with a more militant cry to Chile's most destitute citizens.

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O n c e in o f f i c e and heartened by their electoral success, the Christian D e m o c r a t s sought to implement their "revolution in liberty" by disdaining the traditional coalition politics of the past. They were particularly hard on the nowdiminished Radicals, refusing any overtures for collaboration. Unlike the Radicals, they were unwilling to tolerate clientelistic and log-rolling politics or to serve as an effective bridge across parties and groups. Although they enacted critical copper " C h i l e a n i z a t i o n " legislation in concert with the Right, and agrarian reform in coalition with the L e f t , the Christian Democrats went out of their way to govern as a single party and refused to deal with o p p o n e n t s unless they had to. At the same time, they expended large amounts of state resources and vast a m o u n t s of U.S. foreign-aid funds on programs that were clearly designed to e n h a n c e their electoral superiority at the e x p e n s e of both Right and Left. 5 8 T h e Christian D e m o c r a t s ' rigid posture added to the growing radicalization of elites on the Left (particularly the Socialist Party), who feared the electoral challenge of the Center party, and to profound resentment a m o n g elites on the Right, w h o felt betrayed by the reforms, especially in land redistribution, enacted by their erstwhile coalition partners. Radicalization of the Left was also profoundly affected by international events, notably the C u b a n Revolution, which set a new standard for the Latin American Left to emulate. Had the Christian Democrats succeeded in b e c o m i n g a genuine Center majority, the increased ideological tension would not have had such serious institutional repercussions. But despite vast organizational efforts and extraordinary levels of foreign aid f r o m the J o h n s o n administration in Washington, which was anxious to promote Chile as a showcase of democracy on a continent fascinated by C u b a , they did not succeed in breaking the tripartite deadlock of Chilean politics. As a result, even when it b e c a m e apparent that the Christian Democrats would not be able to win the 1970 presidential election in their own right, they were unable to structure preelection coalitions with either the Right or the Left. T h e bulk of the Radical Party joined in supporting Salvador Allende, w h o stunned most observers by edging out rightist Jorge Alessandri by a plurality of 3 6 . 2 percent to 3 4 . 9 percent of the vote. Christian Democratic candidate R a d o m i r o T o m i c received only 2 7 . 8 percent of the vote. T h e election of Allende was not the result of growing radicalization or political mobilization. Nor was it due, in Huntington's terms, to the inability of Chile's political institutions to channel societal d e m a n d s . Allende won even though he received a smaller percentage of the vote than he had received in his loss to Frei in the two-way race of 1964. Electoral analysis suggests that a greater percentage of newly mobilized voters voted for the Right than for the Left. T h e election results simply underscored the repercussions of the failure of the Right and Center to structure a preelection coalition. 5 " Because no candidate received an absolute majority, the election had to be decided in C o n g r e s s , forcing the creation of a postelection coalition. Christian D e m o c r a t s joined legislators of the Left in c o n f i r m i n g Allende's accession to

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the highest o f f i c e in the nation. But the president's minority status, and his lack of majority support in Congress, meant that like other presidents before him, he would have to tailor his program to the realities of coalition politics in order to succeed, even though the very r e f o r m s that the Right and the Christian D e m o crats had enacted made such c o m p r o m i s e s more difficult. But c o m p r o m i s e was easier said than d o n e . Important elements in the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity, UP) coalition, including Allende's o w n Socialist Party, were openly committed to a revolutionary transformation in the s o c i o e c o n o m i c order and the institutional f r a m e w o r k of Chilean politics. Furthermore, the coalition was unwieldy and fractious, with parties and groups c o m p e t i n g as much with one another for spoils and p o p u l a r support as with the opposition. At the same time, Allende's election touched off an extraordinary reaction f r o m other sectors of Chilean society, w h o feared a pro-Moscow, MarxistLeninist system might be established in Chile, to their detriment. They encouraged sabotage, subversion, and foreign intrigue. On both sides of Chile's divided party s y s t e m , the c o m m i t m e n t to c h a n g e or preservation of the status quo now exceeded the c o m m i t m e n t to the principles and practices of Chile's historic democracy. Under these circumstances, structuring a Center coalition committed to social c h a n g e within the f r a m e w o r k of traditional liberties and democratic guarantees was crucial to the system's survival. However, like the Christian Democrats before t h e m , m a n y leaders of the U P coalition b e c a m e convinced that bold use of state p o w e r could break the political deadlock and swing the balance to the Left. This misconception led them to enact a host of ill-conceived redistributive and stimulative e c o n o m i c measures, which aggravated inflation and generated serious e c o n o m i c difficulties. W h e n combined with measures of questionable legality to bring private business under state control, these policies alienated not only Chile's corporate elite, but also small businessmen and much of Chile's middle class. In an a t m o s p h e r e of growing suspicion and violence, the lines of c o m m u n i cation b e t w e e n leaders and followers of opposing parties eroded, accentuating the polarization of Chilean politics. At several key j u n c t u r e s , and despite pressures f r o m both sides, attempts were m a d e to forge a Center c o n s e n s u s and structure the necessary c o m p r o m i s e s that would have saved the regime. But Center g r o u p s and moderate politicians on both sides of the political divide abdicated their responsibility in favor of narrower group stakes and short-term interests. T h e involvement of " n e u t r a l " p o w e r s , such as the courts and the military, only served to politicize those institutions and pave the way for the military c o u p — a c o u p that undermined the very institutions of c o m p r o m i s e and a c c o m modation moderate leaders had professed to d e f e n d . With the failure of C o n gress, parties, the courts, and other state institutions to serve as viable arenas to resolve c o n f l i c t , politics b e c a m e more and more confrontational; contending groups resorted to mobilizing ever greater n u m b e r s of their followers to " p r o v e " their p o w e r capabilities. Politics spilled out of the c h a m b e r s of g o v e r n m e n t onto

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the streets, exacerbating an atmosphere of fear and confrontation."' The Chilean breakdown was a complex and dialectical process, in which time-tested patterns of accommodation were eroded by the rise of a Center unwilling to bridge the gap between extremes, by the decline of institutional arenas of accommodation in the name of technical efficiency, and by the hardening of ideological distance between leaders with radically different conceptions of a good society. It was also the product of gross miscalculations, extremism, narrow group stakes, and the lack of courage in key circumstances. Breakdown was not inevitable. While human action was severely circumscribed by the structural characteristics of Chilean politics and by the course of events, there was still room for choice for a leadership willing to prevent the final denouement. Nor did most Chileans want a military solution to the country's problems. Surveys taken in the weeks before the coup indicated an overwhelming support for democracy and a peaceful outcome of the political crisis.'' 1

Political Structures and Regime Breakdown: A Critique of Presidentialism Although it was not inevitable, the breakdown of Chilean democracy raises serious questions about the viability of particular institutional forms of governance in democratic regimes. It is a premise of this chapter that in Chile there was an inadequate fit between the country's highly polarized and competitive party system, which was incapable of generating majorities, and a presidential system of centralized authority.'' 2 The starting point for this argument must be a recognition that through much of the twentieth century, presidentialism in Chile was in crisis. By definition, a presidential election is a zero-sum game that freezes the outcome for a fixed period of time. In Chile, the winner invariably represented only a third of the electorate, and yet, as the head of government and head of state, he felt responsible for the national destiny as the embodiment of popular sovereignty. As minority presidents, however, Chilean chief executives received weak legislative support or outright congressional opposition. And since they could not seek reelection, there was little incentive for parties, including the president's, to support him beyond mid-term. The fixed terms for both president and Congress contributed to an atmosphere of ungovernability and a feeling of permanent crisis, alleviated only by the willingness of centrist parties or politicians to provide last minute reprieves to beleaguered presidents in exchange for ambassadorial appointments or concessions on policy. Paradoxically, the response to this problem of governance was to seek an increase in presidential power. The resolution of the country's pressing social and economic problems required strong leadership, it was argued, and such leadership should not be thwarted by ideological wrangling and the narrow partisan interest of the parties and the legislature. However, increased presidential power only aggravated the problem by further reducing arenas for accommoda-

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tion and by m a k i n g executive-legislative relations more bitter. Indeed, the stronger the p o w e r of the presidency as a separate constitutional actor, the greater were the disincentives for structuring presidential support a m o n g parties and groups j e a l o u s of their autonomy and future electoral prospects. In Chile, there was an inverse correlation between the power of the presidency and the success of presidential government. T h e stronger the president, the weaker the presidential s y s t e m — a perverse logic that c a m e to a tragic head in the Allende years. A parliamentary system of g o v e r n m e n t would have def u s e d the e n o r m o u s pressures for structuring high-stakes coalitions around a winner-take-all presidential option, which only reinforced political polarization. At the s a m e time, it would have eliminated the stalemate and confrontation in executive-legislative relations. Had Chile had a parliamentary regime in the early 1970s, Allende's government might have fallen, but d e m o c r a c y would have survived. T h e working majority in Congress that elected Allende to the presidential post would have had to continue for him to have retained his position. This was not out of the question. T h e Christian Democrats were close to the U P g o v e r n m e n t on many key points of substance, as attested by the neara g r e e m e n t s at several key junctures of the u n f o l d i n g drama of the U P years. A n d , had the coalition collapsed, it is quite likely that a Christian Democrat, or p e r h a p s a m e m b e r of the small Leftist Radical Party, would have f o r m e d a new g o v e r n m e n t with support froin elements on the Right. It is important to stress that parliamentary politics would have had the opposite e f f e c t of presidential politics on party distance. It would have contributed to moderating Chilean politics by reinforcing the time-honored traditions of give-and-take honed by generations of politicians. Moderate leaders on both sides of the congressional aisle would have gained strength, encouraging centripetal drives toward coalition and c o m p r o m i s e , rather than being outclassed by maximalist leaders w h o thrived in the public arenas of high-stakes electoral battles. Moreover, legislators of all parties would have thought twice about a b a n d o n i n g hard-fought coalition arrangements if they had faced the prospect of immediate reelection, and the greater accountability of having been part of an agreement to structure executive authority. T h e considerations should be b o m e in mind by political leaders of both Right and Left in discussing the transition back to democracy after military rule. Ironically, as will be noted in the next section, the very prospect of a presidential election is one of the principal obstacles in structuring a return to democracy in Chile.

• MILITARY RULE IN CHILE AND THE PROSPECTS FOR REDEMOCRATIZATION • With the coilapse of democracy, Chile was abruptly t r a n f o r m e d f r o m an open and participatory political system into a repressive and authoritarian one. Few

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Chileans could have imagined in S e p t e m b e r 1973 that military intervention would lead to a g o v e r n m e n t so alien to institutions and traditions dating f r o m the nation's f o u n d i n g . Fewer still would have believed that Chile would produce an authoritarian regime capable of outlasting other c o n t e m p o r a r y military gove r n m e n t s on the continent, or that General Pinochet, the obedient c o m m a n d e r w h o assured President Allende of his undivided loyalty, would achieve a degree of personal power rare in the annals of m o d e r n dictatorship. H o w could this transformation have taken place? What has h a p p e n e d to Chilean institutions under military rule? W h a t are the prospects for transition back to stable democracy? Soon after the c o u p , it b e c a m e clear that Chile's military c o m m a n d e r s , with no personal experience of direct involvement in politics, were not about to turn power back to civilian leaders after a brief interregnum. From the outset, they articulated two basic aims.'' 1 T h e first was to destroy the parties of the Left and their collaborators. T h e Chilean military did not interpret its intervention as a simple military c o u p aimed at replacing a g o v e r n m e n t , but as an all-out war to crush an enemy that it believed had infiltrated close to half the population. However, military leaders were convinced that it w a s not only foreign Marxists w h o were to blame for Chile's predicament. They thought the Left had been able to make inroads because of the inherent weaknesses of liberal democracy, which they saw as encouraging corruption and demagoguery. T h u s , their second objective was to engineer a f u n d a m e n t a l restructuring of Chilean political institutions and political life, aimed at " c l e a n i n g " impurities f r o m the body politic while creating a new political order of committed and patriotic citizens, dedicated to m o d e r n i z i n g the country and projecting its grandeur to a hostile world. T h e junta had a clear idea of how to pursue its first objective; it simply took the years of training, a w e s o m e firepower, and many contingency plans that had been developed to protect the constitutional g o v e r n m e n t , and applied t h e m to the n e w task of finding and neutralizing the enemy. Military units m o v e d in to "clean u p " n e i g h b o r h o o d s that were strongholds of the L e f t , as if they were securing e n e m y territory during wartime. 6 4 T h o u s a n d s of party leaders, tradeunion officials, and c o m m u n i t y activists associated with the parties of the Left were "neutralized" through arrests, exile, and, in s o m e cases, death. L a b o r unions were sharply circumscribed, parties were b a n n e d or declared in "rec e s s , " and internal elections were prohibited or closely monitored in all private organizations including professional associations and nonprofit agencies. Citizens, w h o during the Allende years and before had been repeatedly enlisted f o r o n e cause or another, now turned inward and avoided public affairs entirely, either out of fear of reprisals or outright support f o r military rule. Politics, which for generations had revolved around parties and interest groups that p e n e trated all levels of society, was now c o n f i n e d to small g r o u p s of individuals and cabals in the inner corridors of power. O n e of the most highly mobilized societies in the world b e c a m e one of the most d e m o b i l i z e d . T h e j u n t a , however, had a m u c h hazier conception of how political p o w e r

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should be structured, no experience in governing, and no precise blueprint for its foundational program. In the first months and years, the military governed in an ad hoc and arbitrary fashion, at times racked by internal tension. Gradually, however, the commanders succeeded in establishing a degree of national political authority rare among Latin American military regimes. Ironically, a major reason for this achievement was that, in contrast to other bureaucratic authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone, the Chilean military successfully invoked Chile's tradition of political stability and concern for legality to reinforce its own political control. By drawing on the ubiquitous power of the Chilean state and utilizing constitutional principles from Chile's presidentialist tradition, while, at the same time, restoring the principle of military obedience to constituted authority, Chile's commanders were able to structure efficient, if not fully legitimate, governing institutions. An important ingredient of this process was elevating General Pinochet to the role of president of the republic, while he retained his posts as commander-in-chief of the army and a voting member of the four-man junta. Further aiding the consolidation of political rule by Pinochet and his colleagues was the successful effort to implement far-reaching socioeconomic transformations of a more revolutionary nature than those attempted by their elected predecessors.65 It should be stressed that Pinochet did not resort to populist or charismatic rule, as did Juan Perón in Argentina and Getúlio Vargas of Brazil, nor was power based on developing a corrupt political machine like those of Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner or the Somoza clan of Nicaragua. In Chile, the consolidation of political power and one-man rule was due to four fundamental factors. First, Pinochet and his advisers were able to draw on the framework of traditional constitutional legality to justify one-man rule. Second, they could rely on the disciplined and hierarchical nature of the armed forces and the growing power of the secret police. Third, they enjoyed the strong and uncritical support of much of the business community and sectors of the middle class. And fourth, they were able to take advantage of continued sharp divisions in the opposition, which continued to fuel widespread fear among influential Chileans that an end to military rule would permit the Left to resurge and once again challenge the socioeconomic status quo. Constitutional Tradition and the Rise of Pinochet In the immediate aftermath of the coup, the commanders of the army, navy, and air force, and the director general of the Carabineros (Chile's paramilitary police) constituted themselves as a governmental junta, which would exercise executive, legislative, and constitutional authority through unanimous agreement of its members. General Pinochet was selected to be junta president by virtue of his position as leader of the oldest military branch. He argued initially, however, that the junta presidency would rotate on a periodic basis among the commanders. Junta members also agreed to divide up policy areas so that each

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of the services would handle the affairs of different ministries. Even the appointment of university presidents was parceled out among the services, so that Pinochet named the army general who became president of the University of Chile, while Admiral Merino appointed one of his own colleagues to the top post at the Catholic University. Pinochet, however, moved swiftly to assert his position as more than primus inter pares. Although Air Force General Gustavo Leigh was, in the early days, the most articulate, visible, and hardline m e m b e r of the junta, Pinochet proved to be more politically skillful and ambitious. 1 * But, Pinochet owed his ascendancy to more than his personal qualities. Ministers and other governmental officials automatically turned to the junta leader for direction, as they had always done to Chile's constitutional presidents. Soon, Pinochet was far better informed than the other junta members about government issues and began to make day-to-day decisions, including top government appointments, without consulting his colleagues. The growing junta staff, which he "generously" provided the junta from the ranks of the army, and the increasingly assertive secret police, both reported directly to Pinochet. At the same time, key Conservative civilian and military legal advisers, even some of those who worked for other junta members, became increasingly uncomfortable with the concept of collégial rule, fearing that divided authority would lead to incoherent policies and regime instability. Ironically, they were profoundly influenced by Chilean constitutional law and the traditional practices of a strong presidential system. They could not conceive of a system of authority that did not reproduce the structure of Chile's presidential constitution, with its clear separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Working directly with Pinochet, they gradually proposed to the junta, which was overwhelmed by legislative detail and legal and policy complexities, the adoption of several measures aimed at "rationalizing" military rule in conformity with constitutional doctrine. The most important of these was Decree Law 527 of June 26, 1974, which directly took the constitutional framework of the 1925 Constitution and applied it to the military government. It specified that the junta would exercise legislative and constitutional powers, while the junta president would have executive power as "Supreme Chief of the Nation." 6 7 The judiciary, which had shown a strong willingness to support the coup and defer to the armed forces on issues of personal liberties, would remain independent though subject to funding authorizations provided by the junta. Although the other c o m m a n d e r s objected to Pinochet's new title, they went along with the measure, persuaded that it was necessary for the efficient administration of a country whose legal corpus was designed for a presidential regime. They were startled and displeased when Pinochet unexpectedly called a ceremony in which he donned the presidential sash. Although the new statute was designed to institutionalize military authority by providing it with the legitimacy of Chile's presidentialist constitution, it

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failed to institute a genuine separation of p o w e r s . While Pinochet became the nation's chief executive, he continued to serve as one of the f o u r j u n t a m e m b e r s . Since all junta measures required a u n a n i m o u s vote for adoption, any j u n t a m e m b e r could block legislation he did not approve of. B e c a u s e Pinochet could resort to widespread executive authority to i m p l e m e n t policy initiatives, the unanimity rule clearly worked in his favor. H e could either work with the j u n t a or ignore it; but the j u n t a could not function without his consent. A s the chief executive to w h o m ministers, g o v e r n m e n t officials, and an e x p a n d i n g presidential staff reported, Pinochet had incomparably better information than did his colleagues. T h e junta soon b e c a m e a weak legislature o v e r w h e l m e d by initiatives f r o m a large and c o m p l e x state, ably administered by political and economic advisers and a growing secret police—all of w h o m owed exclusive loyalty to the president. As Pinochet's powers grew, his relationship with the j u n t a became more and more conflictive. General Leigh in particular bitterly o p p o s e d Pinochet's ambitions and growing prerogatives, as well as the growing influence over public and e c o n o m i c policy of a g r o u p of free-market e c o n o m i s t s protected by Pinochet. Leigh blocked, in mid-1977, Pinochet's proposal to have junta laws approved by a majority rather than by unanimity. At the end of that year, he also blocked Pinochet's request for junta approval of a r e f e r e n d u m endorsing "President Pinochet in his d e f e n s e of the dignity of C h i l e " in the f a c e of widespread international criticisms of Chilean human-rights policy. Leigh perceived this as a move on the president's part to gain popular legitimacy for his m a n d a t e and to increase further his supremacy over the j u n t a . Pinochet, in the face of junta objections, called the r e f e r e n d u m anyway, invoking executive authority. The tension between Pinochet and Leigh w o r s e n e d as the t w o men continued to clash. But the president, making use of his now-considerable powers of persuasion, was able to get the other junta m e m b e r s to side with him against General Leigh. On July 28, 1978, with the support of the other two j u n t a m e m bers, he forcibly and illegally removed General Leigh f r o m o f f i c e , risking an open and armed confrontation with the air force in order to accomplish his e n d s . M With this coup within the c o u p , Pinochet resolved his principal obstacle to unipersonal control of the Chilean state, control that was formally e m b o d i e d in a legal foundation that reflected the constitutional practices of the past and gave the general the authority of Chile's traditional presidents without the constraints of a democratic political order. With the defeat of opposition within the g o v e r n m e n t , Pinochet m o v e d with more c o n f i d e n c e to design a new constitutional f r a m e w o r k for the country's and his own future. In early 1980, a group of conservative legal advisers sent a constitutional draft to the Council of State for approval and revision. T h e draft, though based on the 1925 Constitution, called for a further increase in presidential authority, including a provision that reduced the a u t o n o m y of legislative bodies, and another that enabled the president to appoint several m e m b e r s of the Senate. T h e Constitution also created a National Security C o u n c i l , c o m -

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posed primarily of the armed forces commanders, with the authority to rebuke any governmental institution, elected or nonelected, if its actions were deemed to be a threat to the national security. Finally, it outlawed parties and politically banned individuals for supporting doctrines that are based on the notion of "class struggle" or that "violate the integrity of the family." 69 The Council of State also proposed a number of transitional provisions, calling for a return to democracy and open presidential elections by 1985. Although a Congress would be named before then, Pinochet would be allowed to continue as president until that date. However, Pinochet rejected these proposals. He made it clear to his advisers that he wanted a document that would enable him to stay in office at least until 1997, or through two more 8-year "constitutional" terms. When his advisers hesitated on the grounds that such a formula would be widely rejected even by the political Right, Pinochet agreed to a compromise whereby the four armed forces commanders (including himself) would select his successor in late 1988 or early 1989, subject to ratification in a popular plebiscite. But he managed to alter the Constitution in one way that made it easier for him to remain in office: The document specifically exempts him, by name, from the provision barring Chilean presidents from succeeding themselves in office. 70 In a 1980 plebiscite, held without electoral registration and in a climate that gave opponents few opportunities to challenge the government publicly, the new Constitution was approved by the voters, establishing Pinochet de jure as the most powerful leader in Chilean history. Military Obedience to Authority Ironically, military obedience to governmental authority, a second important factor in Chile's long democratic tradition, also abetted Pinochet's efforts at consolidating dictatorial supremacy. During the UP years, Chile's armed forces had become increasingly politicized, as officers openly called for the resignation of commanders unwilling to move to overthrow the constitutional government. Pinochet himself was forced to shift at the last minute from a position of loyalty to the elected government to support for a coup when he realized that "his" generals were in open revolt. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, military leaders moved quickly to reestablish the lines of authority within the institution and to stress the professional and "nondeliberative" character of the armed forces. Pinochet proved his shrewdness by retiring those members of his cohort who had led in planning the coup, while at the same time promoting officers who had remained loyal to the institutional chain of command. He thus eliminated potential rivals among officers who had, ironically, forced the military to intervene, while seeking to mold the officer corps into a loyal group of followers completely beholden to Pinochet for their careers. All colonels promoted to the rank of generals were required to provide the army commander with a signed letter of resignation, which Pinochet could use at any moment to end a general's career.

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But, loyalty was assured with more than the threat of sanctions. Under military rule, officers e n j o y e d privileges that they had never dreamed of. In addition to increases in pay and fringe benefits, officers could look forward to attractive rewards such as a m b a s s a d o r s h i p s or m e m b e r s h i p on boards of public and semipublic corporations. G o v e r n m e n t service provided military men with responsibility and status they had never before e n j o y e d in the nation's history. 71 More important for regime stability than the privileges accorded officers w a s the reestablishment of traditional n o r m s of obedience to authority and hierarchy of rank, practices that had eroded in the turbulent final months of the Allende government. This meant that to a degree unheard of in other military regimes the Chilean authorities were able to establish a sharp separation between the military as institution and the military as government. 7 2 High-ranking o f f i c e r s were often brought into governmental positions that ranged f r o m cabinet posts, heads of state agencies, and a m b a s s a d o r s h i p s , to university presidencies and local g o v e r n o r s h i p s . " However, once in g o v e r n m e n t service, officers no longer took orders f r o m their immediate military superiors but reported instead to their superiors in gove r n m e n t , either military or civilian. As g o v e r n m e n t officials, they could discuss policy with their military and civilian counterparts but were barred f r o m discussing these matters with military colleagues serving a strictly military c o m m a n d . I n d e e d , officers in the military line of duty could be dismissed f r o m the services for discussing politics or policy with fellow officers or with civilians. And for the duration of the Pinochet years, military men were not allowed to remain f o r long periods of time in governmental duties, continuously being rotated back to military c o m m a n d . O f f i c e r s w h o were not d e e m e d to be c o m pletely reliable found that their careers were terminated, cutting short a c h a n c e for a lucrative and prestigious post and retirement with high pensions. By serving both as president and commander-in-chief of the army with direct responsibility over the institution, and by strictly observing the separation of the military as g o v e r n m e n t f r o m the military as institution, Pinochet avoided the inherent tensions that develop in military regimes between o f f i c e r s o c c u p y i n g government positions and those serving in the institution itself. 74 Aiding the general's ascendancy and ability to control the armed forces in the early years was the growing p o w e r of the secret police. T h e D I N A (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional or National Bureau of Intelligence), under the direction of Colonel M a n u e l Contreras, a close friend of the Pinochet family, soon b e c a m e a law unto itself. It eliminated with efficient brutality the clandestine leadership of leftist parties in Chile and carried out with impunity a series of high-risk political assassinations abroad, a i m e d at silencing prominent critics of the r e g i m e . But DINA's p o w e r extended beyond its role in fighting the resistance m o v e m e n t . T h e secret organization c a m e to be feared in military and governmental circles as D I N A agents reported on the persona! lives and political proclivities of prominent o f f i c e r s and advisers. It soon developed its own cadres of experts in fields including e c o n o m i c policy, as D I N A officers sought to take

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control of sectors of the Chilean state, particularly the nationalized industries. Pinochet made use of Contreras' services to counter other advisory groups and to strengthen his hand vis-à-vis the j u n t a and the military. 75

Regime Support in the Business Community T h e durability of Chile's military regime cannot be understood without underscoring the strong support for the military in key sectors of Chilean society. Business groups have been profoundly affected by e c o n o m i c policies that have transformed the Chilean e c o n o m y f r o m a state-supported, import-substituting industrialization model to an export-oriented e c o n o m y with low tariff barriers and few government subsidies. Although many Chilean businessmen went bankrupt because of these policies and became bitter o p p o n e n t s of the regime, the bulk of the business c o m m u n i t y remained a strong pillar of the military government. In particular, the government gained p o w e r f u l new supporters in a new breed of d y n a m i c business leaders w h o flourished with the opening of Chile's e c o n o m y to the world market. For Chile's business leaders, d e m o c r a c y had meant the electoral triumph of political forces bent on destroying t h e m . N o matter how objectionable the Pinochet government w a s , it remained a far preferable alternative to the uncertainties of democratic politics. Many people in Chile's middle classes, despite serious reverses, shared these views. It should be stressed that the business community, while supporting the g o v e r n m e n t , had little direct influence in the formulation of public policy. Policies were m a d e by an e c o n o m i c team that had the complete c o n f i d e n c e of the president, and substantial latitude to implement policies without consulting affected groups. T h e use of a group of neutral technocrats with no strong constituency support, but with a clear and sophisticated understanding of e c o n o m i c policy, helped insulate the president f r o m societal pressures and d e m a n d s , contributing further to state autonomy and to his increasing powers.

