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Beyond Pacted Transitions in Spain and Chile: Elite and Institutional Differences OMAR SANCHEZ
This article compares the transitions to democracy in Spain and Chile, two countries that share important pre-transition characteristics. Both transitions were made from the legality of the existing regime, and democratization followed from a stalemate between the forces of the ancien régime and those of change. Moreover, both were transitions by transaction – negotiated with the authoritarian forces. Yet the differences were more pronounced. The article analyzes the significance of a number of elite-level and institutional variables that have all too often been masked by the crude and simplistic distinction made in the ‘transitology’ literature between pacted and unpacted transitions. These include: cohesion within the authoritarian forces, the role of agency, substantive (rather than pragmatic) cohesion within the democratic opposition, attainment of civil supremacy, presence or absence of the dictator, length of dictatorship, and even Machiavellian fortuna, among others.
Introduction: Which Transitional Variables are Chosen and Why Chile can boast of a much longer history of democratic rule than that of Spain. In fact, many European nations would gladly trade their democratic legacy for Chile’s: 150 years of democratic order interrupted only twice. Spain, for its part, has been Europe’s pariah state for most of the past two centuries, its all-too-conspicuous inability to establish stable democratic rule being justified by the saying ‘Spain is different’. The last quarter of the twentieth century, however, has reversed the traditional course that each of these nations had followed for the previous three. As the turn of events would have it, shortly after Chile was to begin the darkest episode in its political history as an independent nation-state, Spain began one of the world’s most praised transitions to democracy, firmly established by 1982. Ironically, it is now Chile that can look to Spain as a model of democratic transition and consolidation. To compare and contrast these two countries’ transitions, this account will not proceed by retelling important events that led to democracy. This approach carries the implicit notion of determinism, the assumption that things took the shape they did because there was no other manner in which
Omar Sanchez is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Oxford, UK. Democratization, Vol.10, No.2, Summer 2003, pp.65–86 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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they could have developed. As will be evident throughout the account here, nothing is further from the truth as concerns these two cases. Rather, the approach taken will be as follows: some of variables that are crucial in accounting for the nature, attributes and outcomes of transitions – as determined by ‘transitologists’ – will be perused. The list will be restricted to those this author deems relevant for these two countries. Before proceeding to explaining what these factors are and how they express themselves in Chile and Spain, a justification for their inclusion here (to the exclusion of others) is warranted. A crude theoretical distinction can be made between those analysts who study transitions as a process of political pacts and negotiations between political elites and those who study them as the outcome of a long-term socio-economic process that create an unsustainable misalignment between economic development and the repression of civil liberties. Transitions to democratic rule involve a plethora of events and factors. How does one begin to understand ‘transitology’, or the science of transitions? Samuel Huntington, in The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Centuty (1991), points the way forward: the first essential element for the establishment of all systems of civil authority is the minimization of military power. This dictum may seem self-evident, but it is all too often sidestepped when explaining transitions to democracy. A power struggle between civilians and military cadres permeates most transitions to democracy. The relative power of one group vis-à-vis the other will be contingent on two essential factors: first, who displays more internal unity; and second, who comes to the negotiations with more political resources (broadly defined). These factors are key to understanding not only the outcome of regime changes but also the nature of transitions. Both the unity and the resources brought to bear by each of the sides, helps explain the much more jagged and rocky transition in Chile compared with Spain’s. Let us consider Felipe Aguero’s working definition of civil supremacy as ‘the capacity by a civil government that is democratically elected to conduct general policies without military meddling, define the goals and general organization of national defense, formulate and conduct a defense policy, and supervise the application of military policies’.1 There are, in this respect, important differences between Chile and Spain. The inability to establish civil supremacy in Chile is the main obstacle to the consolidation of its democracy. In Spain, that supremacy was achieved early on (if it was ever a problem given that the authoritarian regime was civilianized). The historical record of transitions clearly shows that the modality of the transition itself has rather definitive consequences as to the power accruing
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to the different elite players and thus, repercussions for the character of the transition itself and prospects for consolidation. Political transitions precipitated by military collapse, for instance, lead to an abrupt, inharmonious transition – as happened in Argentina.2 In both Chile in Spain, the stalemate between the authoritarian and the democratic political forces could only be overcome through negotiation. In general, scholars are agreed that transitions arising from a collapse or rupture have a much lower chance of democratic consolidation than those transitions that are negotiated with the old regime.3 If both Chile and Spain truly exhibit traits of a reformaruptura pactada, this is indeed an essential similarity and its analysis could not possibly be overlooked. Adherence to existing legality precludes vacuums of power that can easily lead to involution or political repression. Reformers that make use the instrument of legal reform to effect change do indeed act on firmer ground than those who do not (or cannot). Chile is a country with a remarkably strong tradition of legality, and even Pinochet could not afford to ignore this tradition. The fact that the players in these two transitions worked from the legal structure of the authoritarian regimes means the opposing camps agreed to the procedural rules of the game. The constitutions that provided a legal bases for the regime of the respective dictators, however, were to suffer a different fate. In Spain, it was to be effectively dismantled; in Chile, the 1980 constitution, albeit with changes, stands still (and provides a main impediment to democratic governance). What about variables that are often factored into transitions but omitted here? One is the level of economic development. This variable is usually described as a ‘facilitating’ condition for democratization. A certain level of economic prosperity is thought to foster democratization. Spain and Chile are unique in that both underwent a period of sustained growth under the later years of their respective dictatorships. The late 1960s saw Spain achieve some of the highest economic growth rates in the world. Chile, on its part, was possibly the only country in Latin America (along with Colombia) for which the 1980s was not a lost decade in terms of economic growth. Both Spain and Chile were above the tentative economic threshold that pundits cite as being a facilitating condition for the onset and consolidation of democracy. But is this really relevant to our cases? Besides the observation that per capita living standards up to the time of the transition are important, economic conditions do not say much about why things took the shape they did in Spain and Chile: their transitions were eminently political events.4 International factors will be considered in the relevant section and, much like economic conditions, discarded as largely irrelevant to the process of regime change.
