Los monjes fuera del monasterio: CIEPLAN y su producción intelectual durante cuatro décadas de política chilena

Abstract

This article studies the Corporacion de Estudios para Latinoamerica (Corporation for Latin American Studies, CIEPLAN) as a case of intellectual and political elite articulation. Founded in 1976 and still active, the think tank is one of the most successful in contemporary Chilean politics, from the perspective of its influence on public policy as well as its ability to place its members in key government postings. Using data on the organization’s productivity and contributor’s career trajectory, the relationship between the politics of the day and academic production is explored. We find that the ideas and forms evolve depending on the type of regime and political context. The paper sustains that the period of “the CIEPLAN monk”, as Silva classically frased it (1991), did not survive the dictatorship, evolving into an age of technopols, for whom political strategy trumped academic ambition.