Political Polarization and a Fragmented Opposition T h e c o u p that ended C h i l e ' s long trajectory of democratic politics was applauded by many sectors of society, while c o n d e m n e d by others. C h i l e ' s rightist parties w e l c o m e d the new authorities and soon agreed to disband, confident that the military w o u l d represent their interests. T h e Christian D e m o c r a t s , C h i l e ' s largest party, reluctantly accepted the c o u p as the inevitable result of the Popular Unity g o v e r n m e n t ' s policies. H o w e v e r , Christian D e m o c r a t s were not prepared to accept the diagnosis of the c o u n t r y ' s new rulers that d e m o c r a c y w a s also at fault and that military rule should be maintained for an indefinite period of time. S o o n , the Christian D e m o c r a t s began to join the parties of the Left in strong criticisms of the r e g i m e ' s human-rights abuses and its redrafting of the nation's institutional structures. By the late 1970s, Christian D e m o c r a t s were able to begin a dialogue with elements on the L e f t , as both groups

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a t t e m p t e d to c o m e to terms with their collective responsibility in the failure of Chile's political order. It was not until 1983, however, that Chile's political parties reasserted t h e m s e l v e s , signaling that the regime's efforts to obliterate them f r o m national life had failed." 1 T h e s p o n t a n e o u s protest m o v e m e n t , begun at the urging of a g r o u p of labor leaders, surprised the party leadership as much as it surprised the regime. T h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s swift repressive measures against labor, rendered vulnerable by high levels of u n e m p l o y m e n t , o p e n e d the door for the party leadership to gain control over the burgeoning opposition m o v e m e n t . In the m o d e r a t e opposition, the Christian D e m o c r a t s sought to create a broad alliance with small groups on the Right and Left in order to structure a proposal for an alternative g o v e r n m e n t that w o u l d press the armed forces to negotiate. On the L e f t , the C o m m u n i s t Party, which had c o u n t e n a n c e d an armed strategy against the r e g i m e , sought to mobilize popular discontent through increasingly militant protests in the expectation that the regime would capitulate. T h i s division, between those that sought p e a c e f u l mobilization in order to e n g a g e in negotiations with the authorities and those that sought sharp and even violent confrontations in order to render the country u n g o v e r n a b l e , is the key to understanding the paralysis of Chile's opposition after 1983. 77 W h e n the regime's intransigence led important sectors on the Right to join with the center and moderate Left and sign a National Accord f o r Transition to Democracy in 1985, calling for free elections and significant modifications in the 1980 C o n stitution, the fragile alliance failed. S o m e groups accused the Right of trying to halt political mobilization in Pinochet's favor; others accused the Left of trying to u n d e r m i n e possible negotiations with the armed forces while alienating middle-class support for the o p p o s i t i o n . At the root of this division is the continued polarization of Chilean politics b e t w e e n a strong Marxist L e f t , which advocates far-reaching s o c i o e c o n o m i c ref o r m s , and a rejuvenated Right, which refuses to have any of the e c o n o m i c gains of authoritarianism threatened. While significant political learning took place in broad quarters of Chilean party life, with Socialists e m b r a c i n g d e m o cratic practices as important e n d s in their o w n right, and Christian D e m o c r a t s v o w i n g not to pursue single-party strategies f o r their o w n g a i n , mistrust remains high as e l e m e n t s on both e x t r e m e s press for radically divergent solutions. A n t i d e m o c r a t s on both sides m a d e it difficult for centrist forces to pursue concerted policies. M o d e r a t e Socialists feared that too many concessions to the regime w o u l d lead to a loss of support a m o n g the f a i t h f u l , w h o might be attracted by the more militant line of the C o m m u n i s t Party or socialist groups affiliated with t h e m . Democratic rightists have feared that they would be isolated and o u t f l a n k e d by Pinochet supporters w h o argued that any c o m p r o m i s e with the opposition is nothing but an o p e n i n g to the C o m m u n i s t Party. T h e Christian D e m o c r a t s , in turn, were i m m o b i l i z e d by sharp internal divisions over fears that the party m i g h t m o v e too close to either the Left or the Right. T h e s a m e logic of polarization that m a d e it difficult to maintain a Center c o n s e n s u s and finally

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helped bring Chilean democracy crashing down in 1973 conspired against structuring a broad and coherent opposition movement to force the military from power. Widespread rejection of the Pinochet regime as illegitimate could not translate into an early return to democracy for lack of a clear alternative.™

• PROSPECTS FOR REDEMOCRATIZATION • Paradoxically, it was the regime that provided the opposition with a rationale for unity and a means to define the transition process in its favor. Although no opposition leader accepted the legitimacy of the plebiscite formula spelled out in the 1980 Constitution, calling instead for open and fair presidential elections as soon as possible, by 1987 most seemed resigned to accepting the plebiscite as a fact of political life. At first, opposition leaders called on Chileans to register in the electoral roles, while still pressing for open presidential elections. Gradually and reluctantly, they began to call on their followers to register to vote N O in the plebiscite that would ratify the individual chosen by the armed forces chiefs to serve the next 8-year presidential term beginning on March 11,1989. The Communist Party and sectors of the socialist Left strongly objected to this "participation in the legality of the regime."They were convinced that registering and voting would simply serve further to legitimize the regime, since they felt that the authorities would not permit a negative result and would resort to fraud if necessary to impose their candidate. Moderate opposition leaders, on the other hand, argued that the plebiscite represented a valuable tool for popular mobilization and an important opportunity to try to defeat the regime at its own g a m e — t h e only viable alternative for an opposition that had not succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship through other means. Reluctantly they agreed to go further than asking citizens to vote: They also proceeded to register their political parties according to government regulations, which limited in several ways the autonomy of party organizations and forced them to engage in a national campaign to collect signatures from potential members, many of whom feared committing themselves publicly to a particular party or movement. Party registration was necessary to entitle opposition groups to name poll watchers to monitor the fairness of the election. The principal groups to register were the Christian Democrats and a loose coalition of Left-of-Center groups that called itself the Party for Democracy. By December 1987 it became clear Chileans were prepared to register and vote in large numbers, forcing party leaders to structure a united effort in an attempt to win the N O vote in the plebiscite. A massive television campaign on the part of the authorities and growing evidence of the use of public resources to bolster the official candidate helped further to galvanize opposition groups into action. T h e Communist Party soon became isolated as its allies on the Left decided to join the N O c o m m a n d . In governmental circles there was considerable speculation that Pinochet

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might not be the candidate selected by the four commanders-in-chief (including Pinochet as commander of the army). Many leaders on the Right felt that the government needed to project its institutions into the future without being tied to the figure of one man. They also feared that Pinochet was too controversial a leader, one around whom the opposition could unite in a simple zero-sum decision. An alternative candidate, preferably a civilian, would contribute to dividing the opposition and depersonalizing the regime. Two of the four commanders shared this view. In late August 1988, however, Pinochet was named the candidate. He was determined to be selected and used the force of his personality and the weight of his office to obtain the designation. Leaders on the Right had not been willing to go too far in proposing an alternative for fear of antagonizing the chief executive. Businessmen who were still heavily indebted to the state were not about to jeopardize key loans by coming out publicly for an alternative. Without strong vocal support from the Right for another candidate, the dissenting commanders were not able to press for an alternative, particularly since Pinochet's supporters argued effectively that he was the country's most prominent figure and could win popular support. Government and military leaders were confident that an improved economy, a massive housing and public-works program, and a saturation television campaign would tip the balance in favor of the regime. In particular, they felt that most Chileans did not want uncertainty and the fear of a return to a Marxist government; that television and other media could effectively remind them of the dangers of not supporting the regime. Furthermore, key government officials and advisers in both the military and civjlian sectors repeatedly stressed that their evidence pointed to a strong victory for Pinochet as the only candidate to appear on the ballot. They noted that the disarray and divisions in the opposition would only strengthen the government's position. The Chilean authorities came under considerable pressure internally and internationally to stage a fair contest, even though the plebiscite formula was widely criticized as undemocratic. Chile's tradition of fair and free elections, combined with the military regime's own desire to assert its legitimacy, contributed to the structuring of virtually fraud-proof voting procedures. The contest was unequal, however, because the government used substantial resources for media efforts on behalf of its "record" and made ample use of the authority of provincial leaders and mayors to give an advantage to the YES campaign. The opposition was able to turn to television only in the last month, after Pinochet had been officially nominated, and then was restricted to fifteen minutes of free air time a day, to be shared in equal amounts with the YES campaign. To the surprise of most people, particularly in the government, the opposition groups mounted an extraordinarily successful media and door-to-door campaign in the last few weeks before the elections. With limited resources and relying on volunteer workers, they successfully countered the "fear" campaign of the government by stressing a positive and upbeat message. NO came to denote

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happiness and the future, while the Y E S campaign remained mired in the past. T h e drive to produce advertisements, recruit poll watchers, to set u p an e f f e c tive parallel vote c o u n t , and to conduct door-to-door c a m p a i g n s cemented further the unity of the sixteen parties that f o r m e d the N O c o m m a n d . International support, particularly through the U.S. National E n d o w m e n t for D e m o c racy, channeled through the National Democratic Institute for International A f f a i r s , contributed important resources for the media c a m p a i g n and for the c o m p u t e r system designed to monitor the electoral count. T h e victory of opposition forces by a 12-percent margin was a stunning achievement. Ninety-seven percent of the registered voters (representing 92 percent of the eligible population) went to the polls, and the opposition won in all but two of the country's twelve regions. Pinochet lost a m o n g most categories of voters, including w o m e n and provincial dwellers. Two elements were critical in making it possible for the N O vote to win and to derail plans by s o m e elements close to Pinochet to create a climate of violence that they hoped would lead to canceling the plebiscite. First, elements in the military and in the civilian political Right expected a fair contest and would not have tolerated any disruption of the process. Pinochet w a s the most p o w e r f u l person in the country, but Chile's institutions were not " p e r s o n a l i z e d . " Even in the army, institutional loyalties and respect for "legality" were more important factors than allegiance to the ambitions of the commander-in-chief. S e c o n d , opposition leaders were successful in persuading voters to stay h o m e , waiting calmly for results on election night, and to celebrate peacefully the next day. T h e violence that s o m e elements in the regime had expected simply did not materialize. T h e C o m m u n i s t Party played an important role by insisting that its own militants refrain from organizing street demonstrations. T h e election showed clearly how easy it is f o r an authoritarian regime to engage in collective self-delusion. Countless polls and n e w s p a p e r accounts suggested that once the voters got over their skepticism about the election's fairness, the N O vote stood a good chance of winning. And yet, P i n o c h e t , his advisers, and his supporters in the military and the business c o m m u n i t y were absolutely c o n v i n c e d that the g o v e r n m e n t could not lose. All the information transmitted u p the chain of c o m m a n d was designed to reinforce the president's wishes, to the point that negative information was filtered out. O f t e n , however, it was difficult f o r the authorities to perceive such information; citizens were f o r the most part not f o r t h c o m i n g w h e n asked their views by individuals with official credentials. A generalized c o n t e m p t f o r politics and politicians, even those supporting the regime, m a d e it difficult for officials to sense the m o o d of the country. T h e victory of the N O vote in the plebiscite augurs well f o r Chile's d e m o cratic future. Had Pinochet been ratified for another 8-year term the country might have b e c o m e ungovernable. A large percentage of the population would not have accepted the plebiscite as legitimate, and s o m e sectors, in the aftermath of the opposition failure, would have renewed their calls f o r violence. At

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the same time, Pinochet would have had to govern with an elected Congress, one in which the opposition would have played a substantial role. The evolution o f Pinochet from military commander and authoritarian leader to civilian president, albeit with strong executive powers, would not have been easy. With the opposition victory, the country will hold open presidential elections at the end of 1989. What is unclear at this writing is whether, before the election, opposition leaders and government officials will be able to agree on s o m e fundamental changes in a Constitution that is not accepted as democratic by opposition leaders. Although opposition leaders hope to obtain those changes, arguing that the victory represents not only a defeat for Pinochet but also for his "constitutional itinerary," fundamental changes are unlikely precisely because the military sees the Constitution as one of its principal legacies to the country. Changes will come only with the election of a democratic president and a Congress with constituent powers, and provided that the opposition is able to gain majorities in those elections. An opposition majority is more likely if the parties that structured the N O campaign can agree on a presidential candidate and a transition formula. Such an opposition, which would represent the reconstruction of a Center consensus in Chilean politics, would permit a return to democratic practices with broad majority support. Should the coalition of the Center-Left, which supported the N O vote in the plebiscite, fail to present a common program and candidate, Chileans will face a presidential contest with candidates representing each of the traditional "thirds" of Chilean politics: a Marxist L e f t , a social democratic Center, and a pro-business Right. The country would thus run the risk of being governed once again by a president without majority support, facing hostile majorities in the C o n g r e s s — a formula that might lead to decisional paralysis and political confrontation and place significant pressures on the armed forces to resolve the conflict through extraconstitutional measures. Given the strength of the three political tendencies of the Chilean electorate, constitutional experts should seriously entertain the option of creating a parliamentary form of government, where Center coalitions can more easily be formed and where the country's future is not at the mercy of a president who was either elected for a fixed term without a majority mandate or who has lost a majority mandate. Despite the continued polarization of Chilean politics, the transition may be easier than that of other countries for several reasons. In the first place, the strong tradition of democratic rule that existed before the regime breakdown and was so eloquently manifested in the plebiscite will help Chileans return to democratic practices. Institutions of democratic governance in Chile do not have be new-forged as they do in many other Latin American countries; they need to be restored. S e c o n d , Chile's armed forces, even after a decade and a half of military rule, have not become politicized. The sharp separation of the political from the institutional roles of the military under Pinochet makes it possible for the institution to return to its professional pursuits without becoming involved in the daily political tug of war of a democratic regime. This does not

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mean that the Chilean armed forces would be reluctant to intervene in politics again should they feel that "national security" is threatened. There is strong evidence that the Chilean officer corps is less committed than in the past to respecting democratic rules and procedures. However, the institution itself is not fragmented and politicized and is likely to intervene only in a serious crisis. Third, the Chilean armed forces retain substantial prestige despite deep resentment against the authorities in some sectors. Of particular importance is the fact that the institution was not directly compromised by the "dirty war" of the security police that led to the most flagrant human-rights abuses. Demands for an accounting for human-rights abuses and justice for the guilty will not create a serious rift between civilian authorities and military leaders. Finally, Chile begins its transition with a relatively good economic picture compared to that of its neighbors. Chilean economic planners succeeded in reordering the Chilean state so that it operates more efficiently. They have also encouraged an impressive new class of entrepreneurs able to compete in world markets. Although these economic successes were made possible by strong authoritarian practices, including curbing labor rights and imposing policies with strong regressive tendencies, planners under a democratic regime will not face the same intractable economic problems that their Argentine neighbors faced when corning to power. The challenge to maintain growth and efficiency, while at the same time tending to the real demands for greater social justice, will tax the abilities of the most skilled leaders. But, Chileans in the aftermath of the 1988 plebiscite seem determined to return to their historic democratic practices with a renewed realism and hope for the future.

• NOTES • 1. There are few general treatments of the military regime in Chile. The best single study is Manuel Antonio Garretón, El proceso político chileno (Santiago: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, 1983). Useful edited volumes are those by Manuel A. Garretón et al., Chile: 1973-198'! (Santiago: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, 1980); and J. Samuel Valenzuela and Arturo Valenzuela, e d s . , Military Rule in Chile: Dictatorship and Oppositions (Baltimore. MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1986). The literature on the human-rights situation under the Chilean military government is voluminous. The most complete record is that provided by the publications of the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, dependent on the Archbishopric of Santiago (see the annual reports). The most comprehensive and authoritative overview of the human-rights record of the Chilean government is provided by the Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States, in its Informe sobre la situación de los derechos humanos en Chile (Washington, DC: Organization of American States, 1985). The commission estimates that approximately 1,500 people were killed after the c o u p (see Informe, p. 54). The Vicaría has documented 668 cases of individuals w h o disappeared after being arrested in the period 1973-1985 . The number killed in Chile may be closer to 3 , 5 0 0 , as many deaths and disappearances may not have been reported, particularly in rural areas. Most rural towns visited by the author appear to have lost a few people after the coup, in some cases because of private feuds or reprisals on the part of landowners. 2. A valuable sourcebook on the 1980 Constitution is Luz Bulnes Aldunate, Constitución política de la República de Chile: Concordancias, anotaciones y fuentes (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1981). For a "legislative history" of the Constitution see Sergio Carrasco Delgado, Génesis v vigencia de los textos constitucionales chilenos (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1980).

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3. Kenneth A. Bollen, "Comparative Measurement of Political Democracy," American Review 45, no. 3 (June 1980): pp. 3 7 0 - 3 9 0 . See also Robert W. Jackman, "On the Sociological Relations of Economic Development to Democratic P e r f o r m a n c e , " American Journal of Political Science 17, no. 3 (August 1973): pp. 611-621; and his "Political Democracy and Social Equality: A Comparative Analysis," American Sociological Review 39, no. 1 (February 1974): pp. 2 9 ^ t 4 . 4. Leon Epstein, Political Parlies in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger, 1967), p. 192. For a discussion of the rise of parliamentary opposition in Western Europe, see the excellent collection in Robert Dahl, e d . , Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven. C T Yale University Press, 1966). See also Dahl's Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971). 5. Some countries, including Britain and Norway, developed political contestation with parliamentary responsibility before Chile did. Others, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, began to develop parliamentary influence at around the same time. The Swedish king was able to choose ministers without regard to parliamentary majorities until 1917, though the parliament's views were taken into consideration earlier. Italy was not unified until the 1860s and did not establish a system of parliamentary rule until the 1880s. Republican France dates from 1871, and many observers, noting the importance of the Napoleonic bureaucracy, question the degree of authority wielded by the French parliament. Because of the importance of the monarchies in Europe, Chile comes closer to the United States in the origins and evolution of its political institutions. For historical discussions of these issues, see Dahl. Political Oppositions: and Stein Rokkan. Citizens, Elections, Pari/e.« (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1970). 6. See Dahl, Polyarchy, ch. I Dahl's definition informs the discussion of democracy in Chapter I of this volume. 7. Women were able to vote in national elections for the first time in 1952. The voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 and illiterates were given the right to vote with the constitutional reforms of 1970. The best discussion of Chilean electoral practices can be found in Federico Gil, The Political System of Chile (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966) T h e 1170 reforms are discussed in Guillermo Piedrabuena Richards, La reforma constitucional (Santiago: Ediciones Encina, 1970). The intricacies of the electoral system are described in Mario Bernaschina G , Cartilla electoral (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1958). For an overview of electoral participation, see Atilio Borón. "La evolución del régimen electoral y sus efectos en la representación de los intereses populares: El caso de C h i l e . " Estudio no. 24 (Santiago: Escuela Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política y Administración Pública. F L A C S O , April 1971). 8. Voting data for Europe can be found in Stein R o k k a n , Citizens. Voting data on Chile is found in J. Samuel Valenzuela, Democratización vía reforma: La expansión del sufragio en Chile (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del I D E S , 1985). This is the best study of the critical decisions that led to suffrage expansion in Chile in the nineteenth century, underscoring the important role of the Conservatives in that process. As such, it is an important revisionary study in Chilean historiography. 9. This section draws extensively from J. Samuel Valenzuela and Arturo Valenzuela, "Chile and the Breakdown of Democracy." In Latin American Politics and Development, ed. Howard J. W i a r d a a n d Harvey F. Kline (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979), pp. 2 3 4 - 2 4 9 . The author is grateful to J. Samuel Valenzuela for his contribution to this work and to m u c h of the thinking that is reflected in this chapter. See also Arturo Valenzuela, Political Brokers in Chile: Local Government in a Centralized Polity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977), ch. 8. 10. Francisco Antonio Encina, Historia de Chile, vol. 9 (Santiago: Editorial Nacimiento, 1941-1942), p. 493; cited in Arturo Valenzuela, Political Brokers, p. 175. 11. This thesis is at variance with standard interpretations that attribute to Diego Portales a pivotal role in forming the Chilean institutional system. See Arturo Valenzuela, Political Brokers, ch. 8; and his "El mito de Portales: La institucionalización del régimen político chileno en el siglo X I X " In IM transición a la democracia en América Latina, ed. Fernando Molina (Santiago: Universidad Católica de Chile, forthcoming). 12. Chile, Documentos parlamentarios correspondientes al segundo quinquenio de la administración Bulnes, 1846-1850, vol. 3 (Santiago: Imprenta del Ferrocarril, 1858), p. 795. 13. S o m e of the generalizations from the " w o r l d - s y s t e m " and " d e p e n d e n c y " literature to the effect that dependent capitalist development leads to weak states does not fully apply to the Chilean case. 14. This section draws heavily on Arturo Valenzuela and J. Samuel Valenzuela " L o s orígenes de la democracia: Reflexiones teóricas sobre el caso de C h i l e , " Estudios públicos 12 (Spring 1983): pp. 3 - 3 9 ; and J. S. Valenzuela, Democratización.

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15. In 1863, the total electorate was about 22,000. By 1878, the electorate had expanded sevenfold. See J. S. Valenzuela, Democratization, pp. 118-119. 16. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (New York: John Wiley, 1965), pp. xxiii-xxxvii. 17. This section draws heavily on Arturo Valenzuela. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), ch. 1. 18. Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein R o k k a n . Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 5 0 - 5 6 . 19. For a discussion of this, see Valenzuela, Political Brokers. 20. An exception to this generalization is Dahl's Polyarchy. Not only has Chile been neglected in the broader literature, Latin America in general has been left out. The volumes of the C o m m i t t e e on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council had only a f e w studies dealing with Latin America, and Latin America did not figure prominently in the theoretical efforts of the 1960s. In his excellent study of parties in Western democracies, Epstein acknowledges that a f e w Latin American countries meet his criteria for inclusion but leaves them out "mainly because the whole of Latin America is customarily treated along with developing nations" (emphasis added). See Epstein, Political Parties, p. 4. For a discussion of the place of Latin America in the literature on comparative politics, see Arturo Valenzuela, "Political Science and the Study of Latin A m e r i c a . " In Windows on Latin America: Perspectives from Six Disciplines, ed. Christopher Mitchell (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming) 21. These terms are designed to group in analytically similar categories propositions that are sometimes advanced in more discrete fashion. They are drawn from previous work of the author on the subject, some of which has been done in collaboration with J. Samuel Valenzuela. I have attempted to address within each category the relevant variables advanced in this b o o k . I do not treat what can be called the national-cohesiveness thesis because it is not as relevant to the Chilean case. Ethnic, regional, and center-periphery cleavages were defused in the early half of the nineteenth century. 22. The importance of gradual evolution without significant upheaval is stressed by Dahl in Polyarchy, pp. 4 0 - 4 7 . The continuity of institutions from the colonial period is one of the points advanced by Seymour Martin Lipset in his provocative study of the United States, The First New Nation (New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 106-107. For a discussion of differences in the colonial experience, see Rupert Emerson's classic From Empire to Nation (Boston: Beacon Press, I960). 23. Chile inaugurated a polyarchy through a struggle for independence that led to the collapse of the remnants of the old colonial regime, and not, as Dahl holds, through an evolutionary process comparable to that of England or S w e d e n . In this sense, the Chilean case is closer to that of France than England. See Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 42. 24. See Frederick Pike, Chile and the United Slates. 1880-1962 (Notre D a m e , IN: University of Notre D a m e Press, 1963), p. 11. T h e literature on Portales is voluminous. An influential work that argues this thesis is Alberto Edwards Vives, La Fronda aristocratica (Santiago: Ediciones Ercilla, 1936), pp. 50-51. For a sampling of views, see B. Vicuna M a c k e n n a , J. Victorino Lastarria, and R. Sotomayor Valdes, Portales: Juicio historico (Santiago: Editorial del Pacifico, 1973). 25. Richard Morse, "The Heritage of Latin A m e r i c a . " In The Founding of New Societies, ed. Louis Hartz (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964). pp. 163-164. See also Hartz's comments on the Chilean case on p. 88 of that work. 26. For an elaboration of this argument see Valenzuela. Political Brokers, ch . 8. 27. See Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New H a v e n , CT: Yale University Press, 1968), ch. 2. 28. David Martin argues that "the incidence of pluralism and democracy is related to the incidence of those religious bodies which are themselves inherently pluralistic and democratic. . . . Such bodies . . . are much more prevalent in the Anglo-American situation than elsewhere. . . . In Russia and Latin America democratic and individualistic Protestantism arrived late in the process and could not have an important e f f e c t . " See his A General Theory of Secularization (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 25. For an influential essay dealing with Latin America along these same lines, see S e y m o u r Martin Lipset, "Values, Education and Entrepreneurship." In Elites in Latin America, ed. S e y m o u r Martin Lipset and Aldo Solari (New York: O x f o r d University Press, 1963). See also Howard Wiarda, "Toward a Framework for the Study of Political C h a n g e in the Iberic-Latin Tradition: The Corporative M o d e l , " World Politics. 25, no. 2 (January 1973): pp. 2 0 6 - 2 3 5 . For a classic work that links liberal values stemming f r o m the Protestant tradition with the growth of democracy in the United States, see Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955).

