Strategies of Repression in Pinochet's Chile

Strategies of Repression in Pinochet's Chile PDF Author: Jane Esberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Authoritarian repression is understood as a means to eliminate dissent. Yet most dictators also require some popular support to survive. How does the need to maintain supporters influence repression? This dissertation argues that repression can serve to appeal to supporters, by signaling to a regime's backing coalition that authoritarian control is uniquely capable of managing political and social threats to the state. The three chapters bring to bear new findings on a variety of repressive methods used during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile (1973-1989). Chapter 2 demonstrates how the need for support shapes patterns of political killings. Chile's military justified a coup on the basis of a communist threat that was, in fact, exaggerated. Original data on 3,000 victims, along with qualitative evidence, show that killings targeted suspicious individuals in otherwise high-support areas to demonstrate that a communist threat existed and the military was uniquely capable of managing it. Chapter 3 shows how supporters can constrain violence: the more prominent the opposition leader, the more likely their death or detention will mobilize opposition and alienate supporters. New data on the repression of candidates for national office shows that election -- by increasing visibility -- constrained violent repression. The regime instead substituted it with exile. Chapter 4 demonstrates that dictators can use even seemingly punitive policies to reward supporters. Text analysis of all 8,000 movies reviewed for distribution during the dictatorship shows bans largely targeted immoral content, rather than political themes. Qualitative and quantitative evidence link this to the regime's need to appeal to conservative groups. Findings provide new insight into how dictators balance security and popular support.

Chile Under Pinochet

Chile Under Pinochet PDF Author: Mark Ensalaco
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812201868
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
"When the army comes out, it is to kill."—Augusto Pinochet Following his bloody September 1973 coup d'état that overthrew President Salvador Allende, Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Armed Forces and National Police, became head of a military junta that would rule Chile for the next seventeen years. The violent repression used by the Pinochet regime to maintain power and transform the country's political profile and economic system has received less attention than the Argentine military dictatorship, even though the Pinochet regime endured twice as long. In this primary study of Chile Under Pinochet, Mark Ensalaco maintains that Pinochet was complicit in the "enforced disappearance" of thousands of Chileans and an unknown number of foreign nationals. Ensalaco spent five years in Chile investigating the impact of Pinochet's rule and interviewing members of the truth commission created to investigate the human rights violations under Pinochet. The political objective of human rights organizations, Ensalaco contends, is to bring sufficient pressure to bear on violent regimes to induce them to end policies of repression. However, these efforts are severely limited by the disparities of power between human rights organizations and regimes intent on ruthlessly eliminating dissent.

The Audience of Repression

The Audience of Repression PDF Author: Jane Esberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
Authoritarianism literature emphasizes that repression suppresses dissent, while co-optation builds support. This paper theorizes that repression can serve not just to eliminate opposition, but to appeal to supporters. I argue that regimes can use political killings to justify rule, by demonstrating a danger to the state that requires authoritarian controls to manage. I test this with evidence from Chile, where the military government enjoyed support on the basis of fighting an exaggerated communist threat. Original data on the regime's 3,000 victims shows that killings were more likely in high-support areas - wealthy, conservative districts - but targeted suspicious individuals, signaling a direct threat to supporters. Evidence additionally shows that repression increased in high-support areas following a negative shock to support; public arrests were more likely in high-support districts; and the regime fabricated subversive activities to inflate threat. By incorporating authoritarian supporters, this research improves our understanding of subnational patterns of violence.

The Rise and Fall of Repression in Chile

The Rise and Fall of Repression in Chile PDF Author: Pablo Policzer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Policzer offers an original argument about the nature of authoritarian coercion while also changing our perception of the dynamics of the Pinochet regime in Chile.

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy

Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy PDF Author: Michael Albertus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110819642X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
This book argues that - in terms of institutional design, the allocation of power and privilege, and the lived experiences of citizens - democracy often does not restart the political game after displacing authoritarianism. Democratic institutions are frequently designed by the outgoing authoritarian regime to shield incumbent elites from the rule of law and give them an unfair advantage over politics and the economy after democratization. Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy systematically documents and analyzes the constitutional tools that outgoing authoritarian elites use to accomplish these ends, such as electoral system design, legislative appointments, federalism, legal immunities, constitutional tribunal design, and supermajority thresholds for change. The study provides wide-ranging evidence for these claims using data that spans the globe and dates from 1800 to the present. Albertus and Menaldo also conduct detailed case studies of Chile and Sweden. In doing so, they explain why some democracies successfully overhaul their elite-biased constitutions for more egalitarian social contracts.

Bread, Justice, and Liberty

Bread, Justice, and Liberty PDF Author: Alison Bruey
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299316106
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
A compelling history of the antiregime coalition forged by liberation-theology Catholics and Marxist-Left militants in Chile's urban shantytowns, with groundbreaking contributions to scholarship on human rights, mass social movements, popular protest, and democratization.

Lived Religion, Pentecostalism, and Social Activism in Authoritarian Chile

Lived Religion, Pentecostalism, and Social Activism in Authoritarian Chile PDF Author: Joseph Florez
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004454012
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
In Giving Life to the Faith, Joseph Florez offers an account of Pentecostal activism and the search for a new interpretation of Christian social responsibility during the extraordinary circumstances of everyday life during the Chilean dictatorship.

Ranquil

Ranquil PDF Author: Thomas Miller Klubock
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300262329
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The first major history of Chile’s most significant peasant rebellion and the violent repression that followed In 1934, peasants turned to revolution to overturn Chile’s oligarchic political order and the profound social inequalities in the Chilean countryside. The brutal military counterinsurgency that followed was one of the worst acts of state terror in Chile until the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990). Using untapped archival sources, award-winning scholar Thomas Miller Klubock exposes Chile’s long history of political violence and authoritarianism and chronicles peasants’ movements to build a more just and freer society. Klubock further explores how an amnesty law that erased both the rebellion and the military atrocities lay the foundation for the political stability that characterized Chile’s multi-party democracy. This historical amnesia or olvido, Klubock argues, was a precondition of national reconciliation and democratic rule, which endured until 1973, when conflict in the countryside ended once again with violent repression during the Pinochet dictatorship.

The Struggle for Democracy in Chile

The Struggle for Democracy in Chile PDF Author: Paul W. Drake
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803266001
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This revised edition of The Struggle for Democracy in Chile should prove even more useful to the student of Latin American history and politics than the original. It updates important background information on the evolution of Chile?s military dictatorship in the 1970s and its erosion in the 1980s. Brian Loveman, an authority on contemporary Chilean politics, offers a comprehensive examination of the transition to civilian government in Chile from 1990 to 1994 in a substantial new chapter. Loveman chronicles the rise of the Concertaci¢n coalition, the strained relations between General Pinochet?s military and President Alwyn?s civilian government, and the roles of the National Women?s Service (SERNAM), the Catholic Church, and the indigenous peoples of Chile. All eleven essays by the leading authorities on the Pinochet regime from the earlier edition have been retained. The bibliography has been updated and the index improved. ø The Struggle for Democracy in Chile remains the first and foremost book on the transition over the last twenty-five years from dictatorship to democracy in Chile.

The Wars Inside Chile's Barracks

The Wars Inside Chile's Barracks PDF Author: Leith Passmore
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299315207
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
A new perspective on Pinochet's repressive regime and its aftermath in Chile, looking at the ambiguous experiences and memories of army draftees who became both criminals and victims in an era of brutality.