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Similarities Transitional Avenue: Transaction For the purposes of this article transition5 is defined as ‘the process by which the old regime abandons the more salient characteristics of its institutional arrangement, which are substituted by others that progressively come to ascertain the new regime that is installed’.6 Granted, the development of such a process can take many forms. Alfred Stepan has proposed no less than eight routes that can lead a dictatorship towards democracy. Scott Mainwaring classifies distinct types of transitions according to the degree of control exerted by the authoritarian elites.7 That is, they take the localization of power as the distinguishing principle among democratic transitions. They are the authors that have coined the phrase ‘transition via transaction’. Such a formula assumes that the dictatorship maintains its power apparatus relatively intact, and that the dominant forces within it will steer the transition agenda. It is a type of transition controlled by the old regime figureheads, which, at a given time, need to collaborate and pact with the forces of the opposition, who will have a salient role, though in many ways a subordinated one. This is the model that best describes the process that took place in Spain and the more recent one of Chile. What led to a reforma pactada (negotiated reform) in these two countries was an effective impasse: the inability of either the authoritarian elites or the opposition forces to impose their respective maximalist projects. The power resources between the two sides were rather evenly distributed in both countries.8 These power resources include: loyalty of armed forces, the backing of civil society, the legality of the existing regime, institutions, the expected result of plebiscite/elections and so on. When maximalist projects on both sides fail or are deemed unworkable, compromise and negotiation are bound to follow. The negotiation of settlements bode well for democracy, as they avoid polarization. Writing shortly after the 1988 Chilean plebiscite results came out, political observers Pamela Constable and ArturoValenzuela maintained that, in spite of foreseeable problems in the transitional period, optimism was justified: There is an overriding reason for confidence in Chile’s future stability: the paradoxical fact that the transition falls far short of the ideal sought by each major political actor. No one, from Pinochet to the Communist party, was able to impose an absolute vision of change. Instead, each group has been forced to make concessions and compromises, to relinquish utopian dreams in order to achieve incremental progress, and to recognize that both the country and the world have changed. [As a consequence,] it is extremely unlikely that Chile will return to the extreme polarization that led to the violent collapse of democracy in 1973.9
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In retrospect, their remarks proved to be prescient, as Chile all but abandoned the polarized politics of the early 1970s. One cannot say enough about the virtues of elite compromises in bringing about consolidated democracies. Others have described the Chilean transition as one deriving from two partial elite settlements.10 The first was among most of the opposition elites (the Christian Democrats, the moderate faction of the socialists, and other smaller groupings) and a considerable segment of the coalition supporting Pinochet. What this pact entailed was first, an agreement on the rules of the game. Both camps agreed to make of the 1988 plebiscite an open and fair election. Second, there were concessions on both parts: the opposition dropped its demand for Pinochet’s resignation (that is, an abrupt ruptura); while the businessmen and politicians on the newly formed Renovacion Nacional agreed not to support Pinochet’s attempt to stay in power in any case. The second partial settlement involved the agreement between the socialists and the Christian Democrats to unite as an opposition for the purpose of defeating Pinochet and maintain the unity beyond the plebiscite. In a similar vein, scholar Richard Gunther argues, ‘the successful democratic consolidation in Spain was primarily the product of a profound transformation of Spain’s political elites from disunity into consensual unity’.11 Clearly, that everyone from right-wing conservative Manuel Fraga to Communist Party Leader Santiago Carrillo agreed on procedural rules and came to share a basic set of underlying values, was remarkable indeed. A process not unlike this one took place in Chile, although perhaps with more political party elements outside the procedural consensus. There is, in any case, a crucial difference between the transitions. Calling them both ‘negotiated’ or ‘elite consensus’ transitions should not obscure an important observation: in Spain, the first steps of the transition were unilateral. They included: the July 1976 decision to grant pardon to hundreds of political prisoners, the abolition of the Movimiento and subsequent legalization of political parties; the abolition of vertical labour syndicates and establishment of independent trade unions; and above all, the drafting of the Law of Political Reform in October of 1976. Key decisions, then, were made by Suarez and, except for the last one mentioned, enacted by decree. ‘In retrospect’, asserts Gunther, ‘Suarez’s initial, unilateral steps can be seen to have been crucial to creating a level of confidence among opposition forces that significant reform was possible’.12 This stands in sharp contrast to Chile, whose elite negotiation between the two camps did not start with an approximation by the Pinochetista side to more democratic ideals. Negotiations were purely the result of a stalemate in political power (the democrats acquiring more clout with the popular consultations of 1988, 1989 and 1990) but not the result
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of an increased level of confidence between the camps and a shared vision of the future. The Chilean military was concerned with securing ‘authoritarian enclaves’ while conceding to the democratic side as little as possible. In fact, after it became clear that Pinochet’s candidate Buichi was destined to lose the 1989 elections, the regime enacted a self-interested series of decrees that turned the clock back a few years and made the democratizing process less smooth. That is why in Chile the transition has been described as disloyal in character, as opposed to the loyal nature of the Spanish process. Securing the best future for Chile took a back seat to securing the best post-Pinochet era for the men in uniform. (The military certainly had reasons to proceed this way, as their very lives were dependent on it, as will be explained later). The two camps in negotiations were engaged in a zero-sum game in the Chilean case, while the game can be described as positive sum in the Spanish case. The Primacy of Legality The Spanish transition had to start from the Fundamental Laws (Leyes Fundamentales) drafted by Franco; the Chileans had to work from the 1980 constitution drafted by Pinochet. The Leyes amounted to a Francoist constitution of sorts. In contrast to other military (or civilianized) regimes, Franco’s regime had created a complete institutional and constitutional superstructure. For democratization to proceed, this architecture had to be eliminated. The options of a revolutionary overthrow or an abrogation of the Franco constitution by a simple declaration by the king were out the question. There was indeed a need for legal ‘backward legitimization’, a need to work from the Fundamental Laws ‘based on the fact that the king had sworn to defend those laws, that his authority derived from them, that the government in charge had been appointed according to them, and that the obedience of the armed forces could be assured if the change took place in that way’.13 Adolfo Suarez achieved the remarkable feat of persuading the franquista Cortes (the nondemocratic legislature created by Franco) to vote for its own extinction. That is what happened when they ratified Law of Political Reform, which allowed for the creation of a radically different legislative body after elections and with the participation of political parties. This was nothing less than a unilateral move toward political opening on the part of regime forces. When the Law of Political reform gained further legitimization via its overwhelming approval in a popular referendum, the process of democratization acquired a new self-sustaining, forwardmoving dynamics. No such unilateral moves took place in Chile. All amendments made to the undemocratic and anachronistic 1980 constitution after the 1989