CHILE

83

29. See Jorge I. D o m i n g u c z , Insurrection or Loyalty (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press, 1979) f o r a discussion of some of these points. 30. Harrv Eckstein, Division and Cohesion in a Democracy: A Study of Norway (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966). 31. See Booth's chapter on Costa Rica in this v o l u m e . 32 Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 140. 33. For a description of Chile's hacienda system, see George M. McBride, Chile: Land and Society (New York: American Geographical Society, 1936). For the origins, the classic study is M a r i o Gôngora, Origen de los inquilinos del Valle Central (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, I960). See also Arnold J. Bauer, Chilean Rural Society from the Spanish Conquest to 1930 (New York: C a m b r i d g e University Press. 1975). 34. D o m i n g u e z , Insurrection, p. 141. 35. See Robert K a u f m a n , The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950-1970 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); and Brian L o v e m a n , Struggle in the Countryside: Politics and Rural Labor in Chile, 1919-1973) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976). 36. Chile is a good illustration of Dankwart Rustow's argument that democracies must go through a "habituation" phase before they are consolidated. See his "Transitions to Democracy: Toward a D y n a m i c M o d e l . " Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1970): pp. 3 3 7 - 3 6 3 . 37. See Daniel Lemer, The Passing ofTraditional Society (New York: Free Press, 1958). See also S N. Eisenstadt, "Social C h a n g e , Differentiation and Evolution," American Sociological Review 29 (June 1964): pp. 3 7 5 - 3 8 7 . 38. Seymour Martin Lipset, " S o m e Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review 53, no. I (March 1959): pp. 6 9 - 1 0 5 . For collections of articles on "empirical democratic theory," see J. V. Gillespie and B. A. Nesvold, e d s . , Macroquantitative Analysis: Conflict, Development and Democratization (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. 1971); and Charles C n u d d e and Deane Neubauer, e d s . , Empirical Democratic Theory (Chicago: M a r k h a m . 1969). For an excellent review of this literature, see Leonardo Morlino. "Misure di Democrazia e di Liberté: Discusione di Alcune Analisi E m p i r i c h e , " Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politico 5, no. I (April 1975): pp. 131-166. 39. See, for e x a m p l e , Phillips Cutright, "National Political Development: Measurement and A n a l y s i s , " American Sociological Review 28, no. 2 (April 1963): pp 2 5 3 - 2 6 4 ; and Bollen, " C o m parative Measurement of Political Democracy." 40. Juan Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian R e g i m e s . " In Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3, ed. Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1975), p. 182. As Dahl notes, the United States in the nineteenth century did not meet the development criteria but met the political criteria. See Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 72. 41. Goran Therborn, " T h e Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy," New Left Review 103 (May-June 1977): p. 3-41. Therborn adds that the rarity of bourgeois democracy in capitalist Third World countries is due to the vulnerability of commodity-oriented economies, which give the "indigenous bourgeoisie little room for manoeuvre vis-à-vis the exploited c l a s s e s . " In such contexts there is an "intertwining of capitalist with feudal, slave or other pre-capitalist modes of exploitations . . . impeding the development of impersonal rule of capital and free labormarket, thereby seriously limiting the growth of both the labor movement and an agrarian petty bourgeoisie." Ibid., pp. 1, 32. Although he is not dealing with the development of democracy perse, Immanuel Wallerstein argues that peripheral states in the world system were much weaker in part because the social structure of export economies did not permit the development of bourgeois sectors. See his The Modern World System, 2 vols. (New York: Academic Press, 1974, 1980.) 42. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). As he notes, for democracy to e m e r g e , "the political hegemony of the landed upper class had to be broken or transformed. The peasant had to be turned into a f a r m e r producing for the market instead of for his own consumption and that of the overlord. In this process the landed upper class either became an important part of the capitalist and democratic tide, as in England, or, if they c a m e to oppose it, they were swept aside in the convulsions of revolutions (France) or civil war (U.S.). In a word the landed upper classes either helped to m a k e the bourgeois revolution or were destroyed by it." Ibid., p. 4 2 9 ^ 4 3 0 . Moore's analysis, though brilliant in scope, leaves much to be desired in terms of clarity. For a valuable critique, s e e T h e d a Skocpol, "A Critical Review of Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Politics and Society 4 (Fall 1973): pp. 1 - 3 4 . See also Joseph V. Femia, "Barrington Moore and the Preconditions for Democracy," British Journal of Political Science 2 (Janu-

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ary 1972): pp. 21 —46; and Ronald Dore. " M a k i n g Sense of History." Archive Européenes de Sociology 10(1969): pp. 2 9 5 - 3 0 5 . 43. See Domínguez, Insurrection, p. 131. 44. Influential works of Chilean historians in this vein includc Julio César Jobet, Ensayo crítico del desarrollo económico-social de Chile (Santiago: Editorial Latinoamericana, 1965); and Hernán Ramirez Necochea, Historia del movimiento obrero en Chile, antecedentes sigloXIX (Santiago: Editorial Austral. 1956). The most fully developed version of this thesis is in Luis Vitale, Interpretación marxism de la historia de Chile (Frankfurt: Verlag Jugend und Politik, 1975). Maurice Zeitlin's The Civil Wars in Chile: IH5I and 1859 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) draws uncritically from the work of Vitale and others. 45. See Leonard Binder et al.. Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). For a volume of essays applying the framework to particular cases, see Raymond Grew, e d . . Crises of Political Development in Europe and the United Stares (Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978). Influential earlier studies that anticipate the arguments in these books include Dankwart Rustow, A World of Nations (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1967), Lipset and Rokkan, eds , Party Systems and Voter Alignments; and Gabriel Almond. Scott Flanigan, and Roger Mundt, e d s . , Crisis, Choice und Change: Historical Studies of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973). Although some of these works focus on political development more generally, and not on the development of democracy as such, their framework is oriented toward democratic regimes rather than other regime types. 46. Eric Nordlinger, "Political D e v e l o p m e n t , Time Sequences and Rates of Change In Political Development and Social Change, 2d e d . , ed. Jason L. Finkle and Robert W. Gable (New York: John Wiley, 1971), p. 458. This argument is m a d e in Rustow. World of Nations, pp. 120-123. 47. Of the three crises, the most difficult to deal with is that of national identity. Its definition is imprecise and in the absence of survey-research data it is virtually impossible to find empirical evidence to document its relative strength. Much of this analysis has to be speculative and informed by general historical accounts. Particularly useful in capturing the mood of Chile in the early period is the work of Diego Barros Arana, which is also an eyewitness account. In particular, see his Un decenio de la historia de Chile, 2 vols. (Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1906.) 48. See Richard Merritt, "Nation-Building in America: the Colonial Years." In NationBuilding, ed. Karl W. Deutsch and William J. Foltz (New York: Atherton Press, 1966; and Karl Deutch, Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality, 2d ed. (Cambridge, M A : M I T Press, 1966). Lipset discusses the question of national identity in the United States in his First New Nation, ch. 2. 49. See Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy." 50. For a discussion of Washington's impact, see Lipset, First New Nation, pp. 18-23. 51. For lists of all Chilean presidents, cabinet officials, and m e m b e r s of Congress from independence until the 1940s, see Luis Valencia Avaria, Anales de la república, 2 vols. (Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1951). Most presidents had extensive parliamentary experience. 52. On the question of efficacy, see the arguments of Juan J. Linz mThe Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Reequilibration (Baltimore. M D : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 2 0 - 2 1 . 53. For an elaboration of this argument, see Valenzuela and Valenzuela, " O r í g e n e s de la democracia." 54. R. K. Merton, "The Unanticipated C o n s e q u e n c e s of Purposive Social A c t i o n , " American Sociological Review 1936, 1: pp. 894—904. 55. This point is m a d e in Arturo Valenzuela and Alexander Wilde, "Presidentialist Politics and the Decline of the Chilean C o n g r e s s . " In Legislatures in Development: Dynamics of Change in New and Old States, ed. Joel Smith and Lloyd Musolf (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979), p. 194. 56. The material in this section is taken from the author's Breakdown. For other books on the Chilean breakdown, see Paul S i g m u n d , The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile (Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 1977); Ian Roxborough, Phil O ' B r i e n , and Jackie Roddick, Chile: The State and Revolution (New York: H o l m e s and Meier, 1977); and Manuel A. Garretón and Tomás Moulian, Análisis coyuntura! y proceso político: Las fases del conflicto en Chile (1970-73) (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria C e n t r o - A m e r i c a n a , 1978). T h e lastnamed is drawn from the comprehensive and detailed daily account of the most important events of the Allende administration, published in Manuel Antonio Garretón et a l . . Cronología del período

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1970-73, 9 vols. (Santiago: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias S o c i a l e s , 1978); an invaluable publication including extensive indices to parties, individuals, and events. In the immediate aftermath o f the coup, a host of primarily more polemical works were published. For a review essay o f thirty-one books, see Arturo Valenzuela and J . Samuel Valenzuela, " V i s i o n s o f C h i l e , "Latin American Research Review 10 (Fall 1975): pp. 1 5 5 - 1 7 6 . 5 7 . S e e Valenzuela and Wilde, "Presidentialism and Decline o f C o n g r e s s , " pp. 2 0 4 - 2 1 0 . 5 8 . T h e most comprehensive study o f U . S . involvement was conducted by the U . S . Select Committee to Study Govermental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities (Church C o m mittee) o f the 94th Congress, 1st S e s s i o n . S e e its Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 (Washington, D C : Government Printing, 1975). 5 9 . The fact that Allende received fewer votes in 1970 than in 1964 suggests that his victory was not due to an increase in popular discontent and mobilization fueled by a worsening s o c i o e c o n o m i c crisis. An examination o f s o c i o e c o n o m i c indicators in the late 1960s docs not support the argument that the lot o f the average Chilean was becoming worse or that political mobilization was exceeding historic levels. Survey data also supports the view that a majority o f voters would have preferred a Center-Right to a Center-Left coalition Huntington's thesis, in Political Order, that political order collapses when political institutions are too weak, is not supported by the Chilean case. Chile's parties prior to the election o f Allende were very strong (perhaps too dominant), and political mobilization was the product o f deliberate strategies on the part o f the parties and the government to bring people into the political process, rather than the product o f widespread discontent or anomic behavior. In Chile, the election o f Allende and the e c o n o m i c and social crisis of the Allende years was more the product o f the sharp political crisis rather than vice-versa. For a full elaboration o f this argument, see my Breakdown, ch. 3 . An article that argues that mobilization in Chile became e x c e s s i v e is Henry Landberger and Tim M c D a n i e l , "Hypermobilization in Chile, 1 9 7 0 - 7 3 . " World Politics 2 8 , no. 4 (July 1976): pp. 5 0 2 - 5 4 3 . 6 0 . For the concept o f neutral powers, see Linz, Breakdown, pp. 7 6 - 8 0 . For a discussion o f the growing confrontation, suggesting that mobilization was more the result o f political crisis rather than its cause, see Valenzuela, Breakdown, p. 3 4 . 61. Seventy-two percent o f those polled thought Chile was living through extraordinary times, but only 27 percent o f the respondents felt the military should be involved in the political process. S e e Valenzuela, Breakdown, p. 6 5 . T h e Chilean case suggests that even where democratic norms are widespread and deeply rooted in a society, political crisis resulting from institutional struggles and competing claims can seriously erode democratic practices. A democratic political culture is no guarantee for the maintenance o f democratic institutions. 6 2 . This argument is elaborated in Arturo Valenzuela, " O r í g e n e s y características del sistema de partidos políticos en Chile: Una proposición para un gobierno parlamentario," Estudios Públicos 18 (Fall 1985): pp. 8 7 - 1 5 4 ; and my " H a c i a una democracia estable: la opción parlamentaría para C h i l e , " Revista de Ciencia Política 7 , no. 2 ( 1 9 8 5 ) : pp. 1 2 9 - 1 4 0 . T h e author is grateful to Juan Linz for his reflections on this subject. S e e the suggestive discussion in Linz, Breakdown, pp. 7 1 - 7 4 ; and his " D e m o c r a c y , Presidential or Parliamentary: Does It Make a D i f f e r e n c e ? " Paper presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the American Political S c i e n c e Association, C h i c a g o , I L , September 3-6.1987. 6 3 . This section draws on the author's forthcoming book with Pamela Constable, By Reason

or By Force: Pinochet's

Chile.

6 4 . This section is based on interviews, conducted in August 1987, with high-ranking military officers who commanded troops during the coup and were responsible for "cleaning up" or "neutralizing" Santiago neighborhoods. 6 5 . A valuable discussion o f the neoconservative e c o n o m i c policies applied by the Chilean military regime is Pilar Vergara, Auge y caída del neoliberalismo en Chile (Santiago: F L A C S O , 1985). 6 6 . This section is based on extensive interviews with advisers close to the junta and General Pinochet in 1 9 7 3 - 1 9 7 8 . 6 7 . For the text o f Decree Law 5 2 7 , see Eduardo S o t o K l o s s , Ordenamiento constitucional (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de C h i l e , 1 9 8 0 ) , pp. 1 4 5 - 1 5 3 . 6 8 . These observations are based on interviews conducted with General Leigh in Santiago, Chile, during November 1985. An excellent published interview is in Florencia Varas, Gustavo Leigh: El general disidente (Santiago: Editorial Aconcagua, 1979). Pinochet retired eighteen air force generals before finding one who would accept his action and replace Leigh on the junta. Had

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Leigh had better intelligence, the conflict might have been much more dramatic. 69. See Chile, Constitución de la República de Chile 1980 (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica, 1981). See Article 8, p. 13, for that language. 70. See transitional articles 16 and 27 in Constitución. 71. For an excellent study that gives a picture of rising military expenditures for personnel, see Jorge Marshall, " G a s t o publico en Chile 1 9 6 9 - 1 9 7 9 , " Colección estudios cieplan 5 (July 1981): pp. 5 3 - 8 4 . 72. As such, the Chilean military regime was of the military, but not by the military. I am indebted to the excellent work of Genaro Arriagada for this insight. See his La política militar de Pinochet (Santiago: Salesianos, 1985). 73. For an article detailing the service of military men in government positions, see Carlos Huneeus and Jorge Olave, "Autoritarismo, militares y transición a la democracia: Chile en una perspectiva comparada" (Santiago: C E R C . m i m e o , 1986). 74. See Alfred Stepan's now classic elaboration of this problem in his The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princcton University Press, 1971). 75 Senior officers such as General Osoar Bonilla, perhaps the most powerful general at the time of the coup, were not successful in their attempts to control Contreras. Bonilla died in an accident of suspicious nature. Many civilian advisers can:e to fear that Contreras could come to threaten Pinochet, though the general succeeded in playing various groups off against each other. Contreras was finally fired and the DINA restructured as relations between the United States and Chile deteriorated following U.S. d e m a n d s for extradition of Contreras to the United States for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Orlando Letelier. Allende's foreign minister, in the streets of Washington For studies that deal with the Letelier case and provide insights into the D I N A , see John Dinges and Saul Landau. Assassination on Embassy Row (New York: Pantheon, 1980); and Taylor Branch and Eugene M. Propper, Labyrinth (New York: Viking, 1982). 76. For a discussion of political parties under authoritarianism, see Arturo Valenzuela and J. Samuel Valenzuela. "Political Oppositions under the Chilean Authoritarian Regime." In Military Rule in Chile: Dictatorship and Oppositions. J Samuel Valenzuela and Arturo Valenzuela (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 77. See Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela, "Is Chile Next?" Foreign Policy 63 (Summer 1986): pp. 5 8 - 7 5 . 78. See Adam Przeworski's persuasive critique of the notion that the lack of legitimacy is a sufficient condition for the breakdown of a regime in his " S o m e Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy." In Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. ed. Guillermo O ' D o n n e l l , Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 79. This section is based on field research conducted by the author in Chile in 1987 and 1988. For a more detailed description of the events leading up to the plebiscite, see Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela, "Plebiscite in Chile: End of the Pinochet Era?" Current History 87 (January 1988): pp. 2 9 - 3 3 , 4 1 ; and Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela, "The Victory of the No Vote in Chile: Implications for Democratic Transitions" Current History (forthcoming, 1989).

• CHAPTER THREE •

Brazil: Inequality Against Democracy BOLÍVAR LAMOUNIER

Political scientists have repeatedly emphasized the advantages of viewing democracy as a political subsystem rather than as a total pattern of society. The study of democratic breakdowns has given them every reason to insist on that view, since it has showed that in many cases dictatorship could have been avoided through institutional change and conscious political effort. Observing processes of "opening" (abertura) or "decompression" in authoritarian regimes has certainly reinforced that preference, not least because the importance of prior institution-building came clearly to light during some of these processes. Democracy, then, is a political subsystem, not a total pattern of social organization. But how sharply can we draw the line between the development of political institutions and the substantive democratization of society? How should we approach the fact that enormous tensions develop between these concepts— especially when we move from the dilemmas of democratic opening to those of democratic consolidation? The Brazilian case is certainly worth examining in this connection. Recall that on March 31, 1964, a military coup overthrew President Goulart and inaugurated the longest period of ostensible authoritarian rule in Brazil's history. More than two decades later, on January 15, 1985, the Electoral College instituted by the military to ratify their presidential nominations elected Tancredo Neves—a civilian and a moderate oppositionist since 1964—to the presidency of the republic. The Brazilian authoritarian regime was ending by peaceful means. Quite obviously, this is not the kind of change that takes place in countries without a fair degree of institutional development. Protest and popular resistance played an important role, of course, but there was also an element of flexibility among power holders and a weight of their own among traditional representative institutions. Can we then say that the Brazilian Nova República is fully democratic or fully consolidated?The answer to this question transcends the Brazilian case. It depends on our evaluation of the historical record, but also on our conceptualization of democracy and on our models of consolidation. Our first step here should be an attempt to determine Brazil's position on the scale of democracy

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COLOMBIA Amapa

Roi aima

Amazonas

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Maranhao Paraiba Fernambuco

Rondonia Mato Grosso

BOLIVIA Mato Grosso do Sul

Espirito S a n » Rio de Janeiro

PARAGUAY Parano

PACIFIC, OCEAN

Minas Gérais

Grande do Sul

ARGENTINA URUGUAY

BRAZIL

88

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BRAZIL

employed in this book. Few would have major doubts about Brazil's position; it is clearly not a case of high success or of extreme failure. The optimist would think of Brazil as a "mixed success," noting that we have some democratic tradition, despite many interruptions, and that civilian rule is again in place after twenty years of ostensible military domination. The pessimist will prefer to speak of "partial development," rejecting the view that democracy has been the dominant pattern. Mixed or partial, both will agree that we are a case of unstable democracy, since the democratic system cannot be said to be fully institutionalized in Brazil. Facing sharp inequality and major social strains, apolitical system—democratic or authoritarian—can hardly be said to be institutionalized completely. In some cases, democracy succeeds in becoming accepted as a framework for an endless series of substantive changes. Not every contender accepts it as an end in itself, but all or at least the key ones trust that its continuing practice will make substantive outcomes more compatible at some future date. The distinction between state and democratic institutions properly so called is not as simple as it seems when one is still close to the historical process of state-building. Brazilian history can be told as a series of steps toward state formation or toward democracy, depending on one's viewpoint. This has an important bearing on the evaluation of democratic development and seems to demand some conceptual refinement.

• FROM GEISEL TO TANCREDO: OPENING THROUGH ELECTIONS • Gradual and peaceful, the Brazilian abertura seems unique by virtue of a third characteristic: It was essentially an opening through elections. It was not a result of sharp mass mobilization and was not precipitated by dramatic or external events, as in Portugal, Greece, and Argentina. In this sense, Brazil must be distinguished even from Spain, if we consider that the death of Franco brought the Spanish political system to an inevitable moment of restructuring. The Brazilian process had no such moment. Here, a gradual accumulation of pressures was channeled through the electoral process. Election results functioned as indicators of the degree to which the authoritarian regime was losing legitimacy and, in turn, helped to aggregate further pressures against it.' Taking the period 1964-1984 as a whole and ignoring for a while certain moments of authoritarian exacerbation, three important democratic formalisms seem to have been at work, channeling the opening process in the direction just described: (1) an element of self-restraint on the part of military institutions; (2) electoral rules and practices kept at an acceptable level of credibility, despite some manipulations; and (3) a clear (and after 1974 virtually unanimous) preference on the part of the opposition to play the electoral game and to avoid violent confrontation.

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T h e Brazilian o p e n i n g has a strong element of deliberate d e c o m p r e s s i o n , starting with the Geisel administration ( 1 9 7 4 - 1 9 7 8 ) . It a m o u n t e d , from this point of view, to recognition a m o n g the regime's p o w e r holders that an indefinite m o n o p o l y of power, or even " M e x i c a n i z a t i o n " by m e a n s of a h e g e m o n i c party, would not be viable. T h e opposition seems on the whole to have evaluated the situation correctly and to have sought to explore the political spaces that appeared at each m o m e n t . T h e formidable impact of the 1974 elections helped it to organize under the label of the Partido d o M o v i m e n t o D e m o c r a t i c o Brasileiro ( P M D B ) f o r electoral purposes, while at the same time establishing bridges a m o n g a variety of social m o v e m e n t s and associations then increasingly (re)politicizing. It would be naive to gloss over the tensions inherent in these c h a n g e s , as if the actors were simply following a previously conceived blueprint. T h e point is rather that both sides, g o v e r n m e n t and opposition, found e n o u g h space to red e f i n e their respective roles through several stages, since each perceived what it stood to gain f r o m the continuity of the process. T h e opposition was capable of extracting important concessions while at the same time organizing itself as a powerful electoral force. T h e government also benefited in many ways. Most importantly, it saw a gradual reduction in the costs of coercion. D e c o m p r e s s i o n helped it to contain the growing autonomy of the repressive apparatus, which had seriously c o m p r o m i s e d , as is well k n o w n , the country's image abroad. In short, the government could capitalize on the political benefits of an atmosphere of progressive " n o r m a l c y , " as if e x c h a n g i n g losses of legitimacy arising f r o m discontent with its past for gains based on the increasing credibility of its intentions as to the future. Paradoxically, the erosion of authoritarian legitimacy since 1974 a m o u n t e d to a revitalization of governmental authority—since such authority was thus invested in the role of conductor of the d e c o m p r e s s i o n (later rebaptized normalization and eventually redemocratization). We have said that the electoral g a m e was the institutional expression of an implicit negotiation between the parliamentary opposition and the liberal sectors of the military—or of the regime as a whole. Three e x a m p l e s will make these arguments more concrete. All three refer to the legitimation, in practice, of a congressional majority that the g o v e r n m e n t would hardly be capable of putting together if it did not have semidictatorial powers. T h e first is the so-called Pacote de Abril (April Package) of 1977. Using the " r e v o l u t i o n a r y " powers of the Institutional Act 5, President Geisel decreed several measures designed to preserve a majority for the Alianga Renovadora Nacional ( A R E N A , the government party) in the Senate, to make an oppositionist victory f o r the lower c h a m b e r unlikely, and to postpone the return to direct state gubernatorial elections f r o m 1978 to 1982. 2 Despite the incredibly massive and arbitrary nature of this intervention, the opposition chose not to reject the electoral process and went confidently to the polls. In so doing it legitimized the new authoritarian parameters; the actual election results c o n f i r m e d ARENA'S majority, though by a small m a r g i n . This meant that the g o v e r n m e n t , with an absolute majority in

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both houses and controlling all but one of the twenty-three states, kept a complete monopoly of the presidential succession and of the political initiative. On the other hand, because it had such a monopoly, the government agreed to relinquish the supraconstitutional powers of Act 5 in December 1978, and negotiated a fairly comprehensive amnesty law, finally approved the following August. The second example is the party reform of 1979, which ended the compulsory two-party structure established by the first "revolutionary" government in 1965. Knowing that the continuity of the electoral disputes within the two-party framework would inevitably lead to a major defeat, perhaps forcing the regime to violate its own rules, the Figueiredo government ( 1979-1984) resorted to its majority in both houses and changed the party legislation, precipitating the return to a multiparty system. The ambiguity of the opening process was again brought to the surface. On one hand, the procedure was formally impeccable, since the government did have the majority, and the reform was demanded even by some sectors of the opposition; on the other, the evident intention was to break up the opposition party, the PMDB, in order to keep the agenda under control for a more extended period of time and to set the conditions under which the new party structure would be formed. The third example is the imposition, in November 1981, of a new set of electoral rules, requiring a straight party vote at all levels (councilman, mayor, state and federal deputy, governor, and senator). This effectively prohibited any kind of alliance among the opposition parties in the 1982 elections. Care was thus taken to avoid a serious defeat for the government, since that election would affect the composition of the Electoral College that would choose the next president, in January 1985. Again, though the straight ticket helped the government's party in the overall count, many thought that it would (and certainly did) help the opposition in some key states. Also, despite its manipulative intent, this new set of rules was approved by a congressional majority that had, just a month before, broken up over two bills deemed essential to the government's interests. 3 Although our focus in this chapter is mainly political and institutional, we must note as well the economic legitimation of the authoritarian governments up to 1984. With the exception of the first three years (1964—1966), the post1964 governments gave an enormous impetus to modernization and economic growth. The rapid internationalization of the economy and the heavily regressive effect of government policies on income distribution eventually alienated many sectors initially favorable to the authoritarian experiment. However, during most of the post-1964 period, growth rates were high enough to grant the regime an important claim to legitimacy. Under the Mèdici administration, which was the most repressive and culturally stagnant, such rates were extremely high (the Brazilian "economic miracle"). Geisel, chosen for the presidency in 1973, started the decompression project exactly when the international environment began to become severely adverse. However, his economic policies were designed not only to sustain high

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rates of growth but, through an ambitious strategy of import substitution in basic sectors, to reduce Brazil's external dependency significantly. With the help of hindsight, it is not difficult to question some of these measures, which aggravated our external debt intolerably. However, this was not an authoritarian government lost in its internal contradictions and without any semblance of a project. On the contrary: in addition to engaging the opposition in gradual political decompression, Geisel's administration was sometimes praised by representatives of the opposition, who perceived his economic policies as nationalistic and antirecessionist. 4 The first two years of Figueiredo's administration (1979-1980) can be regarded as a continuation of Geisel's strategy, but 1981 was a clear dividing line. On the economic side, sustaining high rates of growth became clearly impossible, after the second oil and the interest-rate shocks of 1979. Politically, Figueiredo's unwillingness to support a thorough investigation of a terrorist attempt against a May 1 artistic show in Rio de Janeiro struck a heavy blow to the credibility of the abertura. The attempt was seemingly planned by the information and security agencies. The lack of a thorough investigation thus brought to the surface with stunning clarity the suspicion that the whole process was subject to a military veto, regardless of electoral results or of public-opinion trends. The election of 1982 inaugurated a fundamentally different situation. Together, the opposition parties made a majority (albeit small) in the lower chamber. Even more important, gaining a large number of local and ten of the twenty-three state governments, including Sào Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the opposition now had significant bases of power. The only secure institutional instruments of containment at the disposal of the regime were now the Senate and the Electoral College, both severely questioned in their legitimacy. 5 This strange "diarchy," pitting the military-bureaucratic system against state governments and a lower chamber enjoying stronger popular legitimacy, was bound to affect the presidential succession, and thereby the fate of the regime. A proposed amendment to the Constitution, determining that Figueiredo's successor would be chosen by direct election, set the stage for a major popular campaign, led by the opposition parties and supported by the oppositionist state governments. This was the diretas ja (direct elections now), marked by a series of impressive popular rallies, which not only revealed the further loss of regime legitimacy but also paved the way for a formal dissidence (the Frente Liberal) within the government party, the Partido Democràtico Social (PDS). The proposed amendment failed to get the two-thirds majority in the Chamber, but after the vote the situation was close to irreversible. C o m b i n e d , the Frente Liberal and the largest of the opposition parties, the P M D B , established the Democratic Alliance and ledTancredo Neves to victory in the Electoral College in January 1985. Tancredo died without taking office and was succeeded in the presidency by José Sarney, a PDS dissident who had been nominated for vice-president. It can thus be said that the outcome of the opening process became clear only when the moving horizon that guided it during ten years became com-

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pletely exhausted. Deep recession and the succession crisis combined to make the implicit negotiation virtually impossible after 1982; or rather, to make it possible only insofar as it was embodied in the already existing institutional rules, without further manipulation. The presidency, as an expression of military tutelage over the political system, was forced to stay neutral in the succession struggle. This rather peculiar process of decompression was made possible because, in the initial stages, the opposition party was fighting for institutional positions almost totally emptied of real power. Up to 1982, the state governments were chosen indirectly, in effect appointed by the federal government. Congress had completely lost its main functions and prerogatives. The docility of the government party ( A R E N A ) and of the (indirectly elected) "bionic" senators, onethird of the upper house, made it hopelessly weak. Hence, the return to civilian rule did not amount to a clear-cut return to a preexisting order. Congress, political parties, the federation: all of these regained some prestige and strength but did not automatically invest themselves in their traditional roles, first because the traditions themselves were modest, and second because the country had changed immensely under authoritarian rule. To understand the prospects for democracy in Brazil, one must appreciate these historical traditions and legacies.

• INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY: AN OVERVIEW • Our interpretation of the Brazilian abertura stressed that the electoral process and conventional representative institutions had preserved their potential as vehicles for an orderly and peaceful transition. This element seems to have been missed by some academic theories and pieces of journalistic analysis that depicted a far more petrified authoritarian regime. Linz, one of the few scholars who did pay attention to this problem, correctly observed that the Brazilian authoritarian rulers would have a hard time if they had seriously decided to search for an alternative and durable legitimacy formula. Our reconstruction of Brazilian institutional history starts with a view of the nineteenth-century empire as an extremely difficult and slow process of state-building. In fact, we look at that process as a Hobbesian construction, not in the vulgar sense of violent or tyrannical domination, but just the opposite way, meaning that certain legal fictions had to be established lest naked force become imperative—and even then, it might not be available in the requisite amount. Stretching it a little further, the empire will be regarded as a political system that developed in order to build a state, not the other way around. 6 The concept of representation will help us bring the process of statebuilding into the analysis. In fact, the original or Hobbesian meaning of representation is simply formal authorization: It is the fiction that creates the state as an institution. It is prior to Dahl's legitimate contestation, since it corres-

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ponds to establishing the state f r a m e w o r k within which contestation may later take place. 7 T h e democratic c o m p o n e n t s of the concept appear at a more advanced stage. Social conflict and participation d e m a n d s give rise to the descriptive image of representation; i.e., the notion that representative bodies should be like a sample or miniature, reflecting society's diversity. Increasing conflict and cultural strains may at the same time give rise to a d e m a n d for symbolic representation; i . e . , institutions or charismatic leaders e m b o d y i n g a collective self-image of the nation. A fourth concept eventually e m e r g e s , focusing on the behavior of representatives. It expresses itself in the d e m a n d for faithfulness and relevance, f o r greater coherence in the party system, greater independence for unions and other associations, and the like. It corresponds, in short, to a more watchful state of public opinion. Let us now see what these ideas look like in historical perspective."

