Corporatism and Functionalism in Modern Chilean Politics

Abstract

After the Chilean junta abolished party democracy in September 1973, it announced plans for a new constitution modeled on corporatist lines. Although, to date, few concrete expressions of these proposals have emerged, there is enough evidence since 1973 to suggest the lines along which the junta is thinking, and this indicates that not only international factors but also two sources of native historical inspiration are at work. First, and most important, Chile's military dictators were considering elevating an existing infrastructure of government-certified functional interest groups to replace the outlawed parties as intermediaries between the State and the individual. These gremios (private economic sctoral organizations, such as the National Society of Agriculture) had traditionally shaped public decisions both as representatives of their occupational fields and as permanent, often official, participants in state agencies concerned with their production sectors.