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election were the result of negotiations between regime forces and the opposition camp. That this constitution was in place at all and its contents rigorously applied led to the holding of the 1988 plebiscite allowing a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote for ten more years of rule by Pinochet. On the other hand, it contains innumerable ‘enclaves of authoritarianism,’ as sociologist Antonio Garreton has coined the prerogatives enjoyed by the military. The number and nature of these are remarkable indeed: the constitutional right to appoint nine of the 47 members of the Senate; any change to the constitution had to be approved by the Constitutional Court (with seven members, all appointed by Pinochet) before promulgation; General Pinochet had a right to nonremovability as chief of the army until March of 1998, and thereafter as senator for life; most members of the Supreme Court could be (and were) appointed by Pinochet. Because changes to the Pinochetista constitution are so hard to implement, given its strong ‘defence mechanisms’, the successive democratic administrations (first Alwyn’s and then Frei’s) have had to grapple with de jure limitations to democracy. That the constitution has not simply been scrapped, points among other things to the power of the military as an institution. The larger insight is that in both countries the legality (and the institutions it established) of the authoritarian regimes was a starting point from which to guide the initial steps of the transition. Spain’s transition architects used the franquista Cortes to scrap the Fundamental Laws; in Chile the equivalent (a Pinochet legislative body abolishing the regime’s constitution) was inconceivable given that the military would loose all of its powers thereby, and would also render itself open to judicial persecution. The 1980 constitution still hangs as a black cloud over political life in Chile, but in a strict sense it opened the way to democracy. Pre-transition Climate: Loss of Legitimacy? A characteristic that Chile and Spain shared at the end of their respective periods of dictatorship was a crisis of domestic legitimacy that made a transition a matter of time. In Spain, the socio-political misalignment (desajuste) was grave indeed: Spain had undergone its own ‘industrial revolution’ in the 1950s and 1960s and a concomitant social transformation of sea-change proportions. Political change, however, was not forthcoming. It was a phenomenon that the average Spaniard was increasingly conscious of, as it had serious repercussions on a series of practical problems. These concerned, among others, labour relations (which could not be rationalized without labour organizations that were democratic and representative); the need to augment the standard of living of workers (impossible without a
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minimal fiscal policy of redistribution); the need to make Spaniards responsible in things political (impossible without avenues of political participation established democratically); the need to tackle educational and sanitary reform (impossible without a previous fiscal policy that allowed a larger source of public resources); the need to establish regional policies (impossible without the recognition of the ‘specificity’ of particular Spanish regions); the need to pacify day-to-day political relations (impossible without an amnesty for political prisoners).14 Social change and transformation in the Spanish class structure meant a reduction in the social class base of support for the Francoist regime. Had Pinochet not faced a crisis of legitimacy vis-à-vis the population he ruled over, he would have not lost the 1988 plebiscite. Although not entirely free of disturbances, the 1973–1988 period brought unprecedented levels of economic prosperity to Chile. A substantial desajuste (although not as acute as in the Spanish case) was thus also prevalent in Chile, economic and social advancement not proceeding in tandem with political liberalization. Many of the practical problems outlined above were also palpably present in Chile by 1988.15 Yet, in view of the fact that Pinochet obtained a sizable 43 per cent approval rating for his regime in 1988, were Chile’s authoritarian rulers really overwhelmed with a lack of legitimization that forced them to hold and respect that plebiscite? Adam Przeworski offers a more penetrating and sophisticated view of this factor and its effect on regime transformations. As a matter of fact, he maintains, legitimacy assessed in a vacuum holds very little predictive power. The entire problem of legitimacy is in my view incorrectly posed. What matters for the stability of any regime is not the legitimacy of this particular system of domination but the presence or absence of preferable alternatives [and their level of legitimacy as compared with that of the current ‘system’].16 If the belief in the legitimacy of the regime collapses but no alternative is organized, there is no reason for the existing regime to fall. Conversely, if the authoritarian regime enjoys decent levels of legitimacy but there exists another politically organized option that enjoys yet higher such levels (say, democratic alternatives), then the regime will come under strain. This insight is particularly applicable to Chile. What really evolved in that country was a battle between two political options that had the opportunity to test their relative strength in a popular plebiscite. Democracy won out, but not easily. This rather narrow victory still constitutes a mild impediment to democratic consolidation in Chile: democracy simply did not receive the unanimous support that it did in