The Empire: Hobbesian State Building T h e only Portuguese colony in the N e w World, Brazil's political path after ind e p e n d e n c e was completely different f r o m that followed by her Spanishspeaking neighbors. Independence, obtained in 1822, was already marked by a unique feature: It c a m e without a war against the Portuguese metropolis. A proclamation by the regent prince effected the separation and turned Brazil into an independent monarchy. A f t e r some years of instability, the monarchical form of g o v e r n m e n t succeeded in establishing a stable political order and in keeping the integrity of the national territory. T h e key factor accounting for stability during most of the nineteenth century was the existence of a cohesive political elite entrusted with the legal control of the country. T h e political system, considered more broadly, was a coalition of the rural aristocracy with the bureaucratic elite, but at the top these two sectors b e c a m e strongly integrated. Recruited a m o n g l a n d o w n e r s , urban merchants, and miners, this political elite was trained in the spirit of R o m a n law, Portuguese absolutism, and mercantilism. 9 T h e ideological unity of the elite helped it cope with threats to territorial integrity, despite the centrifugal tendencies inherent in our continental size, inadequate m e a n s of c o m m u n i c a t i o n and transportation, the thinness of the e c o n o m i c linkages a m o n g provinces and regions, and the absence of a strong sense of national identity. Another important factor, in contrast with the old Spanish colonies, lies in the field of civil-military relations. During the e m p i r e , there was n o threat to civil h e g e m o n y in Brazil. A parliamentary m o n a r c h y thus d e v e l o p e d . T h e whole a r r a n g e m e n t was elitist, no d o u b t , but the fact is that cabinets were elected and g o v e r n e d , liberals and conservatives rotated in o f f i c e , and representative practices thus developed to s o m e extent. T h e "artificial" character of this political system has been frequently pointed out. Constitutional arrangements gave the e m p e r o r the so-called moderating power, which placed him above parties and factions, in fact allowing

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him to make and unmake majorities when he decided to dissolve parliament and call new elections. The two parties hardly differed, it is said, and had no significant roots in society. Elections not only tended to return the same people but were frequently fraudulent. This account is as correct as it is anachronic; it completely misses the fact that here we are not talking about descriptive representation in a highly differentiated society, but rather about Hobbesian authorization in the course of state-building. In order to understand this, we must take a broader look at the function of elections and at the way in which they were regulated up to 1930.'" The endless series of electoral reforms and the constant accusations of fraud were due primarily to the fact that there was no independent judicial organization to manage elections. The whole process, from voter registration (or rather, recognition) to counting ballots and proclaiming results was, in one way or another, subject to the interference of those involved and especially of police authorities subject to the provincial governors. To this extent, the importance of elections was indeed reduced. But local councils did affect the choice of state and national deputies. The government was thus constantly concerned with elections at all levels; in fact, it is said that the main function of the provincial governor, under the empire, was to win elections. From our Hobbesian standpoint, it may be deduced that losing them too frequently would force the central government to resort to its ultima ratio; i.e., open intervention. Not a few observers have gone as far as to say that in Brazil, elections were totally farcical, and that more "authentic" results would have been achieved through a plain recognition of whomever held power in a given region or locality; or, on the other extreme, through complete centralization. The argument seems persuasive simply because it skips the difficult step. If recognition in this sense means granting a legal title to rule (as elections do), at that time it would have been tantamount to unleashing an endless series of small civil wars, since in each case public authority would be bestowed on a specifically named individual or faction, to the exclusion of others. The central government would thus be multiplying the conflicts it was seeking to avoid. It is equally evident that the imperial government did not possess material capabilities to intervene everywhere and "centralize" power, as the recipe goes. Centralization did occur, but in a different sense. The representative mechanism of the empire operated by means of a highly aristocratic two-party system. Rotation between the two was partly a matter of elections, but it also had a lot to d o with imperial inducement. T h e whole point of this courtly and apparently alien system was actually to control the processes of party formation. Monarchical government meant that, contrary to the United States, we did not have the formative impact of presidential elections. Formation through class conflict was out of the question, given the rudimentary state of the productive structure and the low level of social mobilization. But two other alternatives can still be imagined, and the empire carefully controlled both. One was parties of principle, in Burkean language; i . e . , parties based on religious or otherwise doctrinal

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v i e w s . S o m e initiatives of this kind a p p e a r e d t o w a r d the end of the c e n t u r y and were a d e q u a t e l y c o n t r o l l e d o r r e p r e s s e d . T h e other, certainly m o r e s i g n i f i c a n t , was a gradual e v o l u t i o n f r o m k i n s h i p g r o u p s (with their p r i v a t e a r m i e s ) toward nationally o r g a n i z e d p a r t i e s . S o m e t h i n g of this sort h a p p e n e d in U r u g u a y , f o r e x a m p l e . B r a z i l ' s territorial e x t e n s i o n m a d e it far less likely, b u t , in any c a s e , it w a s p r e v e n t e d exactly by t h e f l e x i b l e rotation a l l o w e d at the t o p of the p y r a m i d and m a n a g e d by the e m p e r o r . T h e n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y c o n s t i t u t i o n a l m o n a r c h y w a s clearly not a d e m o cratic s y s t e m . Its e q u i l i b r i u m rested largely on the bureaucracy, but this a r r a n g e ment w o r k e d well o n l y as l o n g as it w a s attractive to a f e w key actors. W h e n it c e a s e d to be attractive to l a n d o w n e r s and slave o w n e r s , a n d w h e n n e w interests, most n o t a b l y the military, b e c a m e m o r e d i f f e r e n t i a t e d , it fell w i t h o u t a n y o n e to d e f e n d it and w i t h o u t v i o l e n c e .

The First Republic: Hobbes II W h e n M a r s h a l l D e o d o r o d a F o n s e c a m a r c h e d b e f o r e the t r o o p s in R i o d e J a n e i r o , o n N o v e m b e r 15, 1889, s i g n a l i n g the c h a n g e of the r e g i m e , military d i s c o n t e n t with the m o n a r c h y had a l r e a d y g o n e a long way. D u r i n g most of t h e n i n e t e e n t h century, t h e military had played virtually n o role in Brazilian politics. T h e P a r a g u a y a n war ( 1 8 6 5 - 1 8 7 0 ) , h o w e v e r , led to the d e v e l o p m e n t of a strong p r o f e s s i o n a l army. V i c t o r i o u s , the military d e c i d e d to c l a i m a share in p o w e r a n d g r e a t e r respect f r o m society. T h i s w a s also the time w h e n C o m t e a n p o s i t i v i s m a n d r e p u b l i c a n ideas b e g a n to p e n e t r a t e military circles, starting a military c i r c l e s , starting a l o n g tradition of military p o l i t i c i z a t i o n . " A n o t h e r m a j o r source of o p p o s i t i o n to the political s y s t e m of the e m p i r e were the S a o P a u l o c o f f e e g r o w e r s . O n e of the links b e t w e e n t h e b u r e a u c r a t i c elite and the l a n d o w n e r s u n d e r the e m p i r e w a s the u n d e r l y i n g a g r e e m e n t to pres e r v e slavery. But the c o f f e e p l a n t a t i o n s of S a o P a u l o , w h i c h d e v e l o p e d rapidly d u r i n g t h e last d e c a d e s of t h e century, d e p e n d e d on w a g e labor, a n d indeed on the f r e e l a b o r of E u r o p e a n m i g r a n t s . R e p u b l i c a n ideas thus b e c a m e c l e a r l y linked to e c o n o m i c m o d e r n i z a t i o n . But the r e p u b l i c w a s , at the b e g i n n i n g , j u s t as bad f o r t h e c o f f e e g r o w e r s ; first b e c a u s e an i n e x p e r i e n c e d military e x e r t e d d e c i s i v e i n f l u e n c e and m a d e the s y s t e m p o t e n t i a l l y very u n s t a b l e , and s e c o n d b e c a u s e t h e unitary m o n a r c h y g a v e w a y to e x t r e m e f e d e r a t i v e d e c e n t r a l i z a t i o n . T h e r e p u b l i c a n C o n s t i t u t i o n of 1891, c l o s e l y inspired by the U . S . m o d e l , g a v e a great d e a l of a u t o n o m y to the states, i n c l u d i n g e x t e n s i v e fiscal rights. T h e c o u n t r y t h u s f a c e d a p r e c o c i o u s " u n g o v e r n a b i l i t y " s y n d r o m e . T h e w e a k n e s s of the central g o v e r n m e n t a f f e c t e d , very adversely, the interests of the m o r e d y n a m i c s e c t o r s of t h e e c o n o m y , w h i c h w e r e e x a c t l y t h o s e l o c a t e d in S a o P a u l o . For t h e paulista

c o f f e e g r o w e r s , the fiscal a n d e x c h a n g e p o l i c i e s w e r e

vital. T h e s e e l e m e n t s d o not e x h a u s t the picture but g o a long w a y to e x p l a i n the c h a n g e s that took p l a c e in t h e political s y s t e m of the First R e p u b l i c , p r o d u c i n g

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a generalized feeling that the "real" Brazil had little to do with its liberal Constitution. First, the political leaders of the two major states, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, decided to establish between themselves the backbone of a functioning polity. A key aspect of the pact was that they would alternate controlling the federal executive. From this vantage point, they went on to develop a new "doctrine", called politics of the governors: They would support whichever oligarchy was dominant in each of the other states, in exchange for support for their arrangement at the federal level. The central government thus refrained from passing judgment on the quality of the political practices of each state. i : This was the new guise of the Hobbesian construction. Needless to say, it went rather far to making liberal "formalities" indeed a farce. The legislative and judicial branches were decisively reduced to a secondary role; Congress became increasingly docile and lost its potential as a iocus of party formation; and opposition was curbed in most of the states, so much so that statewide single parties became the rule. The end of slavery and the extension of voting rights to large numbers of town dwellers and rural workers made it imperative for the federal government to be sure it would gain these votes. The governor's role thus became one of disciplining an extended electoral base, which he did by granting extensive extralegal authority to local bosses, in exchange for electoral support. This is the root of the phenomenon of coronelismo, which did so much to demoralize the electoral process in the eyes of the urban middle class up to 1930 and to generalize the notion that electoral institutions were somehow "alien" to Brazilian soil. Another result of this process of state-building was to make the relationship between political and private power—the latter based on land ownership— extremely transparent and resilient to change. In exchange for the votes they garnered, the coronéis (backland bosses) received support from the oligarchy in control of the state machinery, thus reproducing further down the scale the arrangement between the states and the federal government. Control of the state machinery thus became rather literally a matter of life and death, since in addition to hiring and firing it could easily arrest or release.

Hobbes III: Getúlio Vargas It is in many ways astounding that the political system of the First Republic did, after all, last forty-one years. In addition to the modest development of the urban middle strata and to the very incipient advances toward forming an industrial working class, that longevity was facilitated by the hierarchical character of nonurban politics, which was the real center of gravity of the whole construction. T h e votes of the peasants and other lower strata were controlled by rival factions ofcoronéis, who tended to be unified in a single pyramid because of the fied in a single pyramid because of the single-party structures in the states. In October 1930, the First Republic was terminated by a revolutionary

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m o v e m e n t led by Getulio Vargas, w h o until then was a rather conventional politician f r o m the southernmost state, Rio Grande d o Sul. T h e Revolution of 1930 cannot be described by a single set of causes. It was a reflection of regional cleavages as well as of urban middle-class and military discontent. It was m a d e possible by the obsolescence of the political pact between the two major states, Minas Gérais and Sâo Paulo. T h e rapid d e v e l o p m e n t of the latter toward m o d e r n capitalist agriculture and even toward industrialization gradually unbalanced the initial arrangements. However, Sâo Paulo was hit hardest by the international crisis of 1929; other important states, Minas Gérais included, thus m a d e a bid for greater power and influence. " T h e main institutional result of the m o v e m e n t headed by Getulio Vargas was an irreversible increase in central authority: T h e federative excesses of the First Republic were curtailed; g o v e r n m e n t intervention in the e c o n o m y was legitimized to a far greater degree; and, last but not least, important c h a n g e s in representation concepts and practices were quickly introduced. Descriptive and symbolic m e a n i n g s of representation finally m a d e h e a d w a y into the legal and political culture. Descriptive representation is based on the notion that representative bodies ought s o m e h o w to look like a sample of society. It is therefore a d e m a n d that the Hobbesian process of formal authorization be enriched, in order to bring the diversity of social cleavages into those bodies. Perhaps we should stress the word enriched, since, for the 1930s, it is not always possible to speak of an articulate d e m a n d on the part of a u t o n o m o u s and identifiable social groups. A great deal of the legislation adopted must be understood as having a preemptive character (as was clearly the case of corporatism in the field of labor organization). In the electoral field, the introduction of a c o m p r e h e n s i v e scheme of proportional representation (through the Electoral C o d e of 1932), the design of which remains basically the same today, was intimately linked to other c h a n g e s , in an overall design intended to e n h a n c e governmental authority. I n d e e d , the revolution rapidly moved to lower the voting age to e i g h t e e n , to extend the right to vote to w o m e n , to introduce the secret ballot, and to create an Electoral Court in charge of the whole process, f r o m voter registration to certifying the victor. T h e s e advances beg the question of how e f f i c a c i o u s voting rights could be at that m o m e n t . But the point is that the First Republic had seriously degraded parliamentary and electoral institutions. To recover them w o u l d , of course, have a democratizing impact in the long run; but there was a pressing problem of reorganizing and reasserting authority in the short run. T h e revolution, after all, had decisively strengthened the federal executive vis-à-vis states and regions; signs of Left/Right polarization and especially resistance to a quick return to institutional normalcy were quite visible. T h e provisional g o v e r n m e n t was thus obliged to m e e t , and drew a great deal of legitimacy f r o m m e e t i n g , the prior d e m a n d f o r "moralization of electoral practices." W h a t most attracted Assis Brasil (the main author of the Electoral C o d e of 1932) to proportional representation (PR) was the e n h a n c e m e n t

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he thought it would give to government legitimacy and stability, rather than the faithful representation of social diversity. Because it represented the (electoral) minority, PR strengthened its involvement with the state system and its acceptance of the majority. Also, PR was based on larger geographical divisions (actually, the states), thus making the mandate truly independent, in the Burkean sense, instead of the almost imperative mandate that resulted from small districts under the direct influence of landowners and local potentates. It should also be noted that Assis Brasil's model prevails even today insofar as the representation of the different states in the federal Chamber is concerned. The latter is based on the overrepresentation of the smaller and on the underrepresentation of the very large states (especially Sao Paulo), thus introducing considerations of federative equilibrium, and not simply of electoral justice, in the composition of the lower chamber. In recent years this has been much criticized, but at that time the logic was clearly the same that underlies Assis Brasil's reference to minority support. It was also thought that PR on a broad geographical basis would practically force the consolidation of the other elements of the electoral reform, such as the secret ballot and administration of the electoral process by an independent Electoral Court. It is noteworthy that one of the most capable analysts of Brazilian institutional history, Nunes Leal, hardly emphasizes the element of proportionality when he discusses the reform of the early 1930s. The important aspect for him is the advance toward "moralization"; i.e., the Electoral Court. This is also remarkable in that Nunes Leal was deeply skeptical about the development of representative democracy in Brazil without a major change in the agrarian structure. Even so, he wrote, in 1948, despite the excesses and frauds that may have occurred here and there, most testimonies have been favorable to the electoral laws of the early thirties. The gravest accusations against our system of political representation ended simply as a consequence of the fact that those laws withdrew the prerogative of certifying who was elected from the chambers themselves. The ins ended up defeated in some states and a numerous opposition, later reinforced by contestation in the presidential election, found its way even to the Federal Chamber.14

One irony of modern Brazil is that these initial and decisive advances toward Dahlsian democratization were in part instrumental to the new Hobbesian/ Getulian thrust. Moreover, they were in part effected under the auspices of protofascist thinking. 15 The forty-one years of the first republican Constitution had given rise to a deep strain in political culture: Liberal forms had come to be regarded as an alien factor, distorting or corrupting the "true" nature of Brazilian society. There arose a demand for "authentic" representation, for an institutional structure truly adapted to Brazilian reality. For some, this meant an improvement, but for others it meant the suppression of electoral, party, and parliamentary institutions. The Constitutional Congress of 1934 included a section of "corporatist" deputies, an experiment that did not take root and would never be repeated. But corporatist views of representation were widely propagated and

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became in fact the framework within which so-called social rights were extended to the urban working class.' 6 Such views were part and parcel of the Getulian thrust toward an authoritarian (as distinguished f r o m totalitarian) integration o f the political order. Under Getulio Vargas' guidance, protofascist thinking quickly b e c a m e unii'fascist; i . e . , an e d g e against the further development of mobilizational fascism. More than that, it b e c a m e an ideological f r a m e w o r k helping h i m effectively to repress the two extremes, integralistas and C o m munists, starting in 1935 and leading to the formal a n n o u n c e m e n t of the dictatorial Estado Novo ( 1 9 3 7 - 1 9 4 5 ) . The two pillars of this m o v e toward a far more centralized state structure must be considered, since they e m b o d y the presence, apparently for the first time in Brazilian history, of a c o m p r e h e n s i v e e x p e r i m e n t in symbolic representation. O n e was the increasingly charismatic nature of the presidential o f f i c e , with Getulio Vargas in the role of f o u n d i n g father. At the time, however, this was a limited and cautious c h a n g e , if we c o m p a r e it with the more portentous events that would soon take place in Argentina with Peron. In Brazil, the charismatic presidency developed without a confrontation with the system's element of limited pluralism (in Linz's sense): A defacto federation continued to exist, with strongly oligarchical features within each state; the church's traditional legitimacy went on receiving a great deal of deference; and the elite (strange as this may sound) did not give up its reverence for legal culture and for the Brazilian legal tradition. Another pillar in the e m e r g e n c e of Getulian representation was the reinf o r c e m e n t , if not, indeed, a considered invention of certain s y m b o l s of national identity. It is surely possible to assert that at this time w e witness the e m e r g e n c e of culture policy; that such policy was closely associated with a process of nation- (as opposed to state-) building; and finally that both would have longrange e f f e c t s in crystallizing a w h o l e new notion of representation in Brazilian political culture. This cultural construction vigorously asserted that zero-sum conflict cannot reasonably e m e r g e in Brazilian society. This view b e c a m e truly e n c o m p a s s i n g and persuasive in part because it was espoused by leading intellectuals and artists, but also b e c a u s e it reflected important historical and social traits. It w a s , first, a celebration of past success in keeping together such a vast territory; this in turn always associated with the notion of unlimited opportunity. S e c o n d , it suggested that Brazilian social structure had indeed evolved in the direction of increased equality and mobility, not least in the field of race relations. 1 7 Third, it was a view of Brazilian politics; it effectively retrieved the experience of the early e m p i r e , especially Conciliation, when elite restraint and skill put an end to regional and factional struggles. But in the 1930s, a subtle turn seems to have occurred: Instead of reinforcing its nascent negative image as oligarchical, intra-elite behavior, this cultural construction c a m e to regard political flexibility and realism as an emanation of similar traits in the social system, implying that Brazilian politics at its best would always be flexible. Finally, it was a reassertion, on a grand scale, of the conservative (patriarchal)

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view of conflict as childish behavior: an image that could only be persuasive in a country that had virtually no experience with principled politics and that felt threatened by its emergence in the guise of communism and mobilizational fascism. The Failure to Consolidate: 1945-1964 Getulio Vargas was forced to resign on October 29, 1945. His fall and the subsequent developments had a lot to do with the changed international environment. The defeat of the Axis had discredited the Estado Novo internally and externally, despite the fact that it did not belong to the family of mobilizational fascism. At least at first sight, the democratic "experiment" that followed the fall of the Estado Novo had very favorable conditions to prosper and succeed. The international environment was certainly favorable; the domestic economy was not under unusual strain; the armed forces had developed a high decree of organization and an antipersonalistic outlook as a result of their close attention to the weakness of Italian fascism; and the Getulian dictatorship had led to the emergence of a vigorous liberal opposition, with outstanding parliamentary leadership: the Uniao Democratica Nacional (UDN). The deepest of all Brazilian evils, in the eyes of Nunes Leal, the sin of governismo, seemed to have ended.18 The transition had once again been peaceful: If the lack of a clear break with the Estado Novo made further democratization more difficult later on, it is also true that the absence of bloody cleavages could have made it easier. Why did the democratic system then fail to consolidate itself in the next twenty years? The first difficulty that comes to mind is the important institutional contradiction that had developed after 1930 and as a consequence of the Estado Novo. Authority now seemed to bifurcate in a truly charismatic image of the presidency on one side, and an enormous assertion of the parliamentary institution—not least because of the formation of the UDN in the struggle against Vargas—on the other. This was not an immediate threat, since Vargas withdrew to a silent role after his downfall, but became extremely serious when he came back, riding the tide of a direct presidential election in 1950. The political system was now torn between an executive with strong Caesarist overtones, and a parliamentary center of gravity that pulled toward some sort of congressional or party government. Needless to say, Vargas' second presidency was extremely tense, and the contradiction was aggravated instead of diluted by his suicide in August 1954.19 Second, this newly assertive and formally powerful Congress was essentially made up of notables. It understandably had not developed a technical substructure to speak of and was not supported by a modern party system. In order to appreciate this difficulty, it is necessary to recall that the scope of government intervention had been enormously enlarged since 1930. The bureaucracy, traditionally large by virtue of the patrimonial origins of the Brazilian state, had again been expanded and modernized after the revolution. The legislature had

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constitutional powers but lacked everything else it needed to supervise and check this massive amount of policymaking. 2 0 Interpretations of the 1964 breakdown have diverged a great deal. Stating his preference for those that stress the "internal sociopolitical situation" rather than "causes exogenous to the polity," Merquior aptly summarizes this literature: g o v e r n m e n t instability, the disintegration o f the party s y s t e m , virtual paralysis o f legislative d e c i s i o n m a k i n g , e q u i v o c a l attitudes o n the part o f President Goulart, not least with regard to his o w n s u c c e s s i o n ; the threat o f an i l l - d e f i n e d agrarian reform; military c o n c e r n with g o v e r n m e n t - b l e s s e d sergeants' mutinies; and mounting radicalism o n both the right and the left . . . all o f this c o m p o u n d e d by soaring inflation and, o f c o u r s e , by the haunting ghost o f the C u b a n revolution .21

The fate of the party system should be specifically noted. We have suggested that from 1945 onward we had for the first time some basic conditions to develop a competitive party structure. Most observers seem to agree that the start was promising, but that the new party system underwent a sharp deinstitutionalization from the second half of the 1950s up to 1964. Some impute this to sheer erosion; i.e., rapid social mobilization in the wake of industrialization and urbanization, decreasing efficacy of traditional control mechanisms of the patron-client type, and so forth. Others place greater emphasis on institutional regulations, especially the electoral system based on PR and on the preferential vote (open party lists). The fact, however, is that from Jânio Quadros' presidential resignation (August 1961) to the military takeover (March 1964), the party system was overpowered by the worst of all worlds. It became highly factionalized and subject to increasing radicalization at the same time that each of the major parties was internally divided; the tide of antiparty populism became truly exponential (the election of Jânio Quadros to the presidency in 1960 being an example); and the party traditionally identified with moderation and equilibrium, the Partido Social Democratico (PDS) became fragmented. 22 However, we must guard against an overly "politicistic" interpretation. On a broader canvas, the fragmentation of the party system was itself associated with the overall process of economic and social change. This relationship operated in two ways. On one hand, urbanization and social mobilization eroded traditional attachments and social-control mechanisms. On the other, the lack of substantial advance toward déconcentration (reduction of social inequality) left the parties, individually and as a system, without strong bases of popular support. This was the structural framework within which older ideological and institutional conflicts were acted out, setting the stage for the military takeover. On March 31, 1964, the incumbent president, Joâo Goulart, Getulio Vargas' political heir, was ousted from office and sent to exile. It would thus seem that Brazil moved rapidly toward instituting the form of democracy—political contestation and participation—but failed to consolidate democracy by reducing socioeconomic inequality. Unable to channel social conflict toward concrete policies, the party system entered a cycle of deinsti-

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tutionalization, rather than of consolidation in the new democratic mold. Had there been substantial advances toward reducing inequality, we might have had m a j o r conflict among the parties and along class lines, but not the combination of radicalism and populism that took place in big cities, plus survival or even reassertion of basically clientelistic structures in the less developed areas of the country. The crisis of the party system was thus rather telling and cannot be understood simply in terms of the traditional view of those parties as being premodern, preideological, or otherwise not ripe for serious representative democracy. It was more in the nature of an induced suicide, by means of which the society seems to have expelled an extraneous body: a trend toward stronger political representation in the absence of any substantial déconcentration.

An Overview of the Overview Brazilian institutional development was, so to speak, preeminently statecentered. It must be understood in terms of the prolonged process of statebuiiding and the cautious strategies on which it was based, since a small central elite and state structure were confronted with the challenge of preserving territorial unity in a country of continental dimensions. Today's heavy bureaucratic machinery; the ponderous legalistic ethos, despite the fact that legal norms are frequently bypassed; the continuing weight of clientelism and of conservative interests based on land ownership, not to speak of the increasingly tutelary role of the military since the Estado Novo—all these can be traced to or partly explained by that fundamental thrust of our state formation. These aspects of state-building have also been held responsible for what is felt to be an absence of public authority, or a lack of differentiation of the political system vis-à-vis societal structures. This is often phrased as an absence of political institutions properly so-called. This chapter has argued, to the contrary, that there has been significant institution-building, though not necessarily of a formally democratic character. Certain aspects of the post-1964 regime, which are surely relevant for understanding the abertura process of the last decade, are clearly related to that prior institutional development. T h e literature on the recent authoritarian experiment rightly stresses that its economic project was one of capitalist modernization and greater integration in the world capitalist system; and further, that this led, f r o m 1967 on, to a strategy of accelerated industrial growth rather than of income redistribution or of reduction of absolute poverty. It is also correctly said that the initial perceptions led policymakers to curb labor unions and "progressive" organizations; and finally, that this overall thrust, combined with the need to repress guerilla activities, ended up engaging the regime, from 1968 to 1974, in a highly repressive phase, with very high costs in terms of human rights. Yet, two features of the post-1964 regime helped preserve institutional continuity, which in this context meant a chance for a peaceful resumption of democracy. The first is the impersonal concept of government, which materialized in: (a) tighter rules to contain politiciza-

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tion among the military; (b) conservation of the presidency as an elective office, at least through an Electoral College; and (c) keeping the traditional limits pertaining to the duration of the presidential mandate and the norm against reelection." The second feature was the preservation of the representative system. Needless to say, representation here meant formal authorization, in the Hobbesian sense; but it now took place within institutional parameters that not even the military could afford to ignore or distort completely. It is interesting to note, in this context, that the pre-1964 party structure was not immediately suppressed. The decision to terminate the old parties was made only in October 1965, one and one-half years after the coup, and was immediately followed by the creation of at least a "provisional" party structure; i.e., the two-party system that was to remain until 1979. The military governments obviously manipulated the conditions under which elections were held in the ensuing twenty years but did not try to do away with the electoral mechanism as such or replace it by a totally different doctrine of representation.

