Reorganizing Civil Society: Popular Movements, the State, and Municipalities in Postauthoritarian Chile
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REORGANIZING CIVIL SOCIETY: POPULAR MOVEMENTS, THE STATE, AND MUNICIPALITIES IN POSTAUTHORITARIAN CHILE By EDWARD F. GREAVES LATIN AMERICAN COLLECTION A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2002 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS dissertation committee, professor Leslie I would like to recognize the chair of my for the research upon E. Anderson, for her efforts in helping me to obtain the funding field of subaltern studies. which this dissertation is based, and for introducing me to the intellectual assistance provided by I would like to also acknowledge the invaluable professor Margaret Kohn in helping me to think about the theoretical issues that this dissertation deals with. Her seminar in democratic theory and her comments on my writing were extremely useful in the writing phase of this project. support during the Finally, I would like to thank my wife for her ceaseless help and support and love, time that I spent writing this dissertation. Without her tireless completing this manuscript would not have been possible. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS " ABSTRACT vi CHAPTERS THE 1 INTRODUCTION: POPULAR MOVEMENTS AND DILEMMAS OF DEMOCRATIC DEEPENING IN POST- AUTHORITARIAN CHILE 1 Organization Of The Study 5 Methods 6 2 IMAGINING PARTICIPATION: THE STATE, CITIZENMAKJNG, AND THE DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL PARTICIPATION 8 Introduction 8 The State, Civil Society, And Participation 10 The Problematization of Civil Society And Participation 18 Developmental Democracy: The Neo-Tocquevillian Paradigm 22 Conclusion: Social Participation, Discourse, And Power 47 3 FROM CALLAMPA TO POBLACION: THE FORMATION OF COMMUNITY AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE PASAJE 54 Introduction 54 The Urban Revolution: The Pasaje Emerges 55 The Coup in the Poblaciones of Huechuraba 72 The Emergence of Popular Economic Organizations 79 The Decline of Popular Movements 90 4 THE DEMOCRATIC MOMENT: THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN THE MUNICIPALITY AND THE POBLACIONES 96 Introduction 96 "Modernization" and Community Organizations 98 The Movement for the Democratization of the Neighborhood Councils 1 00 Imagining Democracy in the Cabildos and the Pasaje 116 5 THE TWILIGHT OF THE DEMOCRATIC MOMENT: THE TRANSITION IN THE MUNICIPALITY AND THE POBLACIONES 127 Introduction 127 Changes in State-Society Relations 128 iii The Dynamics of Demobilization 134 6 CHANGES IN ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE POST-TRANSITION 147 Introduction 147 Social Capital Without Citizenship 153 7 PUBLIC SPACE, PRIVATE SPACE, AND POPULAR CULTURE IN CHILE'S POBLACIONES IN THE ERA OF NEOLIBERAL CAPITALISM 174 Introduction 174 Hegemonic Struggles: The Antinomies of the Pasaje 186 The Arrival of the Megamarket 203 8 PARTICIPATION, PANOPTICISM, AND RESISTANCE: LA MUNI AND THE ANTINOMIES OF DECENTRALIZATION 234 Introduction: Neo-Tocquevillian Readings of Decentralization 234 The "Tyranny of Decentralization" 246 The Janus Face of the Municipality: The Panopticon Effect 265 Conclusion: Municipalities, Discipline, and the Panoptic Effect 285 9 SELF-CENSORSHIP IN THE "UNION COMUNAL DE JUNTAS DE VECINOS DE HUECHURABA" 294 Introduction 294 Conflicting Visions of Politics and the Role of the Citizen 298 Pragmatists and Militants in the Union Comunal 316 Power, Hegemony, and the Union Comunal 324 10 THE CONTRADICTIONS OF BUILDING THE CIVIC COMMUNITY: ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN THE MUNICIPALITY AND THE COMMUNITY 333 Introduction 333 Building a Civic Etiquette: The Community Development Plan 342 PLADECOs as a Form of Discipline 362 1 1 THE FACES OF RESISTANCE AND CONTENTIOUS COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE "MUNF 369 Introduction: The Ambiguities of Clientelistic Relationships 369 Contentious Encounters 379 Shaping the Terrain of Conflict 396 12 CONCLUSION 399 REFERENCES 411 iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 422 v Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy REORGANIZING CIVIL SOCIETY: POPULAR MOVEMENTS, MUNICIPALITIES, AND THE STATE IN POST-DICTATORSHIP CHILE By Edward F. Greaves August 2002 Chair: Leslie E. Anderson, Associate Professor Department of Political Science This study examines the dilemmas of democratic development in post-dictatorship Chile through a study of popular sector municipalities in urban Santiago. Since the transition to democracy in 1990, municipal government has emerged to become a key arena for popular participation. The Neo-Tocquevillian discourse upon which post-transition democracy is based suggests that local governments can constitute schools for learning citizenship practices