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Spain. Ten years on, however, polls reflect that Chilean democracy is much more widely endorsed than previously.17 Differences Authoritarian Cohesion (and Military Control) versus Democratic Unity What often tends to be passed over in discussion about the Spanish transition is that, as in many ‘southern cone’ countries, the generals and admirals that served under Franco retained their posts throughout the entire transition and after. These were nothing less than remnants of the civil war, as their political ‘coming of age’ took place for most of them during those years. ‘They had fought for the army that beat the republicans and the Communists, [the army] that was always compromised with the defense of the institutions and Francoist ideals against the forces of anti-Spain’.18 Surely, one might think, this anachronistic legacy of the Franco days must have posed a formidable threat to the transition. In fact, that was not the case. This is where the academic distinction between militarized and civilianized authoritarian regimes becomes pertinent. In the first case, the army participates directly in the formulation of national policies and decides on the personnel of the executive. Chile was clearly a militarized regime. The late franquista regime was, on its part, civilianized in that civilians took the political decisions, even when the military men had representation in the institutions of government. Time is an essential factor, for the longer the duration of the authoritarian regime the more civilianized one would expect it to become. In this context it is worthwhile reproducing Felipe Aguero’s numbers showing the number of Spanish military ministers as a percentage of the total number of ministers. Right after the war (1938) the percentage of military ministers was 41 per cent, reaching a high of 50 per cent in 1945, thereafter descending to 44 per cent in 1957, 26 per cent in 1969 and reaching a low of 16 per cent in March of 1975, not long before the death of the caudillo. This path does have ups and downs and is by no means smooth, but the numbers here quoted intend to convey that a long-term trend is indeed there. The average for 1938–1975 period is 32.8 per cent. In Chile, the corresponding percentage (for 1973–1987) is 45.8 per cent. No less than a third of ministers were military men when Chile was about to undergo the 1988 plebiscite. These computations are only part of the story. The larger point is that in Spain the armed forces never delineated or applied the political decisions of the government (except during the civil war). Aguero records only one instance (1943) in which the military establishment put direct pressure on Franco to make a particular political
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decision (to reestablish the monarchy). Tellingly enough, they were unsuccessful in their attempt. In Spain, the ministries that each ejercito (Air, Land, and Sea) enjoyed in the cabinet were eliminated in 1977 and replaced by a sole Ministry of Defence. Further, after the inauguration of the 1978 constitution, ‘the military was persuaded to allow the dismantling of those institutions that guaranteed their autonomy vis-à-vis direct governmental control.19 An acute problem assailed the Spanish franquistas: a crisis of political identity. As the Francoist political elites (inherited from the reactionary and fascist political parties during the Second Republic) became too old for office or died, the regime was confronted with the problem of renovating the political cadres. Younger officials engendered a lack of homogeneity within regime apparatus and loyalty could no longer be guaranteed. No such internal cracks were appreciable within pinochetista political cadres. Augusto Pinochet, like Franco, was able to create a highly personalistic regime. Franco, however, delegated more authority on others as the years went by. That was not true of Pinochet. He was fond of reiterating the now infamous phrase, ‘nothing moves in Chile without my knowledge or permission’. If power was personalized in both regimes, the fundamental difference rested in the degree of Chilean military participation in the crucial decision centres. Legislative, governmental, and presidential counselor committees were all filled with colonels and generals. So was the cabinet. The centralization of power in Chile and the degree of internal unity within the military establishment has been attributed in the literature to four factors. First, Pinochet and his advisers were able to draw on the framework of tradition of constitutional legality to justify one-man rule. Second, they could rely on the disciplined and hierarchical nature of the armed forces and the growing power of the secret police. Third, they enjoyed the strong and uncritical support of much of the business community and sectors of the middle class. And fourth, they were able to take advantage of the continued sharp divisions of the opposition.20 Although Pinochet was supposed to be one among the four members of the governmental junta when the military staged the 1973 coup, his position as the leader of the oldest military branch (the army) gave him many advantages over his colleagues and after five years of garnering power he was able to stage a coup within a coup (with the support of two of the other three junta members). Whereas the Francoist regime saw a depersonalization of power, Chile became increasingly a one-man-rule state as the years went by (although firmly secured by 1978). Military obedience to
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governmental authority, a strong inheritance from Chile’s long democratic spell, similarly aided Pinochet in his quest for sole control over the organs of the state. Via a complex web of ‘carrots’ (lucrative posts and fringe benefits) and ‘sticks’ (threat of destitution) Pinochet was able to create a degree of loyalty within the military that was rare even in Latin America. The business community was also on the dictator’s side. This unlikely loyalty stemmed from the business elite’s rejection of the vagaries and uncertainty of democracy. Political forces in the past, such as Allende’s party, had systematically pursued policies aimed against their very existence (via the wide-ranging nationalization of enterprises, for instance). What this meant for Pinochet and his cronies was clear: the ability to pursue policies unconstrained, free from the pressures of the elite and business constituencies. Because of what has been outlined, the pinochetistas were able to come to the negotiating table of the transition with a formidable degree of political resources and internal cohesion. Now that some of the main features of authoritarian cohesiveness have been sketched, what can be said about the relative unity among democratic forces in these two countries? When seen in comparative perspective, Spain is unique in the degree of opposition cohesiveness displayed during the transition. This had not always been the case. ‘If the strength of a government is the weakness of the opposition’, wrote a British ambassador in Spain, ‘the Franco regime was less precarious than many of its foreign critics and émigré opponents imagined’.21 Ever since 1939, the republican losers of the civil war had quarreled among themselves, consolidating the Franco regime. Their obstinate refusal to co-operate was only abandoned after the death of the caudillo. At first, they diverged as to whether a ruptura or a reforma was the optimal way to usher in a new post-Franco era. Gradually, the second option gained favour among the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and other parties, as the first came to be seen as non-viable. Every political group, regardless of ideology, supported the reform proposals of Adolfo Suarez and came together in the elaboration of a new constitution, the peak of opposition unity (1978). In Chile, ideological distances did not preclude the formation of a grand coalition, the Concertación. It is important to note, however, that in the case of Chile such unity stemmed more from pragmatic electoral purposes than from a climate of consensual public opinion that infiltrated political parties, as in Spain. As was evidenced by the results 1988 plebiscite, with 43 per cent of Chileans supporting Pinochet and a slightly higher percentage rejecting him, Chilean society was permeated by anything but a consensusseeking state of mind. It was highly polarized in its reading of the