• THEORETICAL REVIEW • State-building in Brazil left a highly contradictory legacy for contemporary democratic development. As a skillful extension of central regulatory capabilities, it was constantly oriented toward keeping intra-elite conflict at a low level and preventing the eruption of large-scale political violence. But this preemptive pattern of growth undoubtedly made Brazilian society too "backward" from the standpoint of autonomous associational participation. This, in turn, gave the elites and the bureaucracy an excessive latitude to define policy priorities, crystalized unjustifiable income differentials, and left the political system constantly exposed to a dangerous legitimacy gap. Overall Historical Pattern Brazil was a part of the Portuguese Empire from 1500 to 1822. During those three centuries, it was in essence a commercial (as opposed to a settlement) colony: mining and large-scale plantations based on slave labor. Even the colonizers were few, since the Portuguese population was pathetically small compared to the vast world empire it tried to build. These are some of the reasons why the colonial system left neither a powerful central authority nor an integrated national community in its wake. The comparative question with respect to Brazil's colonial past, then, is not so much one of democratic tradition, imported or indigenous. 24 It is rather the relatively smooth transition to a process of political development that we see as consciously oriented toward long-range goals. Political competition and the appropriate institutions began to develop under the empire, at a time when

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mass political participation was totally absent. From then on, political changes became comparatively nonviolent, allowing enough room for the contending groups to accommodate their differences afterwards. Since the nineteenth century, large-scale violence has been increasingly controlled, and bitter memories have not accumulated, at least not among the political elite. The theoretical judgment according to which democracy is better off when peaceful contestation among elites precedes mass participation may be accepted, but requires some qualifications in the Brazilian case. First, there is a matter of degree, since that process finally led to a state structure that seems excessively strong vis-à-vis civil society: too large and clientelistic to be effectively controlled by the citizenry and constantly reinforced by the constraints of so-called late industrialization. Second, the Dahlsian sequence seems to have left serious strains in terms of legitimacy and political culture, as indicated by the alleged excess of conciliation and elitist character of the political system. State Structure and Strength Historians who see a strong state in Brazil in the nineteenth century normally stress that the empire kept the country's territorial integrity, though compelled to use force against important separatist movements. Other analyses attempt to trace the bureaucratic organization of the Brazilian government directly back to the Portuguese absolutist state. But these arguments overstate the case, since they overlook the fact that state structures never became entirely distinguished qua public authority. Symbiotic arrangements with private power (e.g., landed wealth) were part and parcel of a gradual extension of regulatory capabilities. The effectiveness of the central authority in keeping public order and eventually in undertaking social changes is, then, recent in Brazilian history. It is difficult to see how it could exist at a time when the national army hardly existed, or even before it developed organizational responses to its own internal divisions.2' The organizational "maturity" of the army would appear only after the Revolution of 1930. From the 1930s onward, the armed forces developed an increasingly tutelary conception of their role vis-à-vis civilian institutions and society as a whole. Thus, in 1945 they pressured Getiilio Vargas out of office, on the understanding that the days of the Estado Novo were gone. Friction with elected presidents or with their ministers was evident throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1961, following JânioQuadros' resignation from the presidency, the military ministers actually vetoed the transfer of power to the elected vicepresident, Joâo Goulart. This move brought the country to the brink of civil war and was defeated only because the military ministers failed to achieve unitary backing for their position among the regional commanders. In 1964, with substantial popular support, the military overthrew Goulart and took power. However, this tutelary role should not be taken to mean that the Brazilian military is quintessentially opposed to democratic principles and institutions. The tutelary self-conception clearly belongs to the broader authoritarian ideol-

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ogy that presided over the last phase of state-building; i.e., the Getiilian thrust of the 1930s. That ideology includes elements that, paradoxically, help sustain s o m e of the institutional m e c h a n i s m s of representative democracy. Being, at root, antipopulist and nonmobilizational, it stresses the distinction between private and public r o l e s — h e n c e the limits on the duration of m a n d a t e s , the electoral calendar, and, more generally, the importance of keeping the legislature, at least as an institution, capable of being reactivated—all of these clearly practiced by the post-1964 regime. Brazil's political development has also benefited f r o m the fact that instances of direct armed challenge to the state have been few in this century and have been effectively repressed since the 1930s. Ethnic separatism has been virtually nonexistent in modern Brazil. From this point of view, too, state-building was brought to a conclusion that certainly favors democracy. On the other hand, the procedures and justifications used to repress armed challenges, in the 1930s and again after 1964, led to threatening precedents. In both cases, those challenges were treated in terms of "internal war," far more than as unlawful behavior that perhaps could be dealt with by judicial or political m e a n s . T h e legislature, political parties, the judiciary: all of these c a m e out clearly weakened vis-à-vis the executive (which in fact meant the military). With the military directly in power after 1964, this trend b e c a m e far more serious. First there c a m e the arrests, proscriptions, and similar measures designed to curb opposition and promote societal demobilization. From 1968 to 1974, confronting armed underground m o v e m e n t s , the regime adopted widespread censorship and all sorts of cover-up repressive practices. T h e cost of this phase in terms of h u m a n rights was not as high as that faced by Argentina shortly afterwards, but it cannot be underestimated as a negative effect f o r democratic prospects. A s argued in our first section, some of the military seem to have recognized that they had gone too far, when they opted (circa 1973) for a gradual "opening f r o m a b o v e . " T h e description of the Brazilian military as exerting a tutelary role and as having directly established an authoritarian regime that would last f o r twentyone years obviously does not square well with the emerging image of a vigorous "civil society." In fact, w e think that there have been exaggerations in applying the latter concept to the Brazilian case. It is true, of course, that Brazilian society has not b e c o m e highly differentiated and c o m p l e x . C o m b i n e d with resistance to the military r e g i m e , this has led to a rapid increase in associational politicization. But a more appropriate reading of this trend would be that of updating a society marked by unusually low participation and predominantly organized along corporatist, rather than along consociational, lines. T h e latter term refers to a u t o n o m o u s subcultures or subsocieties, which hardly exist in Brazil. Corporatist political organization, in contrast, is organization s t e m m i n g f r o m occupational criteria, directly controlled by the state (as in the case of labor unions) or, more frequently, aiming to keep differential privileges a m o n g professions, the gradient of such differences being guaranteed by the state.

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After twenty years of military-authoritarian rule ( 1964—1984), no one will doubt that the Brazilian state is highly centralized vis-à-vis the federation, or that it directly controls a large proportion of the economy. Since the nineteenth century, the predominant concern with state-building, and the high degree of cohesion of the political elite contrasting with the dispersion and abysmal poverty of the general populace, meant that the central authorities enjoyed a wide margin of discretion to make choices in economic policy.

Development Performance Disregarding r e d i s t r i b u t e issues for a moment, there can be no question that Brazilian governments have been consistently seeking to promote economic growth for a long time, and that their record is fairly impressive. The Brazilian economy now belongs among the ten or twelve largest in the world, roughly on a level with Italy and Canada. This rank is the result of continuously high rates of growth since the early 1930s, and especially of steady advances toward industrialization. The average growth rate of GDP during this whole period has been of the order of 6 to 7 percent a year, with a peak of 10 percent a year from 1968 to 1974. Industrial growth rates have been twice or thrice that of agriculture; in 1968, ten times higher. This growth pattern accounts for the vast scale of the structural changes the country has undergone (see Table 3.1), which Santos finds at least as impressive as that promoted by Meiji restoration in Japan or by the Soviet government in its initial two decades. 26 Some structural aspects of Brazil's "late-developer" pattern of growth must be underlined if we are to understand its political implications. Far from deconcentrating state power, the growth record mentioned above has greatly reinforced it. Reacting to the constraints brought by World War I and by the crisis of 1929, subsequent governments assumed an increasingly direct role in the economic sphere. Starting with the Volta Redonda steel complex, in 1942, state and mixed enterprises were created to foster industrial infrastructure. Foreign trade was regulated not only through fiscal and exchange policies, but also through government entities specifically designed to supervise the commercialization of coffee, sugar, and other commodities. Four decades later, Hewlett could aptly describe the Brazilian state as "a significant producer of basic industrial goods and infra-structural items, an important agent of protection and subsidy, a powerful regulator of economic activity, and the determiner of the direction of national economic development." 2 7 Needless to say, this record of growth underlies the proven ability of the Brazilian political system to avoid the generalization of zero-sum perceptions and expectations. But these successes have not been sufficient to dilute the illegitimacy syndrome that permanently surrounds the political system, if not authorities in general. In fact, the Brazilian state, having relied heavily on economic growth for legitimacy, has been reasonably successful in promoting growth but seems rather far from overcoming its legitimacy deficit. In theory,

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the state can manipulate the supply of key inputs and thus start altering the many perverse aspects of the growth pattern, but it cannot readily do that in practice, as Hewlett points out, since interfering with the market conditions toward which major enterprises are oriented would often mean reducing the rate of growth—hence, losing legitimacy. Moreover, insufficient domestic savings, technological dependence, and other imbalances have increasingly led the country, since the 1950s, to a strategy of growth-cum-debt and inflationary financing. In the 1970s and early 1980s, as is well known, foreign debt skyrocketed to over $100 billion and inflation rapidly moved to the three-digit altitude. In conclusion, Brazilian development can thus be said to have very positive and very negative aspects. High rates of growth (hence variable-sum perceptions a m o n g different strata of society) co-exist with dramatic imbalances— regionally, against the northeast; sectorally, against small-scale agriculture and rural labor; by class, against the poor in general. But there is no persuasive evidence that those positive or negative aspects are predominantly associated by the mass public with either democratic or authoritarian governments. Memories of high growth flash back on democratic ( e . g . , Kubitschek, 1955-1960) as well as on extreme authoritarian ( e . g . , Mèdici, 1969-1973) administrations. A significant distinction emerged in the 1970s and early 1980s among the educated, urban middle class. In this segment, there undoubtedly was an increase in the proportion of those thinking that the military-authoritarian regime achieved growth at an unacceptable social cost: income concentration; neglect of welfare investments; denationalization of economy and culture; damage to the environment; corruption. This change was crucially important for the Brazilian political abertura, expressing itself in electoral mobilization as well as in the political activation of professional and civic associations of numerous types. How lasting this realignment will be is a moot question. Disappointment with the " N e w Republic" may induce further changes in the political value system of this segment. A final word on corruption: up to 1964, corruption was clearly perceived in a patrimonial rather than in a capitalistic framework. The widespread feeling that politicians are corrupt was then primarily focused on clientelistic (patronage) practices. Undue use of public funds for private enrichment was not unknown, of course, but it was perceived as associated with only a few practices (e.g., dubious credits to landowners and co-optation of union leaders). Under the military governments, the context and, therefore, the whole perception of corruption underwent an enormous c h a n g e — p e r h a p s we should say that both moved to an exponential scale. Accelerated industrialization, increasing internationalization of the economy, the whole strategy of growth-cum-debt—all of these took place, we must recall, without any effective parliamentary oversight and often under the protection of pervasive press censorship. No wonder, then, that the idea of corruption became associated with financial scandals, alleged "commissions" in foreign dealings and so on; the number of known cases being

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sufficient, needless to say, to lend credence to the most extravagant generalizations. The gradual and negotiated nature of Brazilian redemocratization made the exemplary investigation and punishment of major instances of corruption politically very difficult. The "new republic" thus failed to capitalize on one of the most potent sources of popular discontent with the previous authoritarian regime. Worse, it was quickly affected by a resurrection of the older "patrimonial" perception, since critics of the huge public deficit readily seized on patronage (empreguismo) as a target. Against a background of poverty and inequality, insufficient governability, and a political culture strongly affected by pervasive images of corruption, it comes as no surprise that even as remarkable a record of growth as the Brazilian may fall short of full legitimation for a democratic regime.

Class Structure, Income Distribution, and Social Organization No matter how one measures them, levels of income inequality and mass poverty in Brazil are among the worst in the world. The main determinants of present income differentials and class structure undoubtedly have their roots in the pattern of land appropriation inherited from the colonial past. Concentration of landed wealth and use of the best land to produce export commodities have always been the major "push" factors behind the enormous supply of cheap labor constantly flocking to the cities. 28 Rapid industrial growth oriented toward a predominantly middle-class market, high rates of population growth, and the insufficiency of investment in basic welfare services have combined to maintain extreme inequalities and indeed to make a mockery of the "trickle-down" theory of indirect redistribution. 29 Needless to say, the full implications of Braziliansize poverty and inequality for democratic prospects must also take into account that the country has now become highly urbanized and "mobilized" (in Deutsch's sense). Throughout the empire and the First Republic, both working class and urban middle strata were numerically unimportant. The vast majority of the population lived in rural areas or in very small villages and towns, where society was steeply stratified. Here, there was no middle class worth speaking of. At the bottom were the peasants, a sprinkling of very poor independent farmers, and similar strata in the towns. At that time, a crisis in the coffee business was tantamount to economic recession, but it did not necessarily mean that a large number of laborers lost their jobs. From World War II onward, the picture started changing dramatically. Total population grew from 41 million in 1940 to 119 million in 1980; urban population, from 13 to 70 million; and metropolitan population (i.e., residents of the nine largest urban centers) from 6.3 to 35 million. These changes were accompanied by major shifts in the labor force out of agriculture and into industry and services (seeTable 3.1). Despite the impressive overall rates of economic growth during the "eco-

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nomic miracle" period of the military regime (the late 1960s and early 1970s), there is ample evidence that income differentials and some telling indicators of basic welfare (such as infant mortality) went on worsening. By the early 1970s, several studies were showing that income inequality had increased relative to the early 1960s. Writing in 1976, Graham offered the following summary of the evidence: (a) income concentration (as measured by the standard Gini index) increased overall, and in all regions, during the sixties; (b) the rates of concentration were more pronounced in the more developed (and most rapidly growing) areas like Sao Paulo and the south than in the lesser developed regions; (c) real income increased in all areas; (d) average monthly real income per urban worker increased much more rapidly (43 percent) than income per agricultural worker (14 percent), thereby increasing the intersectoral income differentials during the decade; (e) these intersectoral income differentials stood out much more dramatically in the northeast than in Sao Paulo and the center and south."'

World Bank data on forty-four countries, including twenty-six less developed countries, shows Brazil to have the worst income inequality, as evidenced in the share of national income received in 1972 by the highest 20 percent and 10 percent of the population." Using data from 1960 to 1980, Serra reports that concentration was still going on in the 1970s. The lowest 20% of the economically active population had gone from 3.9% of total income in 1960 to 3.4% in 1970, to 2.8% in 1980; the top 10%, from 39.6% to 46.7%, to 50.9%. 1 2 This means that the governmental policies practiced throughout this period, at best, did not counteract structural forces making for greater inequality; at worst they aggravated their effect. Combined with the massive character of absolute poverty that prevails in the northeast and in the outskirts of all major cities, this degree of income concentration is undoubtedly one of the steepest challenges to democratic consolidation. Let us now look at this picture in terms of class structure, rather than of income distribution. The starting point here must be the corporatist order imposed from above in the 1930s."This system can be seen as a highly successful attempt to control, not to say petrify, the process of class formation, by which we mean development of differentiated collective identities and autonomous political organization. The lowest extremity of the class structure, made up of landless peasants and very poor small fanners, was not regulated in a strict sense, since they lacked the occupational differentiation that formed the basis of the whole system; rather, they were excluded from it. The upper extremity, made up of large landowners, provided another parameter—untouchable property rights. But this should not be confounded with total political autonomy, much less with monolithic control of the state: The political sphere (embodied in the military, the bureaucracy, and in the political "class") retained considerable decisional discretion. Between these two extremes, a corporatist gradient was imposed on the rest of society; i.e., on urban wage labor and middle-class independent occupations in general. The privilege of "representing" a given sector was thoroughly

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subjected to state (legal) control, as well as to effective means to circumscribe each sector's agenda-building and other overt political moves. This pattern applied even to industrial and commercial entrepreneurs, through corporatist pyramids exactly paralleling those of urban labor. As Santos points out, this whole structure remained virtually u n c h a n g e d through the "democratic experim e n t " based on the Constitution of 1946. Attempts at self-organization on the part of rural labor, in the early 1960s, were quickly repressed by the post-1964 r e g i m e , obviously with full applause and cooperation f r o m the landowners, w h o saw such attempts as outright subversion. Ironically e n o u g h , serious and lasting " s u b v e r s i o n " of the regulated order would occur, first as the result of the scale of the e c o n o m i c changes induced by the military governments; second, as an unintended by-product of some of their " m o d e r n i z i n g " reforms; and finally, in that context of large-scale structural c h a n g e , from the reactivation of "civil society" during the political o p e n i n g . Development of large-scale industry led entrepreneurs, especially in the heaviest and most d y n a m i c sectors, to organize in new types of associations, pulling themselves out of the traditional corporatist f r a m e w o r k . O u s t e d , as it were, from the administration of social-security f u n d s , labor leaders f o u n d themselves with nothing to o f f e r their constituencies; nothing but more authentic leadership. This was the origin of so-called new unionism, which thrived in the most d y n a m i c sectors of the e c o n o m y and struck a major blow against the old corporatist structure. Trying to sidestep political clientelism in their attempt to extend social security to the rural areas, the military governments stimulated the formation of rural labor unions. From 1976 to 1983, unionized rural labor increased f r o m slightly over 3 to more than 8 million, accounting now for more than half of total union m e m b e r s h i p in the country, even though rural labor accounts for only 30 percent of the economically active population. Needless to say, rural unions did not c o n f o r m to the passive blueprint that the g o v e r n m e n t probably conceived for t h e m . In less than two decades, they had a national leadership, undertook successful strikes, and indeed placed land reform firmly on their a g e n d a . T h e politicization of the urban middle strata has not lagged behind. White-collar unions, neighborhood organizations, and associations of n u m e r o u s types quickly e m e r g e d , undoubtedly reflecting the increasing c o m plexity and, in many ways the increasing technical and professional sophistication of Brazilian urban life. T h e conclusion, then, is that, in Brazil, medieval e c o n o m i c inequalities exist side-by-side with a d y n a m i c and increasingly sophisticated society. H e a v y external d e p e n d e n c y does not mean that an indigenous bourgeoisie failed to develop. There is, in fact, a modern entrepreneurial class, in industry as well as agriculture. This class has b e c o m e m u c h more affirmative in the last d e c a d e , profiting f r o m the process of political opening. Perceiving that it could not unconditionally count on the military or on elected politicians, it b e c a m e highly and autonomously organized. This process in fact underwent a remarkable acceleration under the new republic, first in view of the Constitutional C o n g r e s s (elected in N o v e m b e r 1986); and s e c o n d , and perhaps more important, because

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the economic reforms of the Sarney government (the Cruzado Plan) politicized the economy to a far greater extent; for example, introducing generalized price controls. We have so far emphasized the economic bases and the organizational aspects of class formation. Needless to say, the picture becomes much less politicized when we look at the rank-and-file and especially at class consciousness. A very large proportion of the urban working class is young, politically inexperienced, indeed made up of recent migrants. Wage strikes can be mobilized without much difficulty, but both unions and political parties must reckon with a great deal of instability, indeed of volatility, when it comes to broader electoral or ideological disputes. Brazilian development, as we have repeatedly stressed, has been able to create a basically non-zero-sum perception of social conflict. Spatial mobility has been extremely high and has, in fact, meant better life chances for poor migrants. The belief in upward social mobility is probably not as deep today as it was in the 1950s, but access to education and to consumption has increased considerably with increases in total income. Some fashionable descriptions of Brazilian society as being rigidly hierarchical must, then, be taken with a grain of salt. The concentration of property, twenty-one years of authoritarian rule, and huge income inequalities have not meant petrification of status inequality. On the other hand, socioeconomic inequalities do tend to cumulate to some extent. Although extremely high correlation among education, occupation, income, and, say, "honor," certainly does not exist, the overall structure of inequalities has an evident regional component. The southeast (where Sao Paulo is located) and the extreme south are "rich" regions, whereas the northeast, with 35 million inhabitants, is one of the major examples of mass poverty in the world. This regional disparity has an important overlap with the country's ethnic differentiation. Blacks and pardoes account for well over two-thirds of the northern and northeastern states, while the reverse proportion obtains in the southeast and the south. These definitions are known to be very imprecise in Brazilian population statistics, but the difference is large enough to merit attention. Nationality and Ethnic Cleavages Political conflict among language or religious groups is virtually nonexistent in Brazil. On these two dimensions, let alone nationality, the country is comparatively very homogeneous. The picture is much more complex in the field of race relations. Interpretations range from the belief in a genuinely "peaceful" evolution to the notion that underprivileged minorities (especially blacks) lack collective identity and organization as a consequence of white economic and political domination. The extremes do seem to agree that overt ethnic strife is not prevalent. There can be no doubt, however, that poverty and color are significantly correlated. 14 Blacks, and especially black women, are disproportionately

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locked in low-status and low-income occupations. The proportion of white m e n earning less than three minimum wages per month was 66% in 1976, while the comparable proportion was 82% for white w o m e n , 87% for black men, and 9 5 % for black w o m e n . Educational data also show important differences (though not significantly between men and women). The proportion of illiterates among white men declined from 4 4 % in 1950 to 24% in 1980; among black m e n , f r o m 74% to 4 7 % . " T h e s e figures clearly indicate diffuse racial barriers to social mobility. But the country does have an overarching national identity. Living generations have virtually no memory of separatist movements or politically relevant subcultures, whether based on language, race, or religion. It can, of course, be said that this high degree of cultural uniformity reflects a process of authoritarian state-building under colonial and then imperial government. The fact, however, is that Brazil is not presently confronted with serious ethnic or cultural strife. Given the immense burden that socioeconomic cleavages place on the political agenda, this relative homogeneity is clearly a positive factor for d e m o cratic development. Political Structure The formal structure of the Brazilian state has varied a great deal since independence (see Table 3.2), but the concentration of power in the national executive has been a constant. Accepted as a hallmark of state-building and, more recently, as necessary for the sake of economic development and national security, that concentration was often carried out at the expense of state and local governments, of legislative and judicial powers, and even more clearly of the party system. 1 6 The First Republic (1889-1930) tried to adapt the U.S. model, providing for a popularly elected president and granting extensive autonomy to the provinces, now called states, of the old unitary empire. The result was full of perverse effects, as the "politics of the governors" decisively weakened the national legislature and judiciary and seriously compromised elections and party competition. In practice, the government became as oligarchical and probably far less legitimate than the empire, in the eyes of the relevant strata. This process of political decay eventually led to the Revolution of 1930 (and, in 1937, to Vargas' Estado Novo), which again concentrated federal power, but now within a framework of nonmobilizational, partyless authoritarian rule. The Revolution of 1930 is undoubtedly the " f o u n d i n g " mark of the modern Brazilian political system, but again with contradictory effects in terms of democratic prospects. In the short run, advances in "state-ness" (bureaucratic reach, military complexity, greater regulation of economy) were certainly favorable, since they reduced the scope of private power and made purely praetorian involution thenceforth unlikely. In the long run, however, some of those advances seem to have outlived their function. The corporatist system of labor

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relations has certainly been detrimental to the political organization of the working class. The conventional PR electoral system then established has clearly not contributed to developing a stable party system. Worse still, the presidential office became overloaded with contradictory expectations. For professional politicians, it became the ultimate distributor of patronage, credits, and public investments, and the arbiter among regional interests. For the newly mobilized urban masses, after 1945, it was the focal point of demands for better wages and improvements in living conditions. From the viewpoint of the military establishment, it came to be the very embodiment of national security, implying containment of both "oligarchical" and "mob" rule. These cross-pressures and institutional deficiencies were clearly operative in the 1964 breakdown. The democratic experiment initiated in 1945 was based, in comparison with the earlier periods, on a far stronger representative system. The national legislature and the main political parties started as fundamental political actors. However, growing social mobilization and persistent inflation made it impossible for the two major parties (UDN and PSD) to retain their initially safe electoral advantage. As a typical "institutional" party, the PSD became increasingly vulnerable to a bipolar (Left and Right) opposition, roughly as suggested by Sartori's "polarized pluralism" m o d e l . " The erosion of party and congressional support meant that Goulart (19611964) had to carry the full burden of maintaining institutional equilibrium exactly when the Caesarist ghost that surrounds Latin American presidentialism came, full-bodied, to the fore. The Caesarist dilemma stems from the need to cope with stringent and clearly defined contradictory situational constraints. Frustrating mass demands in the name of austerity or economic rationality alienates diffuse support and thus deprives the president of the one resource that makes him strong vis-à-vis elected politicians. If, on the contrary, he chooses to court those demands too closely, the specter of a mob-based dictatorship is immediately raised by the propertied classes and, often, by the military organization. The middle course is often unavailable because of the very weakness and inconsistency of the party system. When the difficulties inherent in these situational constraints are compounded by ambiguous personal behavior, as was evidently the case in the Goulart presidency, the breaking point is near.

Leadership From 1961 to 1964, President Goulart proved unable to escape the Caesarist trap. He in fact made it more inexorable by allowing too much room for doubt as to his intention to abide by the constitutional rules that would govern his succession. Few analysts would dispute that Goulart's equivocal behavior was a crucial precipitating factor in the democratic breakdown. 3 * The important question, then, is how does it come about that a country with an important institutional history and a fairly impersonal conception of governing falls prey to that sort of populistic retrogression and thence to breakdown.

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1) e c o — . J o h n R . M c L a n e , Indian Nationalism and the Early Congress (Princeton: Princeton U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1977), p p . 9 4 - 9 5 . 7. D a d a b h a i N a o r o j i , Poverty and Un-British Rule in India ( D e l h i : P u b l i c a t i o n s D i v i s i o n . G o v e r n m e n t o f I n d i a , 1969 [originally p u b l i s h e d in 1901] ), p. 116. F o r a c o l l e c t i o n o f o t h e r s ' w r i t i n g s s e e A . A p p a d o r a i , e d . . Documents on Political Thought in Modern India, v o l . 1 ( B o m b a y : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1973). 8. S e e W . T . d e B a r y , e d . . Sources of Indian Tradition, vol. 2 ( N e w Y o r k : C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 6 3 ) , p. 140, a n d A . A p p a d o r a i , Documents on Political Thought, vol. 1, p. 163. 9. S e e d e B a r y , e d . . Sources of Indian Tradition, vol. 2, pp. 194-195. 10. F o r a d e t a i l e d d i s c u s s i o n s e e D a s G u p t a , Language Conflict and National velopment.

De-

11. G a n d h i ' s i d e a s are d i s c u s s e d in R . I y e r , The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi ( N e w Y o r k : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1973). F o r N e h r u ' s i d e a s s e e M . B r e c h e r , Nehru: A Political Biography ( N e w Y o r k : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1959). S e e a l s o R o n a l d J. T e r c h e k , " G a n d h i a n d D e m o c r a t i c T h e o r y , " in T . P a n t h a m a n d K. L. D e u t s c h , e d s . , Political Thought in Modern India ( N e w D e l h i : S a g e , 1 9 8 6 ) , p p . 3 0 7 - 3 2 4 , a n d B . P a r e k h , " G a n d h i a n d t h e L o g i c o f R e f o r m i s t D i s c o u r s e , " in B . P a r e k h a n d T . P a n t h a m , e d s . . Political Discourse ( N e w D e l h i : S a g e , 1987), p p . 2 7 7 - 2 9 1 . 12. T h e c o m p l e x i t y o f t h e j o b i n v o l v e d in k e e p i n g m u l t i p l e i n t e r e s t s t o g e t h e r , a n d y e t not e x c l u s i v e l y s e r v i n g a d o m i n a n t i n t e r e s t d u e t o p o p u l i s t c o m p u l s i o n s o f t h e m o v e m e n t , is d i s c u s s e d in C. M a r k o v i t s , Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, 1931-1939 ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1985), p p . 1 8 0 - 1 8 1 . 13. T h e s e i d e a s are a n a l y z e d ( B e r k e l e y : U n i v e r s i t y of C a l i f o r n i a 14. S e e , f o r e x a m p l e . J u d i t h C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1972). 52-122. 15. Ibid , e s p e c i a l l y p p .

in detail in J o a n B o n d u r a n t , Conquest of Violence P r e s s . 1 9 6 5 ) , e s p . pp. 190ff. M . B r o w n , Gandhi's Rise to Power (Cambridge: For a detailed analysis of these m o v e m e n t s , esp. pp.

190-249.

