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Governing Together: The Concertación Administrations in Chile (1990-2009) Mireya Dávila Avendaño A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in the Department of Political Science of the College of Art and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by Jonathan Hartlyn Evelyne Huber Lars Schoultz Cecilia Martínez Gallardo John Stephens i Abstract Mireya Dávila Avendaño Governing Together: The Concertación Administrations in Chile (1990-2009) Under the direction of Jonathan Hartlyn Achieving stability in government coalitions within presidential systems is not a common political phenomenon. On March 11, 2010, the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (CPD – Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia), a coalition created in Chile to defeat Pinochet, ended twenty years in power. Its continuity is particularly surprising if we consider that this coalition was formed by parties and political leaders who, in the sixties and at the beginning of the seventies, were political enemies. Why was the Concertación one of the most successful coalitions in Latin American political history? From a political science point of view, the most common explanations provided to understand this phenomenon have mainly been external, focused on institutions and context. We argue that the success of the Concertación was also due to its ability to sustain coalition governability, in itself understood as the maintaining of coalitions and cabinet stability. We analyze two dependent variables: one at a party level (maintaining coalitions) and the other at an individual level (cabinet stability). We have two sets of explanations or independent variables for coalition and cabinet stability: long-term ones, related to political learning, and short-term contextual ones, related to presidential autonomy (suprapartidismo), the informal rules of power sharing and the political use of technocrats. In developing our argument, we build on hypotheses drawn from the literature on technocrats as well as different findings regarding coalition theory and informal rules. Using descriptive statistics, we analyze all the Concertación cabinets as a single case study, ii contrasting it to earlier periods. We also explore variation across the four Concertación administrations. Our main finding is that, in comparison to pre-1973 democracy, the Concertación administrations were more stable, with the Aylwin administration the most stable. We also observe that the patterns of power distribution and cabinet administration in the other Concertación administrations vary in relation to how Presidents administer their autonomy (suprapartidismo), apply informal rules of power sharing and appoint technocrats. Suprapartidismo is the independent variable that most explains change. iii Acknowledgments Any graduate student who has gone through the lonely process of writing a dissertation knows that it is not only hard for them but also for their families. I could not have written this dissertation without the infinite patience, support and love of Rodrigo, Francisca and Laura. They tolerated my bad temper and the loneliness and anxiety that this strange and fruitful journey involved. I also want to thank Jonathan Hartlyn, my advisor, for his support, advice and patience in reading several drafts of this dissertation in a strange kind of language between English and Spanish. Most importantly, his comments about how to structure my dissertation were very important. Also, he gave me self-confidence, a fundamental aspect of an intellectual enterprise like this one. I also want to thank Professors Evelyne Huber and Cecilia Martínez Gallardo. Professor Huber helped me with her comments on the first chapters and Professor Martínez Gallardo with initial data analysis. I also want to thank Ximena Soto. She helped me with her knowledge and constructive criticism, as well as providing the clarity that is so necessary in times of darkness. FLACSO-Chile and the Alberto Hurtado University were institutions that not only provided me with a physical but also with a human and intellectual infrastructure. As I finish this dissertation, the Concertación - the government coalition that has occupied so many of my thoughts and so many hours of my life – has turned power over. For me personally, it marks the end of an important part of my adult life. I was 22 in 1989 when the coalition came to power for the first time and many of the strengths and weaknesses of this human collective iv enterprise I recognized as my own. I hope, therefore, that this research will help people to understand one of the most interesting political phenomena of contemporary Chilean politics. I also hope that my analysis, together with others from different disciplines and perspectives, will come to provide an explanation for this period in Chilean political history. v Table of Contents 1. Introduction… …………………………………………………………...............................1 2. Explaining Coalition Survival in Presidential Regimes ………………............................16 a. Introduction…………………………………………………….............................16 b. The Institutional Argument and Additional Explanations…................................. 18 1) Institutions and presidentialism..........................................................................19 2) Explaining Chilean politics pre-1973: institutions, incentives and agreements.......................................................................................25 3) Explaining the Concertación‟s success: institutions, context and leadership ...........................................................................................29 c. Informal Institutions................................................................................................35 d. Coalition Theory and Government Coalitions ....................................................40 1) Coalition theory and government formation..............................................41 2) Payoff distribution and cabinet appointments............................................42 3) Maintaining coalitions and cabinet change................................................54 e. The Role of Technocracy in Chile‟s Government Coalition...................................64 1) Technocrats and politicians........................................................................64 2) Characterizing technocrats.........................................................................66 3) Technocracy, democracy and economic reforms.......................................69 4) Technocracy studies about Chile................................................................72 f. Summing Up........................................................................................................... 78 3. Characterizing Chilean Politics ...........................................................................................81 a. Introduction.............................................................................................................81 b. Coalition Politics Before 1973 ..............................................................................82 vi 1) Institutions and historical context...............................................................82 2) Party system...............................................................................................85 3) Government coalitions ..............................................................................89 a) Frente Popular (1938 – 1952)........................................................89 b) Unidad Popular (1970 – 1973)......................................................91 c. Coalition Politics After 1973...................................................................................95 4. Building Coalitions in Extraordinary Times: from Opposition to Government .....................................................................................................................98 a. Introduction.............................................................................................................98 b. Political Learning..................................................................................................101 c. The Nature of the Coalition...................................................................................104 d. From Enemies to Partners: the Creation of the Concertación...............................109 1) The dark years (1973-1983) ...................................................................109 2) Towards strategic collaboration (1983-1988)…………..........................114 3) Building an electoral coalition (1989-1990)............................................123 e. Summing Up..........................................................................................................128 5. Characterizing Coalition Dynamics in Post-Authoritarian Chile (1990-2009)........................................................................................................................130 a. Introduction...........................................................................................................130 1) Party Level Variable: Maintaining Coalitions and Power Sharing...................................................................................132 a) Maintaining coalitions..........................................................................133 b) Patterns of power sharing.....................................................................134

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