"Democratic Chile : the politics and policies of a historic coalition, 1990-2010". editado por Kirsten Sehnbruch y Peter M. Siavelis : Lynne Rienner Publishers, c2014.
This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the Concertación period in Chile: It brings together chapters from the best known analysts of Chilean politics and policies from both Anglosaxon and Chilean authors, and thus combines perspective with the in-depth knowledge of those close to the political process. It fairly evaluates the Concertación s successes and failures, picking apart the clichés that are often associated with the country that is considered Latin America s poster child.
A particularly unique feature of the book is that it relates its analysis of the politics and institutions that characterized the Concertación period with its policy outcomes. The authors argue that the Concertación was simultaneously a victim of its own success and the author of its own demise, both with respect to its political and economic model.
In political terms the coalition crafted a model for democratic transition and governance that relied on elaborate forms of consensus building between political parties, between the government and opposition, and between political parties and powerful social groups. This model of consensus government is interpreted by most as the key to the success of the coalition in managing the inevitable conflicts and tensions that arise in the course of democratic transitions. At the same time however, the continued reliance on this model of transition politics for the long term resulted in a failure to respond to legitimate citizen demands.
The authors make a parallel argument regarding Chile s economic and social development: Chile s successful economic management is widely lauded as a potential blueprint for the rest of Latin America, yet this success has been of little comfort to those at the lower end of Chile s notoriously unequal socioeconomic ladder. While services that can compete with the best in the world cater to the rich, the poor are still largely excluded from Chile s privatized, two tiered structure of services in the areas of healthcare, education and social security.