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16. For a background of the 1919 reforms see S. R. M e h r o t r a , "The Politics Behind the M o n t a g u Declaration of 1917," in C. H. Philips, e d . . Politics and Society in India ( N e w Y o r k : Praeger, 1962), pp. 71-96. 17. T h e Act of 1935 and its working is analyzed in A . C h a t t e r j i , The Constitutional Development of India: 1937-1947 (Calcutta: Firma K. L. M u k h o p a d h y a y , 1958), pp. 3 - 2 5 . 18. T h e general seats were those that were not specifically designated for Muslims, E u r o p e a n s . Anglo-Indians, Indian Christians, or Sikhs. For most purposes these would imply constituencies for H i n d u candidates. 19. T h e official version of the constitution was in English. In late 1987 a Hindi translation of the d o c u m e n t was approved by a constitutional a m e n d m e n t T h u s the fiftysixth a m e n d m e n t relatively enlarged access in a country where most people cannot read English. Hindi reading ability extends to about one-third of the country's population. 20. See The Constitution of India, c o m m e m o r a t i v e edition (New Delhi: Ministry of Law and Justice. G o v e r n m e n t of India, 1974), pp. 17-18. 21. For an analysis of the 1977 election see Myron Werner. India at the Polls: The Parliamentary Elections of 1977 (Washington. D C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1978). 22. T h e first q u a r t e r of 1988 also witnessed the end of communist rule in T r i p u r a , w h e r e a C o n g r e s s - d o m i n a t e d coalition came to power. Meanwhile, the A I A D M K rule in T a m i l n a d u failed to survive the succession crisis following the death of the party's most p o p u l a r leader. M. G . R a m a c h a n d r a n . 23. This turning point and its a f t e r m a t h is discussed in Richard Sisson. "Party T r a n s f o r m a t i o n in India: D e v e l o p m e n t and C h a n g e in the Indian National Congress." in N. S. Bose, e d . , India in the Eighties (Calcutta: Firma K. I.. M u k h o p a d h y a y . 1982), pp. 1-23; and Stanley A . K o c h a n e k . The Congress Parly of India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968). especially pp. 407-447. 24. T h e idea of the Congress party as a national reconciler of interests has been extensively treated in many works, of which at least two may be noted: Myron W e i n e r , Party Building in a New Nation: The Indian National Congress (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967); and R a j n i Kothari, Politics in India (Boston: Little, B r o w n , 1970). 25. For details of the politics of the 1970s and its impact on the 1980s see R o b e r t L. H a r d g r a v e , Jr. and Stanley A. K o c h a n e k , India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation. 4th e d . , (New Y o r k : H a r c o u r t Brace Jovanovich, 1986). p. 204ff. 26. See Myron W e i n e r , "Political Evolution—Party Bureaucracy and Institutions," in J o h n D. Mellor, e d . , India: A Rising Middle Power (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979), especially p. 32f. 27. For the Bihar and G u j a r a t agitations see G h a n s h y a m Shah, Protest Movements in Two Indian States: A Study of Gujarat and Bihar Movements (Delhi: A j a n t a , 1977). See also G e o f f r e y O s t e r g a a r d , " T h e A m b i g u o u s Strategy of J. P.'s Last Phase," in David S e l b o u r n e , e d . . In Theory and Practice: Essays on the Politics of Jayaprakash Narayan (Delhi: O x f o r d University Press, 1985), pp. 155-180. 28. J a y a p r a k a s h Narayan explained his position in these words: "I am aiming at a p e o p l e ' s m o v e m e n t embracing the entire nation. A m o v e m e n t cannot have a clear-cut p r o g r a m . T h e main p u r p o s e of a m o v e m e n t is to articulate people's wishes." See his collected writings published under the title Total Revolution (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1978), vol. 4, p. 141. Positive p r o g r a m s favored by him and the core groups of this m o v e m e n t in Bihar are stated in pp. 165ff. T h e s e include political accountability of the elected legislators to their constituencies, devolution of decision making authority, and i m p l e m e n t a t i o n of agrarian r e f o r m s through peoples' committees. See ibid., pp. 168-170. 29. T h e o p p o n e n t was R a j Narain, who d e f e a t e d Indira G a n d h i in the election of 1977. The court case and the events following it are described in K. Nayar, The Judgement: Inside Story of Emergency in India (New Delhi: Vikas, 1977). 30. T h e s e provisions and their use in 1975 are discussed in Zubair A l a m , Emergency Powers and Indian Democracy (New Delhi: S. K. Publishers, 1987), pp. 94-103. T h e 59th a m e n d m e n t of the constitution passed by parliament in March 1988 e m p o w e r s the federal g o v e r n m e n t to impose e m e r g e n c y in P u n j a b . 31. See, for example, A . Gledhill, The Republic of India: The Development of its Laws and Constitution ( L o n d o n : Stevens, 1951). pp. 107-109.

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32. This distinction is discussed in detail in J. Das G u p t a , " A Season of Ceasars: E m e r g e n c y R e g i m e s and D e v e l o p m e n t Politics in Asia," Asian Survey 18, no. 4 (April 1978): pp. 315-349. 33. Why she e n d e d u p choosing this option has been subject to extensive speculation. A good analysis of possible reasons and explanations is in P. B. Mayer, "Congress [I], E m e r g e n c y [I): Interpreting Indira G a n d h i ' s India," Journal of Commonwealth, and Comparative Policies 22, no. 2 (1984). pp. 128-150. H o w the emergency leaders d e f e n d e d this case is exemplified in D. V. G a n d h i , e d . . Era of Discipline: Documents on Contemporary Reality (New Delhi: Samachar Bharati, 1976), p. 2 and passim. 34. T h e constitutional changes, as intended and executed, are discussed in detail in Lloyd I. R u d o l p h and Suzanne H. R u d o l p h , " T o T h e Brink and Back: Representation and the State in I n d i a . " Asian Survey 18, no. 4 (1978): especially pp. 392-399. 35. T h e developmental implications of emergency are analyzed in Das G u p t a , " A Season of C a e s a r s , " pp. 332ff. 36. See Myron Weiner, India at the Polls, for a detailed analysis. 37. T h e political implication and the economic record of the Janata rule is analyzed in J. Das G u p t a , " T h e J a n a t a Phase: Reorganization and Redirection in Indian Politics." Asian Survey 19. no. 4 (1979): pp. 390-403. 38. S o m e of these mobilization processes are discussed by Ghanshyam Shah and J. Das G u p t a in their p a p e r s included in Atul Kohli, e d . , India's Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): pp. 144-168 and 262-304. See also Barnett R. R u b i n , " T h e Civil Liberties M o v e m e n t in India," in Asian Survey 27, no. 3 (1987): pp. 371-392. 39. T h e literature on labor unions in India is extensive For surveys of the role of trade unions in Indian politics, see S. Jawaid, Trade Union Movement in India (Delhi: S u n d e e p . 1982); and R. C h a t t e r j i , Unions, Politics and the State (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1980), esp. pp. 27-86. For a survey of peasant associations see A. N. Seth. Peasant Organizations in India (Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1984); and K. C. A l e x a n d e r , Peasant Organizations in South India (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1981). 40. See Stanley A . K o c h a n e k . Business and Politics in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), especially part 3. 41. T h e s e are discussed in detail in an excellent analysis of the pertinent literature by Lloyd 1. R u d o l p h and Susan H . R u d o l p h , " D e t e r m i n a n t s and Varieties of Agrarian Mobilization," in M. Desai et al., e d s . , Agrarian Power and Agricultural Productivity in South Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). pp. 281-344. 42. T h e support bases in Kerala are discussed in T. J. Nossiter. Communism in Kerala (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); those in West Bengal are discussed in Atul Kohli, The State and Poverty in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), ch. 3. 43. A s o n e study of Kerala points o u t , "It seems that the agricultural labor movement...has now been integrated into the existing system. The reduction in militant struggles, the increasing institutionalization of collective bargaining and parliamentary politics are all indicative of this." See J o s e p h T h a r a m a n g a l a m , Agrarian Class Conflict: The Political Mobilization of Agricultural Laborers in Kuttanad, South India (Vancouver: University of British C o l u m b i a Press, 1981), p. 98. A n o t h e r m o r e empirical survey conducted in T a m i l n a d u reaches a similar conclusion. See Marshall M. B o u t o n , Agrarian Radicalism in South India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 310. 44. T h e role of a literary association like the Assam Sahitya Sabha in generating a p o p u l a r m o v e m e n t was not unique to Assam. Similar cases of organized literary initiative in different states of India remind us of the political significance of nonpolitical associations. F o r a discussion of this association and its alliance with the All Assam Students' U n i o n see my " L a n g u a g e , National Unity, and Shared Development in South Asia," in William R. B e e r and J a m e s E . Jacobs, eds., Language Policy and National Unity (Totowa, N . J . : R o w m a n and Allanheld, 1985), pp. 208ff. 45. For a chronological survey see T . S. Murty, Assam: The Difficult Years (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983). 46. O n 18 February 1983 a m o b of about 12,000 people killed 1,400 m e n . w o m e n , and children. 47. T h e A s s a m accord was a n n o u n c e d by Prime Minister Rajiv G a n d h i on 12 A u g u s t 1986. It was described by newspapers as a balancing trick that left " n o winners or losers." See. for example, India Today, 15 September 1985, international edition, p. 27.

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48. T h e organizational durability of the D M K , and later of its breakaway part, the A I A D M K (which ruled Tamilnadu until early 1988), and that of the Telugu D e s a m (which rules Andhra Pradesh), as well as their record of cooperation with national parties, were hardly anticipated at the time of their inception. 49. For a discussion of his ideas on planning see Bruce F. Johnston and William C. Clark, Redesigning Rural Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), p. 24. 50. For o n e example see India Today, international edition, 15 N o v e m b e r 1985, pp. 8ff. This is actually an assessment of the prime minister's record. A reasonably discounted value can, however, be assigned to his government by implication. A similar positive result was recorded in another poll conducted by The Telegraph, Calcutta, 31 October 1985. By early 1988 the prime minister and his leadership continued to enjoy more public c o n f i d e n c e than the national level alternative leadership despite the growing disappointment with his performance. See India Today, international edition, 29 February 1988. pp. 17-23. 51. See The Approach to ¡he Seventh Five-Year Plan, 1985-90 (Planning Commission, Government of India. July 1984). Center for Monitoring Indian Economy edition, p. 9. 52. T h e proportion of plan outlay devoted to agriculture was 14.8 percent in the first plan ( 1 9 5 2 - 1 9 5 6 ) , 11.7 percent in the second plan (1955-1961) and 12.7 percent in the third plan (1961-1965). The corresponding figures for organized industry and mining were 2.8 percent, 20.1 percent, and 20.1 percent. See the Statistical Outline of India, 1984 ( B o m b a y : Tata Services, 1984). 53. For a critique of Indian plan strategies see John W. Mellor. The New Economics of Growth: A Strategy for India and the Developing World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976), especially pp. 274ff. For a sophisticated analysis defending the plan strategies see S. Chakravarty, Development Planning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 7 - 3 8 . 54. This refers to the agricultural policies that have acquired the popular label of "green revolution." 55. For an account of this colonial legacy see Dharma Kumar, e d . . The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). pp. 947ff. 56. See the World Development Report, 1987 ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 258. 57. Ibid. 58. John Wall. "Foodgrain Management: Pricing, Procurement, Distribution, Import, and Storage Policy," in India: Occasional Papers. World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 279, May 1978 (Washington, D C.: The World Bank, 1978), pp. 8 8 - 8 9 . 59. See G o v e r n m e n t of India, Economic Survey, 1986-87 ( N e w D e l h i , 1987), pp. 8 and S-7 through S-15, and Economic Survey. 1987-88 ( N e w Delhi. 1988). pp. S-23-24 and passim. 60. In 1985 and 1986 the procurement rates were 16 and 15 percent of new foodgrain production respectively. Even in the worst drought year of 1987. this rate e x c e e d e d 12 percent. Economic Survey, 1987-88 ( N e w Delhi, 1988), p. S-24. 61. Toward Sustained Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington. D C.: The World Bank, 1984), p. 2. 62. See Amartya Sen, Resources. Values and Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 501ff, for an interesting comparison of the scale of famines in colonial India and socialist China. 63. Primary school enrollment as percent of age group for sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1980s was 77.6 percent, for East Asia 113.0, and for India 90.0. Compiled from The World B a n k , World Tables, vol. 2 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984 edition), pp. 158-159, World Development Report 1984 ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 226, and World Development Report. 1987, p. 262. 64. For an idea of how the leading economists of the 1950s thought about desirable strategies of d e v e l o p m e n t and how in the 1980s they assess their earlier thoughts, see Gerald M. Meier and Dudley Seers, e d s . . Pioneers in Development ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1984). 65. Jagdish Bhagwati's distinction of several variants of import substitution would help o n e to place the Indian policy in a clearer perspective. See his "Comment" on Prebisch in ibid., pp. 201-202.

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66. I have u s e d total industrial growth rates because of easier availability, but growth rates in manufacturing are not very dissimilar. S e e T h e World B a n k . World Development Report 1984, p. 220. 67. T h u s o n e e s t i m a t e suggests that the annual percentage rate of growth of industrial product in India w a s 4.1 c o m p a r e d to 6 . 3 for nonsocialist d e v e l o p i n g countries and 4 . 3 for the nonsocialist world. S e e S. J. Patel, "India's R e g r e s s i o n in the World E c o n o m y . " in Economic and Political Weekly. 28 S e p t e m b e r 1985, p. 1652. H o w seriously such estimates n e e d to be taken is an issue that m a y be controversial. S e e , for instance. K. N. Raj, " E c o n o m i c G r o w t h in India, 1952-55 to 1982-83," in Economic and Political Weekly, 13 O c t o b e r 1984. p. 1804. 68. F r o m Basic Statistics Relating to Indian Economy ( B o m b a y : C e n t e r for Monitoring Indian E c o n o m y , A u g u s t 1984), Table 1 4 . 9 - 2 , and A u g u s t 1986, T a b l e 14.11-2. 69. With all the affection for steel, per capita steel c o n s u m p t i o n in India increased from five kilograms in 1952 only to s e v e n t e e n in 1982, w h e r e a s in China it grew from two kilograms to fourty-one. By 1982 per capita steel production in India and e v e n China—two cases of relatively self-reliant p l a n n i n g — r e m a i n e d way behind c o m p a r e d to South Korea ( 3 3 9 ) , T a i w a n , M e x i c o (114), A r g e n t i n a (121), and Brazil (105). World Economy and India's Place in It ( B o m b a y : C e n t e r for Monitoring Indian E c o n o m y , O c t o b e r 1986). Table 8 . 8 . 70. D a t a in this section has b e e n c o m p i l e d from sources cited in note 68 (including also T a b l e 2 2 . 3 ) and World B a n k , China: Socialist Economic Development. vol. 1 ( W a s h i n g t o n , D . C . : T h e World B a n k , 1983), p. 120. 71. F o r s o m e details of e c o n o m i c reforms in China, see W. Byrd, ei al.. Recent Chinese Economic Reforms, W o r l d Bank Staff W o r k i n g Papers no. 652 ( W a s h i n g t o n , D C.: T h e W o r l d B a n k , 1984). 72. For an account of the Brazilian public sector's e x p a n s i o n and the attendant p r o b l e m s , s e e Brazil: A World Bank Country Study ( W a s h i n g t o n , D . C . : T h e World B a n k , 1984), e s p e c i a l l y pp. 30ff. T h e strong preference for luxury g o o d s production catering to the u p p e r 2 0 percent of the p o p u l a t i o n in a country of high inequality is discussed in Alain de Janvry, "Social Disarticulation in Latin American History," working paper for Giannini F o u n d a t i o n of Agricultural E c o n o m i c s , March 1984. 73. C o m p i l e d from T h e World B a n k , World Tables, vol. 2. 74. Critical w o r k s o n c o n t e m p o r a r y industrial policy discuss s o m e of these issues. In spite of their different perspectives, they agree o n the crucial public role in infrastructural i n v e s t m e n t s . S e e Isher Judge A h l u w a l i a , Industrial Policy in India ( D e l h i : Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 168-169; and Pranab Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India ( O x f o r d : Basil Blackwell, 1984), p. 24. 75. A h l u w a l i a ' s Industrial Policy in India d o e s not entirely ignore the c o n t i n g e n c y of c o m p r o m i s i n g g r o w t h o b j e c t i v e s (p. 172), but its detailed treatment is not included in the s c o p e of this w o r k . Pranab Bardhan s e e k s to account for the a v o i d a n c e of "hard choices" by the current leadership in terms of its ties to proprietary classes. S e e especially pp. 7 3 - 7 4 of The Political Economy of Development in India. 76. T h e ideological issues are discussed in M y r o n W e i n e r , "The Political E c o n o m y of Industrial G r o w t h in India," in World Politics 38, no. 4 (July 1986): pp. 604ff. For a d i s c u s s i o n of r o o m to e f f e c t policy change in the Indian context s e e John T o y e , Dilemmas of Development ( O x f o r d : Basil B l a c k w e l l , 1987), pp. 132-133. 77. S e e Barnett R. R u b i n , " E c o n o m i c Liberalization and the Indian State," in Third World Quarterly 7, no. 4 ( O c t o b e r 1985): pp. 9 5 4 - 9 5 5 . 78. W e n e e d not discuss in detail the implications of the different criteria p r o p o s e d by v a r i o u s authors, e . g . , primary g o o d s ( R a w l s ) , basic capabilities ( S e n ) , or resources ( D w o r k i n ) . For o u r p u r p o s e it is e n o u g h to distinguish the aggregative from the disa g g r e g a t i v e a p p r o a c h e s to d e f i n i n g priorities. For a useful treatment of these criteria see J o h n R o e m e r , "Exploitation, Property Rights, and P r e f e r e n c e s , " in Tibor R . M a c h a n , e d . . The Main Debate ( N e w York: R a n d o m H o u s e , 1987), p. 365ff. S e e John Rawls, A Theory of Justice ( C a m b r i d g e : Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 62ff, w h e r e the notion of primary g o o d s includes basic rights, p o w e r , e c o n o m i c resources, and self-respect. S e e also A m a r t y a S e n , Resources, Values and Development, p. 315ff and R o n a l d D w o r k i n , " E q u a l i t y of R e s o u r c e s , " in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Fall 1981, pp. 2 8 3 - 3 4 5 . 79. S e e R o b e r t L. Hardgrave, Jr., The Dravidian

Movement

( B o m b a y : Popular,

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1965) for a general background of the m o v e m e n t in the south; and J. Das G u p t a , Language Conflict and National Development, pp. 268ff for its linkage with democratic representation. 80. M a h a r a s h t r a and G u j a r a t statehood followed in 1960 and that of P u n j a b and H a r y a n a in 1966. T h e secessionist movement in Mizoram was t r a n s f o r m e d into an a u t o n o m y m o v e m e n t within the federal system and statehood was conceded in 1986. Earlier, in 1963 the state of Nagaland was created in response to secessionist threat. A decade later several new states were created in the northeastern region. T h e latest new state is G o a , p r o m o t e d f r o m the intermediate status of union territory to full statehood in 1987. 81. These processes are discussed in the context of a n u m b e r of regions in A . M a j e e d , e d . , Regionalism: Developmental Tensions in India (New Delhi: Cosmo, 1984), esp. pp. 89-114 for M a h a r a s h t r a . See also G . R a m Reddy and B . A . V . S h a r m a , Regionalism in India, A Study of Telangana (New Delhi: Concept Publishing, 1979, pp. 24-35. 82. T h e Assam case has been discussed earlier. For a short account of the P u n j a b situation see D. G u p t a , " T h e Communalizing of P u n j a b , 1980-1985," in Economic and Political Weekly. 13 July 1985, pp. 1185-1190. For details see A. Singh, e d . , Punjab in Indian Politics: Issues and Trends (Delhi: A j a n t a , 1985), and A . S. N a r a n g , Democracy, Development and Distortion: Punjab Politics in National Perspective (New Delhi: Gitanjali, 1986), esp. pp. 136-189. 83. This was u n p r e c e d e n t e d because this was the first time that the prime minister signed a statement of accord with nonofficial political organizations. Even as of early 1987 the transfer of Chandigarh to P u n j a b , one of the elements of the 1985 accord, was not implemented by the national leadership. This obviously w e a k e n e d the elected chief minister of the state and also the chances of peaceful solution in this area. See "The Bungled A c c o r d , " in India Today, international edition, 15 February 1986 for a discussion of the political problems of implementing the accord. See also Francine R. Frankel, "Politics: T h e Failure to Rebuild C o n s e n s u s , " in Marshall M. B o u t o n , India Briefing, 1987 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 31-35. 84. Problems of preferential access are treated in Myron Weiner et al., India's Preferential Policies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1981). 85. See Roderick C h u r c h , "The Pattern of State Politics in Indira G a n d h i ' s India," in J. R. W o o d , e d . . State Politics in Contemporary India (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), pp. 236-237. 86. Of the six m a j o r states gaining autonomy as a result of regional m o v e m e n t s four have attained the highest per capita income level in the country. If we take the annual rate of percentage increase in per capita income at constant prices (1970-71) between 1971-72 to 1981-82, again (among fifteen major states) P u n j a b scores the highest rank, Maharashtra ranks third, A n d h r a Pradesh and H a r y a n a rank fourth (tie), G u j a r a t ranks sixth, and T a m i l n a d u , seventh. R e c e n t poverty level estimates show lower average poverty compared to the national rate in five of these six states. These comparative data are from Basic Statistics Relating to the Indian Economy, vol. 2 ( B o m b a y : C e n t e r for Monitoring Indian E c o n o m y ) , S e p t e m b e r 1985, Tables 14.1 and 14.9. 87. T h e c o m p a r a b l e figure for South Korea is 15 percent and Sri L a n k a , 23 percent. See S. M u k h o p a d h y a y , The Poor in Asia (Kuala Lumpur: Asian and Pacific Development C e n t e r . 1985), p. 8. 88. T h e s e comparative figures are f r o m T h e World B a n k , China: Socialist Economic Development, vol. 1, p. 94. In addition the share of income of the poorest 20 percent of households was g r e a t e r in India (7.0 percent) than in any o t h e r developing country for which the World Bank reports data, while the share of the highest 20 percent is among the lowest. See T h e W o r l d B a n k , World Development Report 1986, pp. 252-253. 89. Tocqueville's idea that Americans have come to democracy without having e n d u r e d democratic revolution and that they are born equal, instead of becoming so, may have implications for impressing such bias. Some of these implications are discussed in a n o t h e r context in Albert O . Hirschman, "Rival Interpretations of Market Society: Civilizing, Destructive or F e e b l e ? , " in Journal of Economic Literature 20 ( D e c e m b e r 1982): pp. 350ff. 90. See G . Bingham Powell, J r . , Contemporary Democracies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, n . d . ) , for s o m e samples, pp. 3ff. 91. T h e taming of the leading Communist parties, the D M K , the Telugu D e s a m , the

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Assam M o v e m e n t , the National Conference of Kashmir, and the Mizo rebels are some examples. 92. See M. M a n n , " T h e Social Cohesion of Liberal D e m o c r a c y , " in A. G i d d e n s and D. Held, e d s . , Classes, Power and Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 388ff. 93. This c o n g r u e n c e was revealed for all m a j o r parties and not just the Congress party. Samuel J. Eldersveld and Bashiruddin A h m e d , Citizens and Politics: Mass Political Behavior in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), especially pp. 80, 90. 104. 94. J o h n O s g o o d Field, Consolidating Democracy: Politicization and Partisanship in India ( N e w Delhi: M a n o h a r , 1980), p. 288. This work is based on data collected in 1966 as part of a cross-national project. 95. Ibid., p. 292. 96. See, for example, Seymour Martin Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of D e m o cracy: E c o n o m i c D e v e l o p m e n t and Political Legitimacy." in American Political Science Review 53, no. 2 (1959): pp. 69-105. 97. B a c k w a r d caste d e m a n d s usually benefit middle castes more than others. See Francine F r a n k e l , "Middle Castes and Classes in Indian Politics: Prospects for Political A c c o m m o d a t i o n , " in A. Kohli, e d . . India's Democracy, and Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil. 98. A d a m Przeworski. " S o m e Problems in the Study of the Transition to D e m o cracy," in G u i l l e r m o O ' D o n n e l l , Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence W h i t e h e a d , eds.. Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). p. 63 99. I have excluded the issue of corruption. It is a long story and most recently both the national and regional leaders have been involved. T h e issue of the Bofors arms deal in 1987 and N. T . R a m a R a o ' s case in 1988 are just a few instances. But the corruption issue needs to be seen in the light of the fact that democracy has encouraged and, at the same time, exposed c o r r u p t i o n . But exposure does not necessarily eliminate corrupt leaders f r o m politics. Popular toleration of corruption is a problem that cannot be wished away. See, for e x a m p l e , K. S. Padhy, Corruption in Politics (Delhi: B . R . Publishing, 1986), esp. pp. 212-213. 100. Selig S. Harrison, India: The Most Dangerous Decades (Madras: O x f o r d University Press, 1960). p. 338. 101. Barrington M o o r e . J r . , who has inspired many scholars to defend " g l a m o r o u s " options through his l a n d m a r k w o r k , Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy ( B o s t o n : Beacon Press, 1966), has recently observed: "political glamour can be a disaster that p r o d u c e s e n o r m o u s a m o u n t s of suffering. .. If humanity is to work its way out of its current p l i g h t . . . t h e r e will have to be leaders...who can turn their backs on political glamour and work hard for [barely] feasible goals rather than glamourous o n e s . " Authority and Inequality Under Capitalism and Socialism ( O x f o r d : C l a r e n d o n Press, 1987), p. 125. Not surprisingly, c o m p a r e d to his earlier w o r k . Social Origins, Indian democracy c o m e s out in a positive light in this new work (p. 123). I have used the notion of combined development in the sense of the political compulsion to pursue simultaneous or at least multiple objectives in a multi-ethnic developing country interested in comprehensive national d e v e l o p m e n t . This use should not be c o n f u s e d with o t h e r uses of the term in the literature (notably, Leon T r o t s k y ' s use to convey t h e a d v a n t a g e of historic backwardness). For an elaboration of the latter use see J. Elster, " T h e T h e o r y of C o m b i n e d and U n e v e n D e v e l o p m e n t : A Critique," in J. R o e m e r e d . , Analytical Marxism, (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1986), pp. 54-63. 102. T h e d a n g e r of recent H i n d u mobilization can be appreciated if one follows the "sati i n c i d e n t , " i.e., mass reactions in favor of the widow-burning case in R a j a s t h a n in 1987. See I. Q a d e e r and Z . H a s a n , " D e a d l y Politics of the State and its Apologists," Economic and Political Weekly 22, no. 46 (14 N o v e m b e r 1987): pp. 1946-1949. T h e limits of H i n d u confessional politics in the c o n t e m p o r a r y context are discussed in L. I. R u d o l p h and S H R u d o l p h , In Pursuit of Lakshmi, (Chicago: T h e University of Chicago Press, 1987), p p . 36-47.

