Marketing Democracy: Power and Social Movements in Post-Dictatorship Chile

By Julia Paley

Book Overview

Amid protests against the Pinochet regime, a group of poblaci?n(shantytown) residents came together in 1984 to challenge poor health care in their community and to denounce military rule. How did their organization respond seven years later when Chile's transition to democracy brought an end to dictatorship but no clear solution to ongoing health problems? Marketing Democracy shows how the exercise of power and the strategies of social movements transformed with the transition from a military to an elected-civilian regime in Chile. The term "marketing democracy" refers first to how contemporary democracies are shaped by transnational market forces, and second to how politicians have promoted democracy with the twin goals of attracting foreign capital and diminishing social movements.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520227689
• ISBN13: 9780520227682
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Democracy by other means?

War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means." - Karl von Clausewitz, On War The stunning violence and repression of the Pinochet regime in Chile often overshadows the stability and economic prosperity that it was engineered to accomplish. Julia Paley's assessment that Pinochet's "repression was not the raison d'être of the military government...rather, it was a means to an end," is an accurate characterization. For when does repression and extreme violence ever exist unless to someone's advantage? In this way, the repression of the Pinochet regime becomes the modus operandi to achieve stability that Allende was unable to deliver for Chile. General Augusto Pinochet was a hard-handed military man and likely studied Clausewitz. Clausewitz very concisely describes the mentality that guides military dictatorships. Force and the threat of force are the modus operandi of the military and therefore it follows that Pinochet would use such tactics to accomplish any goal. The influence of National Security Doctrine over the Southern Cone in the 1960s and 1970s was evident in other regimes, such as in Argentina. The military view that the democrats were selling the country down the river was a moral affront to the national identity and a threat to stability. Indeed, Allende was unable to use democratic institutions and methods to foster a healthy national economy or to promote stability. Pinochet viewed this as the failure of democracy, and a heavy hand was the only remaining option to save the nation. However, Paley's argument seems to suggest that had there been another means that would have allowed Pinochet to implement his economic program that he would have pursued it; i.e. negotiations with Allende supporters or an economic summit of some sort. At some point the debate over whether or not the violence was the means or the end becomes a futile discussion. The more salient discussion concerns the enduring impacts on the structure of contemporary Chilean politics and economics that Pinochet continues to exert. The irony of Pinochet is that even though he was replaced more than a decade ago, he continues to shape political and economic discourse today. The health of the Chilean economy, ironically, keeps alive the danger of Pinochet supporters claiming a moral victory of sorts. By pointing to a record of the lowest unemployment, lowest inflation, healthy exports, and stability, especially relative to Argentina, Peru, and other regional economies, supporters of the Pinochet regime have empirical evidence to justify that government's repression. It weakens the authority of Allendistas and democrats because the clear break from Allende and democracy resulted in a strong economy. In essence, Pinochet has framed the political culture in terms of an effective-ineffective dichotomy, where Pinochet's repressive regime occupies the former and Allende's democratic government occupies the latter. In fact, Pino