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pinochetista legacy and in the left–right political spectrum. As far as the political elites was concerned, polarization had not been buried, simply set aside. Chilean political parties, insatiable as they were to promote their agenda and seize political power, faced the more pressing necessity to oust Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite. Only then could any of their ambitions materialize. In any case, it is fair to say that the 17 long years of authoritarianism, an aberration in the context of Chilean political history, had produced changes within the country’s political parties that were real enough. As Foxley says, ‘the long authoritarian recess created, almost imperceptibly, a new political culture which made possible agreements, accords and consensus that had simply been unthinkable earlier’.22 There surely was a greater degree of consensus among political cadres by the time the 1989 presidential elections came about. By virtue of a series of legal dispositions, the soldiers in Chile secured for themselves a number of prerogatives acquired during the authoritarian period. That they were able to engineer such a favourable outcome for themselves stems from the fact that they had a rather firm grip of the agenda of the transition. The more conservative and reactionary forces in Spain thought they had their man in Arias Navarro. He failed to assuage either one of the ‘negotiating parties’ (franquistas versus opposition forces) during his short spell as the head of government, in no small part because of his ineptness. The agenda of the transition thus fell into the hands of Adolfo Suarez. Although coming from the ranks of an eminently Francoist organism (the Movimiento), Suarez was not a continuista, but rather, a genuine reformist – as events would soon certify. He went to great lengths to assure that the new political era in Spain embraced all of the political actors, as when he made the politically charged decision to legalize the Communist party (against the strong opposition of bunker Francoist elements). Thus, while Suarez represented regime forces (and counted with their approval) he was, for all practical purposes, a reformist very much in the spirit of the regime’s opposition. In Chile, by contrast, those in power at the time of the transition were not reformist but hard-core inmobilistas. Displaying a clearly maximalist posture, their aim was to preserve as much power as possible and to concede as little to the democratic forces. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Chilean transition has been called, among other things, disloyal: the aim of the negotiators not being the future political well-being of the nation, but rather the preservation and/or enhancement of their domains of power.
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Time Elapsed and Presence or Absence of the Dictator The time elapsed since the onset of the authoritarian regime and the presence (or absence) of the dictator during the transition are two extraneous factors to consider in this comparison between Chile and Spain. As concerns the first, Juan Linz remarks as follows: in the background of the Spanish transition was the memory of the civil war and the errors and crimes by both parts instituted a ‘never again’ type of philosophy and the searching of political formulas based on consensus and, insofar as possible, in mutual trust. In the Chilean case, the memory of the crisis that led to the breakdown of democracy is more proximate in time, and the hard repression has continued up to the transition itself, with violations of human rights, and those who hold power fear justice.23 Although the Franco regime resulted in far more deaths, most of these dated from the decade following the civil war, and repression waned substantially thereafter. Further, the memory of the 1936–1939 civil war did not result, as many outsiders and observers of the Spanish transition expected, in a tense and charged atmosphere within which to conduct the transition. First, too much time had passed since then, almost 40 years. Second, it was precisely the objective perspective given by those 40 years that allowed the parties to reach an easy consensus: the determined goal that a second version of those three years would never occur again. This implicit and non-declared aim was undoubtedly above party politics. It escaped no one.24 The result was that everyone involved in the transition, from the bunker to the Communists, was determined that the transition be a peaceful affair. For instance, no one dare propose that those politically responsible for the atrocities committed under franquismo be brought to justice and sentenced accordingly, as this would have needlessly endangered the prospects for the installation of democracy. The popular backing for such a demand was virtually absent, and therefore bypassing justice would not strain democratic life. But further, the lesson of the Civil War meant that negotiations were much more consensual in nature than they would have been otherwise. Chile, in contrast, faced a strong popular demand to settle past crimes by judicial means. The madres de los desaparecidos (mothers of the disappeared) who gather regularly in Santiago stand as a potent symbol of this societal pressure upon those in power. As Linz points out, those pinochetistas responsible (including Pinochet himself) were highly aware of this and made sure that last minute amendments to the 1980 constitution were made absolving them of any judicial inquiry and subsequent
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imprisonment. Chilean democratic leaders were caught in the classic dilemma: pushing for wide-ranging trials would severely strain democratic day-to-day politics, while a policy of ‘forgetting’ would set a dangerous precedent and ignore the demands of important sectors of the population. The Aylwin government opted for the sensible middle road, simply setting a commission for the investigation of the crimes. Needless to say, such a state of events led the military to adopt a defensive strategy in negotiations, sowing the seeds for a deficient democracy. As it has been written, historical memories do not invariably produce moderation in political attitudes and behaviour. To be sure, ‘history can be used in efforts to counsel restraint, but it can also be used to reawaken old hatreds; it can be used to justify either appeals for national reconciliation or calls for revenge’.25 The perspective of time in one case, and the recentness of events in the other, meant that history served the transition well in the first case, while it had a perverted effect on the second. In an immediate sense, the Spanish transition was prompted by the death of the caudillo on November of 1975. The parameters of the game changed: the alternatives were no longer immobilism or opening (inmobilismo o apertura); the dilemma became reform or break (ruptura). His passing away served to accentuate the divisions among franquistas in the two factions that had been taking shape ever since the health of the dictator became a concern: the duros (hard-liners) and the reformistas. Such divisions have obvious implications for the strength and bargaining power with which the authoritarian forces head into the transition, as has already been dealt with in the section on ‘civil versus authoritarian cohesion’. Taking a rather simplified view one can say that the hard-liner, Arias Navarro, failed in his task as moderator with the democratic forces, while the ‘reformista representative’, in the figure of Suarez, was to prove remarkably adept. In a real sense, the continuista elements of the regime were bound to fail to conduct negotiations and secure pacts to the liking of the democratic forces. Thus, their time under the sun was destined to come to an abrupt end with the death of Franco (unless drastic military measures were taken, a clearly non-viable option). The very presence of Pinochet during the transition was to prove highly problematic, as it has continued to prove up until the present day.26 In fact, many contend that his continuing presence in the political process (he is currently a senator-for-life) effectively means that the transition has not ended. If in Spain the death of Franco was to wreak havoc among the Spanish right, in Chile the military was to rally around the figure of the dictator to avoid the uncertainties that democracy would have in store for them. The 14 months between the ‘no’ vote in the 1988 popular plebiscite and the holding of elections in 1989 was to see a flurry of amendments to