Northeast

Center

ANDAMAN SEA

KAMPUCHEA

BIGHT OF , BANGKOK

BURMA"

GULF OF THAILAND

THAILAND

• CHAPTER SEVEN

•

Thailand: A Stable Semi-democracy CHAI-ANAN SAMUDAVANIJA

• HISTORICAL REVIEW • A l o n e in Southeast Asia Thailand was never colonized, maintaining its i n d e p e n d e n c e through the height of the Western imperial presence in the region. Traditionally the Thai political system has relied on the monarchy as the basis for its legitimacy. T h e monarchy reigned and ruled and was the focus for the loyalty, love, respect, and religious faith of the Buddhist p o p u l a c e . T h e king and the dynasty were central to both the ideology and reality of political rule. This was a classic centralized hierarchy, in which the entire focus of legitimacy and status e m a n a t e d d o w n w a r d f r o m the king through the royal elite to the ordinary citizen, and o u t w a r d f r o m the palace in Bangkok through the provincial towns to the villages. I n d e p e n d e n c e in Thailand means that it never experienced the imposition and t r a n s f e r of institutions f r o m the West that took place in m a n y developing countries. T h e absence of colonialism also m e a n s that traditional structures, particularly the m o n a r c h y , the Buddhist Sangha (monastic o r d e r ) , and the military and civil bureaucracy were not disr u p t e d . A l t h o u g h Thailand did not benefit f r o m the process of -democratization through the t r a n s f e r of colonial institutions, neither did it suffer the kind of destruction of the social fabric that many E u r o p e a n colonies in the T h i r d World experienced. Because King C h u l a l o n g k o r n (1868-1910) and his advisors were able to respond effectively to the colonial t h r e a t the country also escaped the necessity of overthrowing its colonial y o k e . Since n o i n d e p e n d e n c e m o v e m e n t was necessary the institutions and ideology concomitant with i n d e p e n d e n c e m o v e m e n t s a r o u n d the world—especially political parties and mobilized mass m o v e m e n t s — n e v e r e m e r g e d . T h e Buddhist Sangha, which is the social and religious institution closest to the masses, was t h e r e f o r e not politicized like its c o u n t e r p a r t s in B u r m a , Sri L a n k a , and V i e t n a m . Its traditional linkage with the monarchy was not disrupted, but instead has 271

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b e e n f o s t e r e d so t h a t t h e t w o institutions h a v e r e m a i n e d c o m p l e m e n t a r y t o each o t h e r . 1 In this sense T h a i l a n d f a c e d only a limited political challenge. T h i s allowed t h e c o u n t r y to d e f e r its t r u e political development to the present.2 D e m o c r a c y as a system of g o v e r n m e n t was a d o p t e d in T h a i l a n d in J u n e 1932 by a g r o u p of j u n i o r a r m y , navy, and civilian officers calling themselves the People's Party. Prior to this, constitutionalism and democracy h a d b e e n discussed a m o n g the T h a i intelligentsia for a long time. In 1887, a g r o u p of princes a n d officials s u b m i t t e d a lengthy petition to King C h u l a l o n g k o r n outlining t h e i m m e d i a t e p r o b l e m s facing Siam a n d suggested t h a t a constitutional m o n a r c h y be instituted. 1 In t h e late 1880s T i e n w a n , a c o m m o n e r a n d Buddhist scholar, a r g u e d in his magazine, Tulawipak Pojanakit, that the most effective way to p r o m o t e justice was to institute a p a r l i a m e n t a r y f o r m of g o v e r n m e n t . 4 In t h e 1910s a g r o u p of lesser a r m y officials a t t e m p t e d unsuccessfully to stage a c o u p to replace t h e a b s o l u t e m o n a r c h y with a republican g o v e r n m e n t . In 1917 Prince C h a k r a b o n g s e s u b m i t t e d a m e m o r a n d u m to t h e king suggesting that it was time to grant s o m e kind of constitution to the p e o p l e . F r o m t h e latter 1920s to May 1932—a m o n t h b e f o r e t h e e n d of t h e a b s o l u t e m o n a r c h y — t h e question of w h e t h e r a d e m o c r a t i c f o r m of g o v e r n m e n t was suitable f o r Siam was o n e of the m a j o r c o n c e r n s of t h e r e g i m e . Starting f r o m t h e reign of King V a j i r a v u d h (1910-1925) t h e m o n a r c h y , as an institution, b e g a n to be q u e s t i o n e d a n d criticized o p e n l y . W i t h t h e increasing s u f f e r i n g f r o m t h e G r e a t D e p r e s s i o n in t h e late 1920s, t h e desire f o r c h a n g e was m o r e pressing a n d resulted in growing a w a r e n e s s of t h e a n a c h r o n i s m of t h e absolute m o n a r c h y . T h e r e a c t i o n s of t h e kings to political r e f o r m s were quite similar. 5 N o t all of t h e m r e j e c t e d constitutionalism a n d d e m o c r a c y as an ideal or a c o n c e p t of g o v e r n a n c e , but t h e a p p r o p r i a t e n e s s of the m o d e l and practices w e r e q u e s t i o n e d . It had always b e e n m a i n t a i n e d by t h e old regime t h a t while c o n s t i t u t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t might be desirable and even inevitable, it was still p r e m a t u r e to establish such a system in Siam. T h e main r e a s o n s against t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a constitutional governm e n t e x p r e s s e d by foreign advisors, t h e king, a n d senior princes were: 6 1. T h e r e w a s no m i d d l e class in Siam. T h e Siamese p e a s a n t s t o o k little or n o interest in public affairs. Most of t h e e l e c t o r a t e w e r e uneducated; hence to set up a parliament with real power without an e d u c a t e d e l e c t o r a t e t o control it would only invite t r o u b l e a n d corruption. 2. P a r l i a m e n t a r y g o v e r n m e n t was not suitable f o r the Siamese p e o p l e , a n d it w a s e v e n possible that t h e r e must also be certain racial qualities t h a t t h e A n g l o - S a x o n s possessed and t h e Siamese did not have to m a k e democracy a successful form of government. 3. N o t only was a real d e m o c r a c y very unlikely to succeed in Siam,

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it might even be h a r m f u l to the interests of t h e p e o p l e . T h e p a r l i a m e n t w o u l d be entirely d o m i n a t e d by t h e Chinese. 7 4. T h e great bulk of t h e p e o p l e of Siam were as yet not trained in political or e c o n o m i c thought." A s for the s t u d e n t s w h o r e t u r n e d f r o m Britain, E u r o p e , a n d the U n i t e d States, their idea of d e m o c racy was h a l f - b a k e d , a n d their W e s t e r n ideas were o f t e n superficial a n d m i s u n d e r s t o o d . It is clear that the a r g u m e n t s against the a d o p t i o n of a constitutional g o v e r n m e n t were not so m u c h c o n c e r n e d with d e m o c r a c y as a c o n c e p t but r a t h e r as a f o r m of g o v e r n m e n t , especially its political implications. Yet it was a d m i t t e d that Siam would ultimately be f o r c e d by circumstances t o a d o p t a d e m o c r a t i c f o r m of g o v e r n m e n t , and hence t h e regime should be well p r e p a r e d to direct this c h a n g e gradually. King P r a c h a t i p o k , h o w e v e r , c a u t i o n e d that the main d a n g e r and the obstacle to this g r a d u a l e x p e r i m e n t lay in impatience.'' T h o s e w h o w e r e i m p a t i e n t were the W e s t e r n - e d u c a t e d military a n d civilian b u r e a u c r a t s . In t h e a b s e n c e of a sizable middle class, a large a n d strong b u r e a u c r a c y b e c a m e t h e locus of p o w e r in the new institutional a r r a n g e m e n t s . T h a i politics a f t e r 1932 have t h e r e f o r e b e e n d o m i n a t e d by t h e b u r e a u c r a t s , as best described by David Wilson: Some 30 years ago the bureaucracy—much strengthened by the reorganization and d e v e l o p m e n t of the previous 40 years and by the new techniques of c o m m u n i c a t i o n s and control imported from the W e s t — w a s cut free of the restraints of absolutism. A s much as the leadership of the Thai revolution might have wished things to be otherwise, it was not able to muster much popular interest outside the bureaucracy upon which to base itself. A s a result, politics has b e c o m e a matter of competition b e t w e e n bureaucratic cliques for the benefits of government. In this competition the army—the best organized, most concentrated, and most powerful of the branches of the bureaucracy— has c o m e out on top."1

It is ironical that soon a f t e r t h e success of the W e s t e r n i z e d elites in their seizure of p o w e r f r o m the m o n a r c h y , constitutional idealism gradually e r o d e d into formalistic c o n s t i t u t i o n a l i s m . " Since 1932 t h e b u r e a u c r a t i c elites have b e e n t h e p r i m e m o v e r s in political institutional a r r a n g e m e n t s under different constitutions. Because of periodic changes in t h e rules of t h e g a m e , t h e scope of political c o m p e t i t i o n , the level of political p a r t i c i p a t i o n , a n d t h e extent to which civil a n d political liberties a r e g u a r a n t e e d have varied according to the n a t u r e of the r e g i m e . It s h o u l d be n o t e d t h a t f r o m 1932 t o 1945 the only f o r m a l political institution in T h a i l a n d w a s a u n i c a m e r a l legislature c o m p o s e d of t w o c a t e g o r i e s of m e m b e r s — h a l f elected a n d half a p p o i n t e d . T h e P e o p l e ' s Party did n o t find it necessary to t r a n s f o r m itself into a political party since its l e a d i n g m e m b e r s a n d s u p p o r t e r s w e r e already a p p o i n t e d m e m b e r s of t h e N a t i o n a l A s s e m b l y . Political parties in T h a i l a n d , t h e r e f o r e , e m e r g e d as late as 1946 a n d w e r e only recognized as legal entities

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nine y e a r s later in 1955. W h a t was institutionalized instead was t h e political role of t h e b u r e a u c r a t i c elites. T h e new l e a d e r s h i p relied u p o n t h e b u r e a u c r a c y to play a leading role in e d u c a t i n g a n d mobilizing t h e mass t o p a r t i c i p a t e in elections, as well as to learn a b o u t d e m o c r a c y t h r o u g h t h e symbol of constitution. Since half of the assembly m e m b e r s were mainly military and civilian o f f i c e r s , t h e legislative process b e c a m e an e x t e n d e d a r m o f , a n d p r o vided an a d d i t i o n a l f u n c t i o n f o r , t h e b u r e a u c r a c y . A l t h o u g h the n e w m i l i t a r y - b u r e a u c r a t i c elites f o r m e d t h e only o r g a n i z e d political g r o u p in society, they w e r e not u n i t e d . O n the c o n t r a r y , soon a f t e r J u n e 1932 t h e y o u n g military faction within the P e o p l e ' s Party e m e r g e d a n d was, by 1938, a b l e to e l i m i n a t e the senior m e m b e r s . A n d since the civilian faction of t h e P e o p l e ' s Party did not d e v e l o p itself into a b r o a d b a s e d political p a r t y , its p o w e r a n d influence gradually declined while that of t h e military faction rapidly increased, especially a f t e r its leader L u a n g Pibul b e c a m e d e f e n s e minister in late 1934 a n d p r i m e minister in 1938. F r o m t h e beginning of constitutional rule, t h e role of the elected m e m b e r s of p a r l i a m e n t was o r i e n t e d t o w a r d internal legislative activities r a t h e r t h a n to act as a m a j o r political institution f o r participation a n d c o m p e t i t i o n f o r m a j o r positions of g o v e r n m e n t p o w e r . H e n c e t h e electoral p r o c e s s in T h a i l a n d , which began as early as 1933, did not lead to t h e r e c r u i t m e n t of political leadership at the t o p . It was only a tool to legitimate t h e political system a n d process in which c o m p e t i t i o n for p o w e r was not linked with t h e e l e c t o r a t e but with t h e factions in t h e military. It s e e m s that t h e o b j e c t i v e of the constitution was to establish a n d s t r e n g t h e n t h e p o w e r position of t h e new regime r a t h e r than to d e v e l o p a truly d e m o c r a t i c political system. T h e constitution a n d constitutional s y m b o l s w e r e utilized to distinguish b e t w e e n t h e ancien a n d the new r e g i m e . In 1933 t h e N a t i o n a l A s s e m b l y passed a bill on t h e protection of t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n . In t h e s a m e year it passed a n o t h e r bill establishing a special court to deal with 238 persons who were involved in the B a w o r a d e j r e b e l l i o n . T h e special court h a d no provision f o r a p p e a l s o r petitions. T h e passage of t h e P r o t e c t i o n of t h e C o n s t i t u t i o n A c t a n d t h e special c o u r t legislation reflected t h e ability of t h e P e o p l e ' s Party t o c o n t r o l t h e N a t i o n a l A s s e m b l y , as well as to utilize it in legitimating their p o w e r . A l t h o u g h t h e r e was an e f f o r t to e d u c a t e t h e masses in d e m o c r a t i c r u l e , such an e f f o r t was highly formalistic a n d symbolic r a t h e r t h a n substantive. T h e 1932 C o n s t i t u t i o n , t h e r e f o r e , p r o v i d e d c o n s i d e r a b l e stability f o r t h e r e g i m e , as e v i d e n c e d by the fact that factional rivalry a n d c o m p e t i t i o n f o r p o w e r a m o n g t h e military did not result in t h e abolishm e n t of e i t h e r t h e constitution or the p a r l i a m e n t . A l t h o u g h t h e r e w e r e eight c a b i n e t s in a p e r i o d of six years (1932-1938), t h e r e w e r e only t w o

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p r i m e m i n i s t e r s , c o m p a r e d with the m u c h m o r e t u r b u l e n t period t h r e e d e c a d e s later (1969-1979) w h e n t h e r e w e r e t e n cabinets with six prime ministers u n d e r f o u r constitutions. Political p a r t i e s w e r e not allowed to f u n c t i o n in t h e first fifteen years of c o n s t i t u t i o n a l rule, a n d the voting m e t h o d in the first election was indirect. ( E a c h village elected its r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s ; t h e village representatives c h o s e t h o s e of t h e districts, w h o in turn chose the r e p r e s e n tatives of t h e p r o v i n c e . ) Political participation was a mobilized action in which officials of t h e Interior Ministry at the village a n d district levels p l a y e d a significant role, a p a t t e r n not dissimilar to that existing in c o n t e m p o r a r y T h a i politics. H e n c e early universal s u f f r a g e in T h a i l a n d did not lead to m e a n i n g f u l political participation o r the e m e r g e n c e of political o r g a n i z a t i o n s , as h a p p e n e d in o t h e r societies. It should be p o i n t e d out also t h a t universal s u f f r a g e was given to the p e o p l e w h e n they w e r e not f a m i l i a r with t h e principles and the workings of t h e new system. It is not surprising t h e r e f o r e that constitutional rule was finally r e p l a c e d by an a u t h o r i t a r i a n military rule—first by Field M a r s h a l Pibul. and later by Field Marshal Sarit and Field Marshal T h a n o m respectively. Pibul's c a b i n e t s f r o m 1938 to 1944 m a r k e d the high point of rule by t h e a r m y . D u r i n g this p e r i o d , t h e r e were seven cabinets with a yearly a v e r a g e of 51 p e r c e n t military m e n in t h e cabinets. Also in this same p e r i o d , t h e yearly a v e r a g e of the p e r c e n t a g e of military e x p e n d i t u r e to total n a t i o n a l s p e n d i n g increased to 33 p e r c e n t , c o m p a r e d with 26 p e r c e n t d u r i n g t h e 1933-1937 p e r i o d . W i t h t h e rise to p o w e r of Pibul h e r o i s m a n d u l t r a n a t i o n a l i s m , with e m p h a s i s on l e a d e r s h i p , b e g a n to d e v e l o p . Such d e v e l o p m e n t s finally led to militarization, especially b e f o r e t h e o u t b r e a k of W o r l d W a r II. In 1942 t h e g o v e r n m e n t a m e n d e d t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n t o e x t e n d t h e t e n u r e of the p a r l i a m e n t f o r t w o years, a n d in 1944 t h e t e n u r e was e x t e n d e d for a n o t h e r two years. A l t h o u g h Pibul's rise to p o w e r did not in any way affect the constit u t i o n , his l e a d e r s h i p style a n d ultranationalistic policies greatly affected civil liberties. His ratthaniyom m a r k e d t h e first a n d most systematic i n t e r v e n t i o n of t h e state into the lives of the T h a i citizenry. T h e Thai p e o p l e w e r e told w h a t t o d o a n d what not to d o by their " g r e a t l e a d e r . " T h e s t a t e a s s u m e d its role in r e m o l d i n g t h e values a n d b e h a v i o r of t h e citizens by imposing several orders, rules, and regulations. T h e nationalist d r i v e also r e s u l t e d in a n u m b e r of discriminatory policies against t h e C h i n e s e m i n o r i t y . Strangely e n o u g h , t h e r e w a s n o challenge to t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s policies as being unconstitutional, either by the parliament o r by t h e p r e s s . T h i s r e f l e c t e d t h e w e a k n e s s of d e m o c r a t i c values a n d t h e i n h e r e n t l y a u t o c r a t i c traits in T h a i society, which w e r e utilized t o a g r e a t e x t e n t by Pibul a n d his principal political adviser. B e f o r e t h e o u t b r e a k of W o r l d W a r II the Pibul G o v e r n m e n t was m a i n l y c o n t r o l l e d by m e m b e r s of the 1932 j u n i o r clique, including

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P r i d i — a p r o m i n e n t civilian leader w h o was the chief ideologist of t h e 1932 c o u p g r o u p . W o r l d W a r II b r o u g h t a b o u t a m a j o r conflict b e t w e e n Pibul a n d Pridi. T h e f o r m e r chose to ally with the J a p a n e s e a n d the A x i s P o w e r s while the latter identified himself with the Allied P o w e r s . W h e n T h a i l a n d d e c l a r e d war against the Allies Pridi f o r m e d an u n d e r g r o u n d m o v e m e n t against t h e J a p a n e s e and the Axis Powers. T h e d e f e a t of t h e J a p a n e s e a n d the Axis resulted in the collapse of Pibul's military government. Postwar Politics P o s t w a r politics was largely a m a t t e r of struggle a m o n g t h r e e g r o u p s f o r d o m i n a n c e . O n e was t h e military g r o u p that s u p p o r t e d Pibul and w a s b a s e d mainly in the a r m y . T h e second g r o u p , at first c e n t e r i n g on Pridi, was r o o t e d in p a r l i a m e n t and the civil service. T h e third g r o u p , c o n siderably s m a l l e r , was traditionalist and royalist in c h a r a c t e r . This g r o u p was led by K h u a n g A p h a i w o n g a n d Seni P r a m o j . 1 ' A f t e r Pibul's resignation in July 1945, which coincided with t h e J a p a n e s e s u r r e n d e r in t h e following m o n t h , the N a t i o n a l A s s e m b l y b e g a n to play a d o m i n a n t role in the political system f o r the first t i m e . Political p a r t i e s w e r e f o r m e d in late 1945 a n d early 1946. A new constit u t i o n was d r a f t e d and p r o m u l g a t e d to replace the 1932 C o n s t i t u t i o n in M a y 1946. T h e new constitution was an a t t e m p t by the t e m p o r a r y civilian coalition of Pridi a n d K h u a n g to establish new institutional a r r a n g e m e n t s to minimize the p o w e r of the military. It p r o v i d e d f o r a b i c a m e r a l legislature: t h e H o u s e of R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s , to be e l e c t e d directly, a n d t h e S e n a t e to be elected indirectly by the H o u s e . A t t h e first election of t h e S e n a t e , most of t h e c a n d i d a t e s w e r e t h e a p p o i n t e d m e m b e r s of t h e f o r m e r N a t i o n a l Assembly w h o were Pridi's s u p p o r t e r s . Politics d u r i n g this civilian i n t e r r e g n u m was highly unstable. F r o m A u g u s t 1945 to N o v e m b e r 1947 t h e r e were eight c a b i n e t s a n d five d i f f e r e n t p r i m e ministers. C o m p e t i t i o n a m o n g civilian politicians, t o g e t h e r with c h a r g e s of c o r r u p t i o n , e c o n o m i c h a r d s h i p as t h e result of t h e w a r , a n d the m y s t e r i o u s d e a t h of King A n a n d a , led t o a military c o u p in N o v e m b e r 1947. T h e coup group abolished the 1946 Constitution a n d r e p l a c e d it with an interim c o n s t i t u t i o n , resulting in t h e J a n u a r y 1948 e l e c t i o n s in which t h e D e m o c r a t Party won a m a j o r i t y . H o w e v e r , a f t e r less t h a n t w o m o n t h s of his p r e m i e r s h i p t h e leader of t h e D e m o c r a t P a r t y , K h u a n g , w a s f o r c e d to resign by the a r m y , a n d Field M a r s h a l Pibul was installed as t h e new P r e m i e r in April 1948. In M a r c h 1949 a n e w constitution was p r o m u l g a t e d . This constit u t i o n p r o v i d e d f o r a b i c a m e r a l legislature like that of t h e 1946 v e r s i o n , but with an a p p o i n t e d S e n a t e instead of an elected o n e . T h e new c o n s t i t u t i o n b a r r e d officials f r o m being m e m b e r s of t h e N a t i o n a l

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Assembly, thus separating the once-powerful military and civilian bureaucrats from active involvement in politics. Such arrangements antagonized the military and finally led to the "silent coup" in N o v e m b e r 1951 by the same officers who organized the 1947 coup. T h e coup group reinstated the 1932 Constitution, which provided for a unicameral legislature with two categories of members—half elected and half appointed. Ninety-one (or 74 percent) of the total 123 appointed in the 1951 parliament were military members, of whom 62 were army officers, 14 were navy, and 15 were air force officers. It is also noteworthy that 34 of them were the younger generation of middle-ranking officers (major to colonel). As David Wilson pointed out, with the reestablishment of the 1932 Constitution the principle of tutelage was again imposed on an assembly that had been free of it for six years. The government was therefore able to control the legislature through its appointed members and no longer faced serious difficulty in organizing a majority group to support it." In February 1952 an Emergency Law providing the government with wide powers of arrest and press censorship was passed. In November of the same year an Anticommunist Law was approved by parliament by an almost unanimous vote. 14 Following their consolidation of power in the 1951 "silent coup," the 1947 coup group became deeply involved in politics and commercial activities. They built up their economic base of power by setting up their own business firms, got control over state enterprises and semigovernment companies, and gained free shares from private firms mainly owned by Chinese merchants. This active involvement in business ventures resulted in the division of the group into two competing cliques—popularly known as the " R a j a k r u , " under the leadership of Police General Phao Sriyanond, and Sisao Deves clique, under the leadership of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat. Each controlled more than thirty companies in banking and finance, industry, and commerce. 15 This split between Phao, the police chief, and Sarit, the army chief, was seen as an attempt by Pibul to maintain his power by manipulating and balancing off these two factions. However, the events of 1955 to 1957 culminated in the coup of September 1957 in which Sarit ousted both Pibul a n d Phao. This coup mainly concerned a succession conflict; "When a situation of considerable tension had developed in the Bangkok political scene, the Sarit clique moved with the army to take over the government and 'clean up the mess.' "' 6 A f t e r the September 1957 coup the constitution was temporarily s u s p e n d e d , resulting in the dissolution of the parliament. The coup group appointed Pote Sarasin, the former Thai ambassador to the United States, as the premier of a caretaker government. A general election was held in D e c e m b e r 1957 in which no party won a majority in the parliament. Lieutenant General Thanom Kittikachorn, a leading

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member of the coup group, was chosen as the prime minister in January 1958. However, as a result of the inability of the government to control the internal strife within its supported party as well as deteriorating economic conditions, Sarit staged another coup in October 1958. This time he abrogated the constitution, dissolved the parliament, banned political parties, arrested several politicians, journalists, writers, and labor leaders, declared martial law, and imposed censorship on newspapers. In 1959, an Interim Constitution was promulgated establishing an all-appointed constituent assembly whose main function was to draft a new "permanent constitution." The interim Constitution also gave tremendous power to the prime minister. From 1958 to 1963 Sarit used the power given by article 17 of that constitution to execute without trial eleven persons—five for arson, one for producing heroin, and four on charges of communism. 1 7 Sarit's rule (1958-1963) has been characterized as a dictatorship, as a benevolent despotism, and as military rule. However, as a noted scholar of this period observed, Sarit's 1958 coup marked the beginning of a new political system that endured until at least the early 1970s. What Sarit did in effect was to overthrow a whole political system inherited from 1932, and to create one that could be termed more "Thai" in character. 1 " Apart from his strongly anticommunist policy and his initiation of a National Development Plan that opened the way for the tremendous developmental activities of the following decades, the most significant change Sarit brought to the Thai political system was the activation of the role of the monarchy. As Thak rightly pointed out Sarit made it possible, without perhaps so intending, for the monarchy to grow strong enough to play an independent role after his death. T h e relative political weakness of Sarit's successors brought the throne even more clearly to the center of the political stage. 1 '' After Sarit's death in 1963 Thanom became prime minister and commander of the army. In 1968 a new constitution was promulgated after ten years of drafting. The familiar vicious circle of Thai politics, evident in earlier periods, recurred. A semiparliamentary system was established with a two-house legislature. Two years after that conflicts developed within the government-supported party, leading to a military coup in November 1971. Another interim constitution was promulgated, providing for a single constituent assembly composed entirely of appointed members, most of whom were military and civil bureaucrats. The Breakdown of Military Rule A f t e r the 1971 coup a new and ambitious strongman emerged: Colonel Narong Kittikachorn, the prime minister's son and Deputy Prime Minister Praphat's son-in-law. Narong was appointed assistant secretarygeneral of the National Executive Council, the supreme body of

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government administration after the 1971 coup. Apart from being the commander of the powerful Bangkok-based Eleventh Infantry Regiment, he acted as head of a new Committee to Suppress Elements Detrimental to Society, and was also made deputy secretary-general of a new anticorruption agency. Narong was seen as the heir apparent to the prime ministership. This kind of dynastic succession, never before seen in the Thai military, generated tremendous discontent and criticism from the general public. Leaders of the student movement were well aware that the growing popular animosity to Narong and the military offered a potentially unique opportunity to put pressure on the military for political reforms, a new constitution, and an elected parliament. On 6 October 1973 student leaders and political activists were arrested while they were distributing leaflets demanding immediate promulgation of a new constitution. The government announced that the police had uncovered a communist plot to overthrow the administration. From 6 October through 13 October hundreds of thousands of students and others gathered to support the cause of the jailed students. Although the government agreed to release the students and promised to quicken the drafting of the new constitution, riot police on the morning of 14 October clashed with a group of demonstrators in front of the royal palace, thereby sparking violence in other parts of the city. In the meantime a deep split was developing within the military's own leadership. General Krit Sivara, army commander-in-chief, began to adopt a position independent from the Thanom-Praphat group. General Krit's intervention rendered further military suppression untenable, leaving Thanon, Praphat, and Narong no alternative but to flee the country, after being personally ordered by the king to do so. The king appointed Professor Sanya Thammasak, former chief justice of the Supreme Court and rector of Thammasat University, as the prime minister. The Failure of Democracy, 1974-197620 The student-led uprising of 14 October 1973 brought back once again the period of open politics and democratic experimentation. The 1974 Constitution was patterned after the 1949 Constitution. It limited the number of senators to only 100, with much less power than the elected House of Representatives. Government officials elected to the House or appointed to the Senate had to resign their bureaucratic posts; votes of no confidence remained the sole prerogative of the House; and the prime minister had to be a member of the House of Representatives. These provisions set the stage for a more open political system based on party and pressure group politics. From 1974 to 1976 the political climate in Thailand became highly

280

CHAI-ANAN

volatile. P r e s s u r e g r o u p politics, mobilization, polarization, a n d confrontation replaced the usual political acquiescence and the achievement of consensus through bargaining between established patron-client factions. T h e s t u d e n t s , l a b o r unions, a n d f a r m e r g r o u p s w e r e most active in expressing g r i e v a n c e s a n d m a k i n g d e m a n d s , which led t h e m into conflict with g o v e r n m e n t officials, business interests, a n d l a n d o w n e r s . Primarily b e c a u s e t h e previous governing elite (especially t h e a r m y ) was d i s c r e d i t e d , a n d b e c a u s e the a b r u p t d e p a r t u r e of T h a n o m , P r a p h a t , a n d N a r o n g h a d d a m a g e d existing patron-client linkages, n o single g o v e r n m e n t political party e m e r g e d . Several factional groups f o r m e d , e a c h c o m p o s e d of m e m b e r s of earlier g o v e r n m e n t parties. Progressive e l e m e n t s also w e r e u n a b l e to coalesce into a c o h e r e n t political p a r t y , instead splintering into n u m e r o u s c o m p e t i n g groups. F r a g m e n t a t i o n a n d political polarization of both Left a n d Right characterized T h a i politics d u r i n g this p e r i o d . T h e D e m o c r a t Party, t h e nation's o l d e s t , was divided into t h r e e c o m p e t i n g factions; each f o r m e d its own political party to contest in the 1975 elections. T h e m e m b e r s of t h e d e f u n c t g o v e r n m e n t party w e r e also split into several c o m p e t i n g g r o u p s , which s u b s e q u e n t l y led to t h e f o r m a t i o n of four identifiable parties, n a m e l y , t h e T h a i N a t i o n Party, t h e Social Nationalist Party, the Social Justice P a r t y , a n d t h e Social A g r a r i a n Party. T h e s e parties were linked with t h e business c o m m u n i t y a n d the military-bureaucratic factions. A p a r t f r o m t h e s e p a r t i e s , t h e r e w e r e t w o new parties in the center-left s p e c t r u m , the Social A c t i o n Party a n d the N e w Force Party, a n d two leftist parties, the U n i t e d Socialist F r o n t a n d the Socialist Party of T h a i l a n d . A l t h o u g h f o r t y - t w o parties c o n t e s t e d the 1975 election, only t w e n t y - t w o gained seats in t h e H o u s e . T h e D e m o c r a t Party, which h a d t h e largest n u m b e r of seats in t h e H o u s e (72 out of 269), f o r m e d a ninety-one-seat minority g o v e r n m e n t in F e b r u a r y 1975, but the H o u s e on 6 March v o t e d no c o n f i d e n c e in t h e newly f o r m e d g o v e r n m e n t . T h e Social A c t i o n Party u n d e r t h e l e a d e r s h i p of Kukrit P r a m o j , with only eighteen seats in the H o u s e , t o g e t h e r with t h r e e o t h e r m a j o r parties a n d ten minor parties, f o r m e d a new coalition g o v e r n m e n t . H o w e v e r , this g o v e r n m e n t had a built-in instability b e c a u s e of the lack of trust a m o n g leaders of the v a r i o u s parties. E a c h p a r t y , a w a r e of the possible dissolution of the H o u s e at a l m o s t any m o m e n t , focused on building its own small e m p i r e . A s 1975 p r o g r e s s e d , t h e pace of political m a n e u v e r i n g a c c e l e r a t e d . O n 12 J a n u a r y 1975—two days b e f o r e the D e m o c r a t P a r t y ' s s c h e d u l e d vote of a n o c o n f i d e n c e m o t i o n — K u k r i t dissolved t h e p a r l i a m e n t . In the A p r i l 1976 election f o u r m a j o r p a r t i e s — t h e D e m o c r a t , T h a i N a t i o n , Social Justice, a n d Social A c t i o n — e m e r g e d as t h e d o m i n a n t p o w e r s , c o m p a r e d with t h e multiplicity of small parties in the H o u s e elected f i f t e e n m o n t h s earlier. T h e election results, shown in T a b l e 7.1, d e m o n s t r a t e d several c o n t i n u i n g f e a t u r e s of T h a i politics. T h e national average v o t e r t u r n o u t

