The rise and fall of Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism in Chile

This article applies Guillermo O’Donnell’s Bureaucratic-Authoritarian (BA) model to analyze the interruption of Chile’s democracy in 1973, and the gradual return to civilian rule since 1989. It argues that the formation of Augusto Pinochet’s military regime was an outcome of the import substitution industrialization strategy, activation of the popular sector, and rising threat to the capitalist order. After consolidation of the regime, however, power was re-opened first to the national bourgeoisie, and gradually to other classes. The whole process of formation and succession of Chile’s military regime follows very much the pattern depicted by the BA model. However, applicability of the BA framework is limited to countries that have attained a certain degree of industrialization, and have solid democratic tradition, such as Chile.