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the 1980 constitution that would add to the undemocratic underpinnings of Chile’s legality, the purpose being to shield the military from judicial prosecutions, render the military as autonomous from civilian rule as possible, and to command as much power and say over the new political era as conceivable. To secure these goals Pinochet offered generous retirements to elderly members of the Supreme Court so that he could name nine new young justices to life terms. This virtually guaranteed that the court would not reopen human rights cases. An interesting way to frame the importance of this variable (presence or absence of the dictator), is to ask the counterfactual, to devise a hypothetical scenario where the situations were reversed. If Franco had transferred his power as head of state to the king in, say 1975, but had remained alive, head of the Spanish military and watchful over political developments in the following months and years, things would have likely been different. Let us hypothesize how events could have developed. This author believes that once the Ley de Reforma Politica (Law of Political Reform) was passed, the process of democratization was on firm grounds (if not irreversible). The holding of elections in 1977 could have hardly been stopped. The pertinent question then becomes the following: would and could have Franco derailed the initial proposals of Aldolfo Suarez?27 He certainly could have and most likely would have. One of the reasons the Spanish transition was relatively smooth was the lack of a role that the military had in it. Franco had literally ordered them to be loyal to the king. The caudillo could not have envisaged the clean break with the past that would take place under the direction of Juan Carlos I, but had he been alive to see it, it is almost certain that he would have taken actions to abort it. His espousal of continuity is beyond any doubt, as he expressed in the famous phrase todo esta atado y bien atado (all is tied up and well tied down). To begin with, Francisco Franco would have counted with a committed following of franquistas (the bunker and other more moderate right-wing elements). The continuista project (‘After Franco, the institutions of Francoism’) was apparently assured by the key institutions (the Council of the Realm, the Cortes, and the National Council of the Movement), which were in the hands of staunch Francoists. Juan Carlos, International Factors and Machiavellian Fortuna If there is one element that differentiates the Spanish transition from most others, that is the role of the Spanish king, Juan Carlos I. It is one of those variables that lie outside the scope of any theoretical treatment of transitions. Nowhere does transitology specify the role of kings; yet, in the Spanish case, Juan Carlos has been called el piloto del cambio (the pilot of change). Juan Carlos I was indispensable as a buffer of sorts between the
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military and the civilians. For the military, his figure provided an element of continuity with the previous years and that pacified most military quarters. It was Franco that had vested him with authority and therefore he was, in their eyes, endowed with utmost legitimacy.28 The military establishment had blind faith in the franquista credentials of those elites that controlled the transition and deemed unnecessary to ever strengthen their leverage so as to have a say in the process. And the king was the foremost repository of this faith. A cosmetic change that kept most of the regime principles and bases of power intact was expected. It is not an exaggeration to assert that they were literally caught by surprise when those men (such as the king and Suarez) in whom they had vested authority and deposited trust made a clean break with the past. Once they had done so it was too late to react and many factors disabused them of the idea of turning back the clock by direct intervention. From the viewpoint of the military, the years 1975–1978 can quite literally be called, as many have done, ‘democratization by surprise’. Indeed, it was thought the king, as new Head of State, was the best guarantee for the continuity of the institutions and spirit of Francoism. The truth is that no one quite knew what his political ideas were. (In fact, the opposition saw his 1969 appointment as Head of State with great disappointment). As Pablo Fusi and Raymond Carr explain, Juan Carlos was a young man of 37, who since 1969 had appeared, conspicuous at Franco’s side, on State occasions as his future successor. ‘In 1975 he was a political enigma. So far his statements had been rare and irrelevant. His family life, his sporting prowess were public property. His real political ideas were known only to his more intimate friends. He had confined himself to proclaiming his loyalty to the regime and to hinting at some vague sympathy towards the spirit of the new generations.29 The enigma would soon be resolved. It was not the mere existence of Carlos or the fact that he was Jefe de Estado that did the trick, as it were. He could have taken a less democratic stance and encountered the fate of his grandfather. What made him an extraordinary figure was his unyielding commitment to democracy and the effective use of all of his legal powers to make that democracy a reality. He was in fact making a strong personal bet. His crown was at stake: had things not turned out the way they did, he probably would have been deposed and made into a pariah. What actions did Juan Carlos take that were in fact so instrumental? Three broad ones: first, he fired the inmobilista Arias Navarro as prime minister when political opening was not going fast enough, and hired Suarez for the job, who was in many ways the architect of the transition; second, he assured the military