and for the creation of a civic culture. In Chile, as elsewhere in Latin America, a hegemonic discourse of participation has emerged that is anchored in Neo-Tocquevillian assumptions. This study examines the impact that the efforts to foment local level participation vis a vis municipal government and to build a civic community has had on the development of an autonomous civil society and a subaltern public sphere. Thus, I examine the reorganization of administrative and political space that has taken place over the last twenty years and its impact on grassroots popular organizations through the lens of Foucault's concepts of discipline and panopticism. vi This study also examines the impact that the arrival of the central institutions of globalized, neoliberal capitalism (megamarkets and credit instruments) have had on the development of civil society and the public sphere in the post-authoritarian period. The institutions of neoliberal capitalism are reshaping patterns of everyday sociability in popular communities and thus are having a fundamental impact on popular culture. Neoliberal capitalism has contributed to the growing privatization of space in popular communities, which is reshaping the social landscape. This, in turn, is having an impact on political culture and on participation in grassroots organizations. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: POPULAR MOVEMENTS AND THE DILEMMAS OF DEMOCRATIC DEEPENING IN POST-AUTHORITARIAN CHILE Introduction On March 11, 1990 Patricio Aylwin Azocar took office as the elected president of Chile, bringing to an end the long seventeen year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Elected in the December 1989 elections that took place largely under rules and parameters determined by the dictatorship, Patricio Aylwin, a lifelong Christian Democrat, and the coalition of center-left parties that supported him (Concertacion de Partidos Por la Democracia-Concen of Parties for Democracy) faced several daunting challenges. Of paramount importance among these was the set of issues that fell under the broad heading of ''finishing or completing the transition" by addressing many questions that had been left unresolved during the transition: the question of human rights, civil-military relations, and most important in the long term: the democratization of the authoritarian political institutions that the dictatorship left in place and the creation of spaces for popular participation. Indeed, there was broad agreement within the concertacion that the transition to democracy was incomplete, and that many things would have to be changed in order to complete and finish the transition. There was, then, a consensus within the concertacion on the need to "deepen democracy" by undoing some of the institutional and social legacies left behind by the dictatorship. Following the formal transition of power concertacion planners faced a difficult task: establishing clear cut differences between the democratic government and the authoritarian past. One of the dominant themes of the concertacion during the election campaign was that if the concertacion were elected there would be substantial changes in 1 2 slogan terms of the democratization of political institutions. The concertacion's campaign underlying rhetoric of "La Alegria Ya Viene" (happiness is coming) in part rested on its democratic change, which suggested that the post-transition politics would represent a transparency, significant departure from the authoritarian regime in terms of openness, the accessibility, increased participation and social justice. The campaign rhetoric of concertacion suggested that the institutions of state would be significantly democratized so as to allow for more citizen influence in the process. Indeed, increasing the possibilities for democratic participation and the deepening of democracy (profundizacion de la democracia) became two of the dominant themes of concertacion discourse during the campaign. Although there was broad based agreement on the need to "finish the transition" by removing some of the more glaring obstacles to a fuller democracy, within the different parties and tendencies of the concertacion there were also significantly different visions surrounding the broader meaning of a project of democratic deepening. These differences were reflected at the grassroots level. However, at the grassroots level, elite democratic discourse was appropriated and transformed to produce different conceptualizations of democracy. Within the concertacion, the democratic imagination coalesced around two distinct poles. Centrist (and more conservative) voices in the coalition adopted a communitarian, neo-Tocquevillian discourse that was centered on encouraging limited local level participation through small community based organizations. Eventually, this neo-Tocquevillian imaginary would