Since democratic restoration in 1990 Chile has been generally considered to represent a success story within Latin America. The country has been characterised ever since by relatively high levels of political stability, solid economic growth, impressive reduction of poverty and fast overall modernisation. A crucial actor in conducting this process of democratic transition and consolidation has been the centre-left-wing coalition Concertación that ruled the country from 1990 to 2010. It has been indeed one of the longest and most successful coalitions in Latin American political history. The Concertación era, however, came suddenly to an end with the victory of the right-wing candidate Sebastián Piñera in the presidential election in January 2010.
The editors of this book have managed to gather a group of prominent scholars who for many years have closely followed several aspects of the Chilean democratisation process. This edited volume constitutes the most complete evaluation of the main achievements as well as the shortcomings characterising the 20 years of Concertación rule in Chile. The study explores the overall political performance of the coalition and its results in a number of specific economic and social fields. It is divided in two parts. The first part deals with political developments during the Concertación years. It includes six chapters which cover areas such as coalition-building, government-opposition relations, constitutional reforms, and human rights. The second part of the volume analyses economic and social developments during the Concertación era. It also contains six chapters on fields such as economic policies, social programmes and education.
The book opens with a long and thoughtful foreword written by Alan Angell. He makes clear that the successful road followed by the Concertación coalition was far from easy. The democratic coalition had to operate in a very difficult institutional and political context as the 1980 Constitution introduced by Pinochet was still in force. In addition, the Right had a strong representation in Parliament, which enabled it to oppose the Concertación governments and to block progressive reforms. These and many other factors severely limited the Concertación governments’ capacity to carry out a series of socio-economic, political and constitutional changes. Despite all these constraints, the Concertación governments managed to gradually introduce significant changes in most policy areas by creating a consensus model of politics vis-à-vis the right-wing opposition forces.
In the initial chapter Sehnbruch and Siavelis assess the political consequences of the Concertación administrations’ decision to follow a consensus model (política de acuerdos) in order to achieve a series of agreements with the opposition. According to the editors, this model of consensus building between political parties is responsible for the high degree of governance achieved during the Concertación era but it also accounts for the coalition's demise. They argue that this model of consensus was undoubtedly successful in managing the many tensions and conflicts that arose during the complex democratic transition. However, this operated in an overly elitist manner as most negotiations were carried out by a small number of political actors who deliberately avoided the involvement in the decision-making process of the rest of the population. The need to reach agreements with the opposition produced a risk-averse behaviour among the Concertación leaders, which limited the scope of political change and socio-economic reforms. Sehnbruch and Siavelis point out that as a result of the existing constraints the Concertación administrations failed to respond to legitimate citizen demands. This in their view led to declining levels of engagement and confidence in the democratic system among the population. In their view the Concertación erred in routinising the transitional political model of consensus. The model was followed for too long a time while the country required a more audacious attitude from their leaders to carry out more substantial reforms.
This interpretative approach stressing the strengths and limitations of the consensus model constitutes the common ground for the following chapters. They provide a comprehensive analysis of the Concertación's accomplishments and failures in several key policy areas. All the contributors recognise the enormous legal and political constraints faced by the Concertación governments as they attempted to implement their reforms. But at the same time, most of them criticise the coalition for not having adopted a more resolute stance vis-à-vis the right-wing opposition, the business community and the armed forces.
In the final chapter, the editors conclude that the overwhelming power concentrated in the political elites and the pattern of consensus politics that bordered on an ideology, prevented the achievement of deeper reforms in the political, economic and social realms during the Concertación years. So in their view, the Concertación was certainly successful, but it was not the unqualified success story that one finds in many studies on contemporary Chile. The editors’ contention that the Concertación's inability to implement more profound social and political reforms was crucial to the coalition's demise is however less convincing. This does not match with the fact that the Chilean electorate put an end to the Concertación coalition by choosing Sebastián Piñera, a right-wing neoliberal politician as president. He did not promise more and deeper reforms and more citizen participation. Instead, he promised an elitist ‘government of the best’ and a strengthening of the market economy.
The return in 2014 of Michelle Bachelet to power constitutes an excellent test case to see if Chilean democracy can indeed function better without consensus politics. Her government has openly renounced the former consensus-seeking model. She is indeed attempting to implement an extremely ambitious agenda without making concessions to the right-wing opposition. So far the governmental coalition has encountered huge obstacles and resistance to carry out the promised reforms. It is not unthinkable that Bachelet will be finally forced to (partially) reintroduce the consensus model to at least make some of these reforms possible.