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establishment of the benign nature of the liberalization steps being taken; and third, he aborted the 1981 coup d’état General Tejero tried to execute, by intervening directly and overtly challenging the legitimacy of the action. Out of the four varieties of international factors affecting transitions identified by Diamond, Linz and Lipset – colonial rule, intervention, cultural diffusion and demonstration effects – it is this last one that applies a priori to the countries under study here. Both countries were latecomers to democracy in their respective geographical contexts and thus could have presumably been influenced by the atmosphere breathed across their borders. After all, Huntington’s ‘snowballing’ effect has been conspicuous in Eastern Europe after 1989 and in the wave of African political liberalization exercises observed in the early 1990s. The contagion effects, however, involve more than earlier transitions providing models for later ones. As other (particularly geographically or ideologically proximate) authoritarian regimes fall, the psychological and political context in the remaining regimes alters. Oppositions become inspired and emboldened. Ruling elites lose confidence. As democracy gains greater regional and international momentum, more resources flow to democratic movements and less to the authoritarian regimes. Powerful international actors become more willing to exert pressure against the remaining authoritarian regimes, which become more isolated.30 Does the above description fit either Chile or Spain? Chile did see a reversal of United States policy towards it once Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency. Nevertheless, the Carter administration’s policy, while having some effect on Argentina and Uruguay, had no effect on Chile, where a cohesive ruling elite, low mobilization from civil and political society and rather strong internal legitimacy differentiated it from its southern-cone counterparts. For Spain, the example of Portugal served, if anything, as a transition example to avoid. However, the real impact of international factors in this case comes into play in fostering Spain’s consolidation of democracy rather than its transition to democracy. Following Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset’s dictum (‘Spain is the problem, Europe the solution’), Europe becomes an historical solution for Spanish democrats and negotiations to accession to the European Community begin in 1977. The sine qua non of accession – the requirement of the EC that its members manifest ‘truly democratic practices’ – is something to factor in when considering what accounts for democratic consolidation in Spain. Philippe Schmitter asks the pertinent question of whether ‘transitology’
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is ‘the science or the art of democratization’.31 Whatever the case, transitology’s fundamental principle, he maintains, is that of uncertainty, and its most important maxim was formulated by Niccolo Machiavelli. The Italian thinker considered that only about 50 per cent of political events were understandable, the other half being dictated by fortuna. One of the most preeminent students of the Spanish transition, Richard Gunther, unconsciously draws on this time-tested insight when he asserts that there is one final variable that confounds systematic analysis of the Spanish transition: luck. It is well to consider the overwhelming number of factors that might have derailed the Spanish transition or rendered the process much more jagged. Either outcome would have materialized if the ultraconservative prime minister (and close friend of Franco) Luis Carrero Blanco had not been assassinated in 1973; if Adolfo Suarez had not replaced as prime minister the less flexible Carlos Arias Navarro; if the PSOE had been headed by the maximalist Luis Gomez Llorente rather than the moderate Felipe Gonzalez; if Santiago Carrillo had not led his party away from Stalinism and toward Eurocomunism; if it had been Juan Carlos who had been accidentally shot and killed by his brother, rather than the other way around; or if King Juan Carlos had behaved like his grandfather, Alfonso XIII.32 Similar factors can be summoned in the case of Chile: if Pinochet had not included a plebiscite in the 1980 constitution; if the dictator had not respected the results of the plebiscite; if political left had not moved to the centre; if a leader without the moderating qualities of Aylwin had been chosen to lead the Concertación, and so on. Conclusion O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead assert that ‘there is no transition whose beginning is not the consequence of important divisions within the authoritarian regime itself, principally along the fluctuating cleavage between hard-liners and soft-liners’.33 This statement is one of the main conclusions of their book Transitions from Authoritarian Rule – a fourvolume collection of essays published in 1986, before the Chilean transition. Such a pronouncement could not be sustained in the Chilean case. In an immediate sense, the Chilean transition was the result of the drafting of the 1980 constitution and the scheduling of the 1988 plebiscite, itself a product of the quest for authoritarian legitimacy. In a more profound sense, the transition was the result of two factors: the illegitimate
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nature of the regime in the eyes of Chileans and the de facto existence of an increasingly vocal and powerful organized opposition to the regime. The degree to which power was centralized in one man in Chile and the remarkable level of loyalty to the dictator given by the Chilean military belies any talk of important divisions within the authoritarian regime. This absence of a rupture (duros and blandos) within the pinochetistas is evidenced by the unified voice with which they spoke during the transitional negotiations, the obstacles the opposition faced to make a clean break with the past, and the disloyal character of the negotiations themselves. One of the tenets of transitology dictates that civilians who assume power under a constitution conceived under an authoritarian regime face the greatest constraints on establishing and consolidating a genuine democracy. Such is the case in Chile, which still wrestles with authoritarian enclaves in its constitution. In Spain, this problem was solved with the 1978 constitution, which effectively signified a radical break with the legal basis of franquismo. The similarities between the Spanish and Chilean transitions are undeniable. To begin with, they share some pre-transition characteristics, such as relatively high levels of economic development carried over from the authoritarian regime, societal demands for political opening (arising from a disjoint between economic and political conditions), or the fact that they are both latecomers to transition in their geographic contexts. More important, perhaps, both transitions are made from the legality of the existing regime, democratization follows from a stalemate between the forces of the regime and those of change, and above all, they share transitional avenues: they are transitions by transaction. And yet, in the final analysis, the differences are more transcendental. The crucial contrast is the attainment of rapid civil supremacy in Spain as opposed to the lack thereof to the present day in Chile. A militarized rather than a civilianized regime characterized Chile right up to the last days of authoritarian rule. There was no such thing as a soft-line faction within the Chilean military. Moreover, the continuing larger-than-life presence of Pinochet disciplined the military and quietened dissent, adding cohesiveness to the long-standing military ‘resource’ of legality. Such a state of affairs, in turn, made for an disloyal transitional process, in which the two participants at the negotiating table (democrats versus dictators), starting from maximalist postures, aimed to ruthlessly preserve or gain parcels of power at the other’s expense, in the manner of a zerosum game. Except for hard-line, anachronistic continuistas, the dynamics of the Spanish transition were closer to a positive-sum game – the carrot of European Union membership looming on the horizon if the game
