Neoliberal Economics, Democratic Transition, and Mapuche Demands for Rights in Chile

Abstract

The subject of this book is extremely important for the future of Latin America. Democracy is apparently being consolidated in most of the countries of the area, although not democracy in its Western European or North American versions but in versions based on local conditions and traditions. Latin American democracies still tolerate levels of corruption, authoritarianism, and lack of pluralism closely related to socioeconomic gaps, marginalization, and violence that would be unimaginable in more advanced democracies, such as those of Western Europe. It is precisely for this reason that the general problem examined in this volume is important in Latin American and also in a more general context. The central issue here is whether the socioeconomic, political, and cultural models that countries adopt encourage inclusion of indigenous peoples or are based on a strong measure of exclusion. We have to take into consideration another set of factors related to transitions to democracy — as in the case of Chile in the early 1990s, when the Indigenous Law was enacted — and the consolidation of democracy, for example the tension between the political constraints characteristic of this period and the ideological goals of the new democratic rulers. Perhaps the analysis of this type of process could have helped to support the final statement of the book that attributes to neoliberal hegemony the fact that “parties no longer serve as agents of reform, but rather forces of stabilization” (p. 217). In the very detailed chapter on the Indigenous Law of 1993 (chap. 7), the author examines the problematic of indigenous peoples within a nation-state and the issues of positive discrimination, territory, development, and participation that are central for the Mapuches in Chile and for indigenous people everywhere.Besides the political confrontation around the mentioned law, the limitations of democratic parliamentary legislation should have been taken into account, understanding that this process in itself constitutes the “reform” that Haughney claims the political parties are unable to deliver because of the existence of a neoliberal hegemony in Chile. The careless use of such an established concept as Gramsci’s notion of hegemony detracts from the serious documentation and analysis that, in general, characterize this book. The author herself claims that the neoliberal principles were imposed in Chile by military rule in the late 1970s (pp. 52 – 55), destroying the basis of her own argument about later neoliberal hegemony. Moreover, the historical and theoretical framework of neoliberal ideologies is presented in a very simplistic and confusing way, mixing the three main ideological elements adopted by the military (nationalism, gremialismo, and neoliberalism) in the description of the steps taken by Pinochet’s government to impose its views in the country. It is strange that the name of Jaime Guzmán, the ideological architect of the 1980s constitution and for many years the main ideological adviser of the military, appears only once in the whole book (p. 66). Another Achilles’ heel in this book lies in the rather superficial enumeration of the authoritarian enclaves left over by military rule, most of which had been reformed by the time this book was published.In spite of these shortcomings, the book is a very good overview of the situation of the Mapuche people in contemporary Chile. Organized along a historical sequence that analyzes the development of the Mapuche conflict, it contains solid documentation of primary as well as secondary sources. The experience of the author and her closeness to Mapuche reality are clearly reflected. Two main contemporary case studies — the Bíobío hydroelectric projects and the conflict between the local residents and Bosques Arauco-CELCO — are well presented along with their theoretical implications, both economic and sociopolitical. In general, in spite of the above-mentioned deficiencies in the general theoretical framework, demographic, territorial, cultural, and socioeconomic aspects of the Mapuches’ experiences are well presented and analyzed by the author. Haughney’s book will certainly become one of the mandatory works in English about the confrontation between contemporary Mapuches and the Chilean state.