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was slightly reduced, 46 percent compared with 47 percent in 1975. Only 29 percent voted in Bangkok, compared with the 33 percent that had voted fifteen months earlier. Leftist parties suffered a humiliating defeat as the electorate displayed a strong conservative tendency in its overall orientation, a preference for political safety over political development. The two socialist parties dropped from twenty-five to three seats, or in percentage terms from 10 to 1 percent of the House as a whole; the progressive New Force Party declined from twelve to three seats. Thus the perceived radical alternative so touted in the months after October 1973 was obliterated by the results of a free election. The Socialists won even fewer seats in April 1976 than in the House elected under military rule in February 1969. These election results confirmed certain basic trends. O n e fact was clear: while conflict between the political forces committed to change and those committed to maintenance of the status quo was continuing to escalate, most citizens long for the stability and security of an earlier, easier era. As they reflected on the extremes of violence that had become commonplace over the preceding months, many Thais were seriously asking familiar questions: "Can representative political institutions really survive in Thailand under these pressures?" A n d , of course, " W h e n will the Army finally intervene?" The Democrat Party's leader, Seni Pramoj (brother of Kukrit), took over as prime minister on 20 April, at the head of a grand coalition comprising the D e m o c r a t , Thai Nation, Social Justice, and Social Nationalist parties. Together these four parties controlled 206 of the 279 seats in the new House of Representatives. However, due in large measure to the weak and vacillating leadership of its aging head, the Democrat Party had by 1976 become divided into two sharply opposing factions, one progressive and the other conservative. The conservative faction, in alliance with other rightist parties, ultrarightist groups, and the military, attacked the progressive faction as being leftist and communist. T h e factionalism and the weakness of civilian leadership coincided with the growth of leftist ideology and political polarization. Amid these situations came the fall of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to the Communists. Hence, when a crisis occurred in October 1976 following Field Marshal T h a n o m ' s return to Bangkok, the weak and faction-ridden civilian government was unable to control the violent and chaotic situation. On 6 October 1976 the military once again intervened. The Resumption of Military Rule T h e 1976 coup resulted in a familiar autocratic political pattern with even more extremist overtones. The 1974 consitution, parliament, and all political parties were abolished; martial law was proclaimed. T h e

CHAI-ANAN

282

coup group appointed Thanin Kraivichien, a staunchly anticommunist j u d g e , as t h e n e w p r i m e m i n i s t e r .

O v e r t h e m o n t h s that

followed,

T h a i l a n d w a s i m m e r s e d in i n t e n s e r e a c t i o n a r y r u l e . S e v e r a l t h o u s a n d s t u d e n t s w e r e a r r e s t e d while o t h e r s fled t o j o i n t h e C o m m u n i s t P a r t y o f T h a i l a n d in t h e hills. T h e u l t r a r i g h t i s t p o l i c i e s o f t h e T h a n i n g o v e r n m e n t — e s p e c i a l l y its s t i p u l a t e d t w e l v e - y e a r plan f o r political d e v e l o p m e n t , its o b s e s s i o n with c o m m u n i s m , and unnecessary aggressiveness toward c o m m u n i s t regimes in n e i g h b o r i n g c o u n t r i e s — r e s u l t e d in i n c r e a s i n g p o l a r i z a t i o n o f t h e T h a i society.21 T h a n i n ' s a n t i c o m m u n i s t zeal b r o u g h t a b o u t r i g o r o u s i n d o c t r i n a t i o n o f civil s e r v a n t s ,

repressive

educational

control,

pressure

on

labor

u n i o n s , s e v e r e p r e s s c e n s o r s h i p , a n d a rigid f o r e i g n policy. T h e military l e a d e r s , e s p e c i a l l y t h e e m e r g i n g " Y o u n g T u r k s " in t h e a r m y , b e c a m e c o n v i n c e d that T h a n i n was l e a d i n g t h e c o u n t r y t o d i s a s t e r , that his e x t r e m i s t p o l i c i e s w e r e h a v i n g a m o s t divisive e f f e c t and w e r e indirectly strengthening the C o m m u n i s t Party of Thailand ( C P T ) . O n 20 O c t o b e r 1977 t h e T h a n i n g o v e r n m e n t w a s o v e r t h r o w n by t h e s a m e g r o u p that h a d s t a g e d t h e c o u p t h a t b r o u g h t T h a n i n to p o w e r o n e y e a r e a r l i e r . The

coup

group eased

social

c o n f l i c t s and political

tension

by

a b o l i s h i n g t h e 1977 C o n s t i t u t i o n a n d r e p l a c i n g it with a m o r e liberal o n e . A b i c a m e r a l l e g i s l a t u r e with an e l e c t e d l o w e r H o u s e w a s again i n t r o d u c e d a n d a g e n e r a l e l e c t i o n was h e l d in A p r i l 1979. H o w e v e r , t h e n e w military r e g i m e , like its p r e d e c e s s o r s , m a i n t a i n e d its c o n t r o l o v e r t h e l e g i s l a t u r e t h r o u g h t h e a p p o i n t e d S e n a t e t o e n s u r e political s t a b i l i t y . T h e n e w g o v e r n m e n t a d o p t e d a l i b e r a l policy t o w a r d t h e p r o b l e m o f c o m m u n i s m by g r a n t i n g a m n e s t y t o t h e s t u d e n t s and o t h e r s w h o w e r e a r r e s t e d in t h e 6 O c t o b e r i n c i d e n t as well as to t h o s e w h o h a d fled t o join

the C P T .

T h i s m o v e , t o g e t h e r with o t h e r s u b s e q u e n t

political

m e a s u r e s a n d r e d u c e d s u p p o r t o f t h e C P T by C h i n a , led to a d i m i n u t i o n o f t h e i n s u r g e n c y in t h e m i d - 1 9 8 0 s . A s i g n i f i c a n t p o l i t i c a l d e v e l o p m e n t f r o m 1977 to 1980 w a s t h e rise t o p o l i t i c a l i n f l u e n c e o f t h e " Y o u n g T u r k s " within t h e military e s t a b l i s h ment. The emergence

o f t h e s e y o u n g c o l o n e l s as a p r e s s u r e

group

c o i n c i d e d with t h e f r a g m e n t a t i o n o f p o w e r a m o n g a r m y g e n e r a l s . T h e i r political i m p o r t a n c e s t e m m e d essentially from their strategically

im-

p o r t a n t p o s i t i o n s within t h e a r m y o r g a n i z a t i o n , w h i c h p r o v i d e d a p o w e r base for the c o u p group and the government formed after the coup. S i n c e p a r l i a m e n t a r y p o l i t i c s a f t e r t h e 1 9 7 9 e l e c t i o n was still u n s t a b l e b e c a u s e o f t h e p r o l i f e r a t i o n o f political p a r t i e s a n d i n t e r p l a y c o n f l i c t in t h e c o a l i t i o n g o v e r n m e n t , a n d t h e military w a s still d e e p l y split at t h e higher echelons, changes

the Y o u n g T u r k s were able to exert pressure

in l e a d e r s h i p .

Kriengsak's

In

government,

1 9 8 0 t h e y w i t h d r e w support f o r forcing the prime

for

General

minister to resign,

and

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283

installed G e n e r a l P r e m T i n s u l a n o n d in his place. H o w e v e r , t h e Y o u n g T u r k s b e c a m e f r u s t r a t e d a year later with t h e p r e m i e r ' s choice of certain ministers (in a cabinet r e s h u f f l e occasioned by i n t e r p a r t y conflict in t h e coalition g o v e r n m e n t ) . O n 1 April 1981 the Y o u n g T u r k s tried a n d failed to capture state power, despite their overwhelming military forces. T h e failure of their c o u p a t t e m p t was d u e largely to their inability to get the tacit a p p r o v a l a n d s u p p o r t of t h e king, w h o openly s u p p o r t e d P r e m . T h e Y o u n g T u r k s ' p o w e r a n d influence thus e n d e d abruptly. A s a result of t h e failed c o u p thirty-eight officers were d i s c h a r g e d , leaving a p o w e r v a c u u m in the army. A t the s a m e time M a j o r G e n e r a l A r t h i t K a m l a n g e — w h o was responsible f o r t h e suppression of the 1 April 1981 c o u p a t t e m p t — r o s e rapidly to the rank of full general a n d became c o m m a n d e r of the army in October 1982. Although he attempted to p r o v e himself as a new s t r o n g m a n a n d as a successor to P r e m , G e n e r a l A r t h i t f o u n d it difficult to a d v a n c e his political career in that d i r e c t i o n . T h e military's failure to a m e n d the constitution in 1983 to allow p e r m a n e n t officials to hold cabinet positions m a d e it impossible for G e n e r a l Arthit to e n j o y t h e status his p r e d e c e s s o r s h a d as c o m m a n d e r s of the a r m y . A s the a r m y s u f f e r e d a big split a f t e r t h e 1 April 1981 c o u p a t t e m p t , a n d t h e dismissed officers still m a i n t a i n e d conside r a b l e i n f l u e n c e a m o n g their t r o o p s , t h e r e was d e e p c o n c e r n a n d wides p r e a d f e a r of a possible c o u n t e r c o u p if a c o u p was carried o u t . In S e p t e m b e r 1985, while t h e p r i m e minister was in I n d o n e s i a a n d G e n e r a l Arthit was in E u r o p e , Colonel M a n o o n R o o p k a j o r n , the leader of t h e Y o u n g T u r k s , a n d a g r o u p of officers in the A r m o r e d Cavalry R e g i m e n t still loyal to h i m , staged an unsuccessful c o u p . T w o f o r m e r c o m m a n d e r s - i n - c h i e f of t h e a r m e d forces ( G e n e r a l Kriangsak C h o m m a n a n a n d General Serm Na N a k o r n ) , two f o r m e r deputy commandersin-chief, a n d a serving d e p u t y c o m m a n d e r - i n - c h i e f of t h e a r m e d f o r c e s ( A i r Chief M a r s h a l A r u n P r o m t h e p ) , were put on trial t o g e t h e r with thirty l o w - r a n k i n g o f f i c e r s , while C o l o n e l M a n o o n was allowed to leave t h e c o u n t r y . T h e S e p t e m b e r 1985 c o u p c r e a t e d a wider rift b e t w e e n t h e p r i m e m i n i s t e r a n d G e n e r a l A r t h i t since the p r e m i e r ' s advisers susp e c t e d t h a t t h e latter was b e h i n d the unsuccessful bid f o r p o w e r . S u b s e q u e n t l y relations b e t w e e n G e n e r a l P r e m a n d G e n e r a l A r t h i t b e c a m e increasingly s t r a i n e d . O n 1 May 1986 t h e g o v e r n m e n t d e c r e e on d i e s e l - f u e l e d vehicle registration was voted d o w n in t h e H o u s e , leading t h e p r i m e minister t o dissolve t h e p a r l i a m e n t . T h e dissolution of t h e p a r l i a m e n t led to t h e f o r m a t i o n of n e w political p a r t i e s that o p e n l y d e c l a r e d their hostility t o w a r d G e n e r a l P r e m . T h e s c h e d u l e d election on 27 July 1986 was f o u r days b e f o r e t h e r e t i r e m e n t date of G e n e r a l Arthit, and it was speculated by the premier's aides that G e n e r a l Arthit could m a k e use of his positions as c o m m a n d e r in-chief of t h e a r m e d f o r c e s a n d c o m m a n d e r - i n - c h i e f of t h e a r m y t o

284

CHAI-ANAN

influence the o u t c o m e s of the election. On 27 May 1986 the premier removed General Arthit as army commander-in-chief and appointed his former aide. General Chaovalit Yongchaiyuth, to the post. Table 7.1

C o m p a r a t i v e Election Results, J a n u a r y 1975 a n d April 1976, f o r the Largest Parties in T h a i l a n d January 1975

April 1976

Percent of Popular Vote

Percent of Seats

Percent of Popular Vote

Percent of Seats

18.0 14.8 12.2 11.4 7.7 7.1 5.9 4.7 3.8

26.8 16.7 10.5 6.7 7.1 6.0 4.5 5.6 3.7

25.4 10.7 18.1 17.8 4.3 3.3 7.0 1.9 1.0

40.9 10.0 20.1 16.1 3.2 2.9 1.1 .0.7 0.4

Peace-Loving People Thai Reformist Thai People's Justice Democracy Labor Agriculturist Sovereign Thai Land Free People People's Force

3.5 2.0 1.7 1.7 1.7 0.9 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.4

2.9 1.1 1.5 2.2 0.8 0.4 0.4 0.7 0.7 0.4 0.7

Economist Provincial Development Dharmacracy Protecting Thailand Democratic Front Thai Society New Siam Progressive Society

0.3 0.2

0.4 0.4

—

—

Democrat Social Justicc Thai Nation Social Action Social Agrarian Social Nationalist New Force Socialist Socialist Front

Total

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

100.3

100.2

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

0.3 0.8

0.4 0.4

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

4.0

1.1 —

0.5 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.7 0.4 0.1

0.7 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4

99.9

100.4

Sources: Chai-Anan Samudavanija and Sethaporn Cusripituck, An Analysis of the ¡975 Election Results (Kan wikrorh phon kan luak tang samachik sapha phu tan ratsadorn B.E. 2518) (Bangkok: National Research Council, February 1977); Rapin Tavornpun, "Popular Votes in 1976 Elections," The Nation Weekly, 15 July 1976). Note: Popular votes totaled 17,983,892 in 1975 and 18,981,135 in 1976. Seats totaled 269 in 1975 and 279 in 1976.

T h e 27 July 1986 general election did not drastically change the political situation prior to it. Although the Democrat Party won the largest number of seats in the parliament (100 out of 374), there were another fourteen parties elected with representation ranging from one to sixty-three seats (Table 7.2). It was therefore inevitable that a coalition

285

THAILAND

government be formed, and it is interesting to note that this has been the pattern of government since 1975. The only difference is that coalition governments after 1983 have been more stable than their counterparts during 1975-1976 and 1979-1982. Table 7.2

Results of the Thailand General Elections 1983, 1986 1983

Democrat Chart Thai (Thai Nation) Social Action Prachakor.n Thai (Thai Citizen) United Democratic" Rassadorn (People's party)" Community Action" Ruam Thai (United Thai)" Progressive National Democratic Muan Chon (Mass party)' Liberal" New Force Puang Chon Cliao Thai (Thai people) Democratic Labor Independentsh Total

1986

Number of Seats Won

Percent of Seats

Number of Seats Won

Percent of Scats

56 73 92 36

7.3 22.5 28.4 11.1

100 63 51 24 38 18 15 19 9 3 3 1 1

28.8 18.2 14.7 6.9 10.9 5.2 4.3 5.4 2.6 0.9 0.9 0.3 0.3

1 1

0.3 0.3

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

3 15

1.0 4.6

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

49

15.1

324

100.0

—

—

347

100.0

Noles: " Parties formed after 1983. In the 1986 election candidates had to belong to political parties in order to be qualified to contest.

T h e outcome of the 1986 election did not affect the pattern of leadership succession. General Prem, who did not run in the election and does not belong to any party, was invited by seven political parties (Democrat, Thai Nation, Social Action, People's Community Action, Thai Citizen, and United Thai) to head the government. It is clear that the support from the military was the key factor in the decisions of political parties to nominate him as the premier. This confirms our assertion (see below) that the semidemocratic system is still the most accepted political arrangement in Thailand. The present Thai political system can be called neither a democracy nor an authoritarian system. It falls between the two political modes and has been termed a semidemocratic government in which the bureaucratic elite have made certain concessions to the nonbureaucratic forces to allow participation in the political process. The semidemocratic system is a political compromise—made possible through distinctive constitutional arrangements—between the bureaucratic and the nonbureaucratic forces.

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• HISTORICAL ANALYSIS • Constitutional Structure and Change D u r i n g the half century f r o m 1932 to 1987, Thailand has had thirteen constitutions, thirteen general elections, sixteen coups (nine of which were successful), and forty-three cabinets. T h e r e have been sixteen prime ministers, of whom six were military officers and ten civilians. D u r i n g this period military prime ministers have b e e n in power altogether for f o r t y - f o u r years, while their civilian c o u n t e r p a r t s were in office for a total of only eleven years. M o r e o v e r , some civilian prime ministers w e r e simply f r o n t s for the military. Successful military interventions usually resulted in the abrogation of constitutions, abolishment of parliaments, and suspension of participant political activity. Each time, however, the military reestablished p a r l i a m e n t a r y institutions of some kind. This reflects the concern for legitimacy of every military group that came to power a f t e r 1932. But because of the weakness of extrabureaucratic forces and the lack of b r o a d b a s e d s u p p o r t for political parties, what has occurred in Thailand since 1932 is r e f e r r e d to as factional constitutionalism. 2 2 This explains why there have been as m a n y as thirteen constitutions and seven constitutional a m e n d m e n t s in a period of fifty-five years. It also explains why d e m o c r a c y in Thailand has many versions and is still being interp r e t e d differently by various groups. In T h a i l a n d a constitution does not normally provide for the general and neutral rules of the game to regulate participation and competition b e t w e e n political groups. O n the contrary, it has b e e n used as a m a j o r tool in maintaining the power of the group that created it. What Thailand has e x p e r i e n c e d is not constitutionalism and constitutional g o v e r n m e n t , but r a t h e r different kinds of regimes that adjusted and r e a d j u s t e d institutional relationships between the executive and the legislative branches according to their p o w e r position vis-à-vis their o p p o n e n t s . Constitutional a r r a n g e m e n t s have basically p r e s e n t e d three main p a t t e r n s . O n e is the democratic p a t t e r n , which takes as its model the British p a r l i a m e n t a r y system, in which the elected legislature and political parties have d o m i n a n t and active roles in the political process. U n d e r such a system the prime minister must c o m e f r o m a m a j o r political party and is an elected M P . A n u p p e r house may be maintained but the n u m b e r of its m e m b e r s is relatively small and its power minimal. In this m o d e l military leaders have no opportunity to b e c o m e prime ministers a n d b u r e a u c r a t s are not allowed to take political positions. T h e s e c o n d , a semidemocratic p a t t e r n , favors a strong executive vis-àvis the legislative b r a n c h . T h e prime minister does not have to be an elected m e m b e r of the p a r l i a m e n t ; the u p p e r house is c o m p o s e d mostly of military and civilian b u r e a u c r a t s with m o r e or less equal powers to

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the lower h o u s e ; a n d t h e total n u m b e r of s e n a t o r s is almost e q u a l to t h e n u m b e r of e l e c t e d representatives. T h e t h i r d , t h e u n d e m o c r a t i c p a t t e r n , has no elected p a r l i a m e n t . A legislature is m a i n t a i n e d but its m e m b e r s a r e all a p p o i n t e d , and it acts as a m e r e r u b b e r s t a m p on executive decisions that r e q u i r e e n a c t m e n t into laws. U n d e r this system political parties are not allowed to f u n c t i o n ; h e n c e no elections a r e held. T a b l e 7.3 s h o w s t h e types of constitutions and the p e r i o d s in which they w e r e in e f f e c t . T h e most important aspect of a Thai constitution is not the provision and p r o t e c t i o n of civil a n d political liberties, but t h e extent to which it allows the e l e c t e d H o u s e of R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s to participate in the political process. W h i l e , theoretically, the constitution is the highest law of the l a n d , t h e constitution limits its own p o w e r by stating that citizens have political a n d civil rights a n d liberties "except w h e r e laws o t h e r w i s e so s t i p u l a t e . " T h u s laws, executive d e c r e e s , etc. have p r e c e d e n c e over constitutional rights and liberties. Such laws limiting rights and f r e e d o m s are f r a m e d in t e r m s of national security, public o r d e r , public morality. S e l d o m , if e v e r , is a law challenged on t h e basis of unconstitutionality. E v e n if a constitutional issue were to be raised, it would not be decided by an i n d e p e n d e n t judiciary but by a Constitutional T r i b u n a l c o m p o s e d of t h r e e ex officio officers (president of p a r l i a m e n t , chief justice of t h e S u p r e m e C o u r t , a n d director-general of the D e p a r t m e n t of Prosecutions) a n d f o u r jurists a p p o i n t e d by p a r l i a m e n t . T h u s , while the f o r m a n d s t r u c t u r e of constitutional g o v e r n m e n t is visible, in reality t h e g a m e is fixed; t h e political deck is stacked in f a v o r of t h e executive. 2 1 In o t h e r w o r d s constitutionalism was not d e s i g n e d so m u c h to constrain t h e r u l e r s as to facilitate their rule. T h e constitutions t h e r e f o r e did not p r e s c r i b e t h e effective n o r m s of political b e h a v i o r , but w e r e used to cast a cloak of legitimacy over t h e o p e r a t i o n s of succeeding rulers a n d to set t h e stage f o r a play to be e n a c t e d by t h e e x t r a b u r e a u cratic p e r f o r m e r s — p a r l i a m e n t s , political parties, electors. 2 4 Having an elected H o u s e of Representatives means that a mechanism m u s t b e devised a n d a g r e e m e n t r e a c h e d b e t w e e n elected politicians a n d n o n e l e c t e d b u r e a u c r a t i c politicians (military included) o n t h e sharing of p o w e r in the cabinet. W h e n e v e r this relationship is strained the tendency has always b e e n t o abolish t h e constitution so that t h e elected H o u s e of R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s will be automatically t e r m i n a t e d . Similarly, having an entirely a p p o i n t e d assembly m e a n s that such m e c h a n i s m a n d a g r e e m e n t have t o b e a r r a n g e d a m o n g t h e b u r e a u c r a t i c elites, especially a m o n g t h e military. O u t of 13 c o n s t i t u t i o n s , only 3 can be classified as " d e m o c r a t i c " while 6 h a v e b e e n " s e m i d e m o c r a t i c " a n d 4 have b e e n " n o n d e m o c r a t i c " ( T a b l e 7.3). F r o m 1932 t o 1987, " d e m o c r a t i c " constitutions w e r e in

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288 Table 7.3

Constitutions in Thailand: J u n e 1932-December 1987 Types of constitution

Constitution

Democratic (number)

Years in effect

1932" (provisional) 1932"

1946'

y

Semidemocratic (number)

Years in effect

>/

5 months 12 days

v'

13 years 5 months

Undemocratic (number)

1 year 6 months

1947J

I year 4 months 13 days 2 years 8 months 6 days

1949'

6 years 7 months 12 days

1932' (amended 1952)

9 years 4 months 23 days

1959*

3 years 4 months 28 days

1968"

1972'

1974'

Years in effect

yf

x/

1 year 9 months 21 days

N/

363 days

2 years

1976k

1 year 1 month 13 days

1977'

1978*m

9 years

n/

Total" 3

6 years 2 months 6 days

6

34 years 3 months 5 days

4

13 years 3 months 25 days

* Still in effect as of 21 D e c e m b e r 1987 Notes:' 27 J u n e 1932-10 D e c e m b e r 1932; b 10 D e c e m b e r 1932-9 May 1946; 1 10 May 1946-8 November 1947; J 9 November 1947-22 March 1949; e 23 March 1949-29 November

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e f f e c t for only 6 y e a r s a n d 2 m o n t h s while the " s e m i d e m o c r a t i c " a n d " u n d e m o c r a t i c " have b e e n in effect (through D e c e m b e r 1987) for 34 y e a r s , 3 m o n t h s and 13 y e a r s , 4 m o n t h s respectively. ( N o constitution w a s in e f f e c t f o r 1 y e a r , 8 m o n t h s . ) In other w o r d s , during these fiftyfive y e a r s there were only six years when political institutions could o p e r a t e within the d e m o c r a t i c rules of the g a m e . M o r e o v e r , these six y e a r s were thinly s p r e a d out a m o n g three different short p e r i o d s . Political Institutionalization T h e w e a k n e s s of the d e m o c r a t i c pattern of rule can be attributed to the low level of political institutionalization in T h a i l a n d , which is the cons e q u e n c e of three i m p o r t a n t factors: the frequency of c o u p s d ' é t a t , the discontinuity of elected p a r l i a m e n t s , and the w e a k n e s s e s of political parties. Military c o u p s in T h a i l a n d are a m e a n s by which political l e a d e r s alternate in p o w e r . T h e r e f o r e it is not necessary that political, social, a n d e c o n o m i c crises be preconditions for a military intervention, alt h o u g h they c o u l d facilitate the intervention, particularly when the civilian g o v e r n m e n t ' s s u p p o r t e r s are very strong and active. F r o m 1932 t h r o u g h 1987 there have b e e n altogether sixteen military interventions, nine of which were s u c c e s s f u l . A s military interventions have b e c o m e m o r e f r e q u e n t the commitm e n t of the military to d e m o c r a t i c institutions has declined. This is indicated by the fact that in all the five c o u p s during the 1932-1958 p e r i o d the c o u p g r o u p s c h a n g e d only the g o v e r n m e n t s in p o w e r but did not a b o l i s h the constitution. E l e c t i o n s were held and political parties were allowed to function, although their roles in parliament were limited by the p r e s e n c e of the a p p o i n t e d m e m b e r s of the a s s e m b l y . A f t e r 1958, h o w e v e r , military interventions usually resulted in the abolishment of the c o n s t i t u t i o n s and the " f r e e z i n g " of participant political activities. In the f o l l o w i n g p e r i o d of twenty years (1958—1978) there were altogether s e v e n c o n s t i t u t i o n s , only o n e of which can be classified a s " d e m o c r a t i c " ( 1 9 7 4 C o n s t i t u t i o n ) ; the rest g a v e vast p o w e r s to an executive branch that was dominated by bureaucratic elites. T h e high frequency of military i n t e r v e n t i o n s in T h a i l a n d has had diverse negative e f f e c t s u p o n d e m o cratic political institutions a n d has b r e d m o r e instability within the political s y s t e m a s a w h o l e . While

democratic

political

institutions

suffered setbacks

and

Notes to Table 7.3 continued. 1 9 5 1 ; ' 8 March 1952-20 October 1958; * 28 January 1959-20 June 1968;" 21 June 1968-17 N o v e m b e r 1971; ' 15 December 1972-6 October 1974;