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proceeded according to democratic rules. The ‘contracting parties’ understood all too well that the price of failure in the past had been nothing less than a civil war. A rupture with franquismo was quickly discarded, as the atmosphere of conciliation among the Spanish populace soon trickled through the political elites. Unlike in Chile, the military was very much outside the transitional bargaining. Unlike in Chile, there was a soft-line amalgam of authoritarian figures (headed by Suarez) that sought compromise with democratic forces, and were all too aware of societal demands for change. Each party across the political spectrum – including communists, socialists, and conservatives – believed their ideological widespread appeal among the masses would be corroborated in an election, and that they only stood to gain from the ballot procedure. To be sure, some were in for a disappointing surprise (including the farleft and far-right parties), but in the end, it was to be a victory for all of them. NOTES 1. Felipe Aguero, Soldiers, Civilians, and Democracy: Post-Franco Spain in Comparative Perspective (Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p.47. 2. As the authoritarian regime disintegrated, no elite agreement was necessary to pave the way for the transition. In Argentina, the two forces opposing the military regime (Peronistas and Radicales) engaged in a bitter election campaign and the tone of the transition was one of confrontation. This transactional avenue is clearly antithetical to securing a stable democracy. 3. Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 4. The transition in Spain took place within a very negative economic setting because of the international oil crisis. Both the Arias and the Suarez governments proved quite inept at assuaging the crisis – largely out of neglect, given their obsession with effecting political rather than economic reform. Therefore, the Spanish transition may be said to have taken place in spite of a turbulent economic state of affairs: rising inflation and unemployment. In Chile economic conditions have been generally very favourable ever since 1985, so that the 1988–1990 transition can be said to have benefited from this climate. 5. A transition commences with a process of liberalization in which some civil and political rights begin to be recognized, is followed by a period in which the instauration of democratic institution takes place, and can be deemed to be concluded when the legal and institutional bases of the new regime have been implemented. With this scheme in mind, the Spanish transition begins in 1975 with the death of Franco and ends in 1978, with the promulgation of the constitution. Many have taken longer intervals as the proper timeframe, some ranging from 1973 to 1982. In any case, an overwhelming majority of scholars are agreed that Spanish democracy was consolidated by 1982. 6. Manuel Redero, Transición a la Democracia y Poder Político en la España Postfranquista (1975–1978) (Salamanca: Libreria Cervantes, 1993), p16. 7. Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O’Donnell and Samuel Valenzuela (eds), Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Perspective (South Bend, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992). 8. Two prominent ‘transitologists’ describe Spain’s impasse thus: ‘a case in which those in
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9. 10.
11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.
25. 26.
27.
28.
29. 30.
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power thought they could not stay in power without, given the Western European context, excessive repression, while those challenging the regime could not marshal ... enough power to overthrow it, particularly in view of the loyalty of the armed forces to the regime’. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.88. Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela, ‘Chile’s Return to Democracy’ Foreign Affairs, Vol.68, No.5 (1989), pp.169–86. Marcelo Cavarozzi, ‘Patterns of Elite Negotiation and Confrontation in Argentina and Chile’, in John Higley and Richard Gunther (eds), Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Richard Gunther, ‘Spain: the very model of the modern elite settlement’, in Higley and Gunther (note 10), p.48. Ibid., p.49. Linz and Stepan (note 8) p.172. Ramon Cotarelo (ed.), Transición Política y Consolidación Democrática: España (1975–1986) (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas, 1992), p.26. Manuel Antonio Garreton. The Chilean Political Process (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1992). Adam Przeworski, ‘Problems in the Study of Transitions to Democracy’, in O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead (note 3) p.52. Linz and Stepan (note 8). David Gilmore, The Transformation of Spain: From Franco to the Constitutional Monarchy (London: Quartet Books, 1985). Aguero (note 1) p.23. Larry Diamond; Juan Linz, and Seymour M. Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, Vol. 4 (New York: Lynne Rienner, 1989), p.99. Quoted in Gilmore (note 18) p.81. Alejandro Foxley, La Economía Política de la Transición (Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Dolmen, 1993), p.35. Juan Linz, ‘La Transición a la Democracia en España en Perspectiva Comparada’, in Cotarelo (note 14) p.456. ‘Virtually all of the constituent elites of 1978 were keenly aware of the origins of the civil war and the role played by the 1931 constituent process per se in bringing it about. In their speeches before the committee and plenary sessions of the Cortes and in their writings and public utterances, the leaders of all four major Spanish parties made innumerable references to that historic conflict and to their awareness of what Santiago Carrillo described as “the dangers that menace our society”’. Gunther (note 11) p.77. Ibid., p. 77. The general was (and until rather recently has been) the main impediment to the healing of the civilian-military wounds. Soon after being elected, President Patricio Alwyn asked him resign ‘for the good of the nation’ but Pinochet stubbornly held to his post of army commander (until March 1998) and then to that of senador vitalicio (senator for life). During the Alwyn administration, despite his pledge to remain aloof and ensure that the army be neutral, he was highly disruptive and constituted a serious impediment to the establishment of a genuine democracy. Would Franco have supported Suarez from among the three candidates for prime minister to be chosen by the King? Suarez’s franquista credentials were impeccable, so there is no reason not to think so. In a posthumous letter, Franco was to make the following petition to the military: ‘give the future King of Spain, Don Juan Carlos de Borbon, the same affection and loyalty that you have given me and lend him all the support that I have received from you’. Cited in Aguero (note 1) p.129. Raymond Carr and Juan Pablo Fusi, Spain: Dictatorship to Democracy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1979), p.208. Diamond, Linz and Lipset (note 20) p.49.
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31. Philippe Schmitter. ‘Transitology: The Science or the Art of Democratization?’, in Joseph S. Tulchin (ed.), The Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America (London: Lynne Rienner, 1995). 32. Gunther (note 11) pp.77–8. 33. O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead (note 3) p.19. Manuscript accepted for publication February 2002.
