Opposing Pinochet: the causes and consequences of protest in Santiago de Chile in the 1980s
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Liverpool
Department Name: Sch of History
Abstract
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Organisations
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES/P000665/1 | 30/09/2017 | 29/09/2027 | |||
| 2107653 | Studentship | ES/P000665/1 | 30/09/2018 | 30/03/2021 | Richard Smith |
| Description | This research investigates the opposition to military dictatorship in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by students in Santiago's secondary schools, and at the University of Chile, the country's largest and most important teaching, learning and research establishment. It examines three movements: an artistic and cultural movement, the struggle for democratic student representation at the university and the corresponding campaign in secondary schools. This study shows that the essential first step in the resistance by students to General Pinochet's autocratic rule was re-establishing their right to free assembly. This was followed by the creation of networks of discrete groupings, which then unified into single movements. Opposition-minded school and university students adopted a directly democratic approach to decision-making, within a multilateral structure that included party-political and non-partisan activists. When the horizontally configured student oppositions were well established, priorities shifted towards the re-establishment of their banned representative federations, which had traditionally been dominated by the larger, and hierarchical, political parties; these bodies then coordinated the students' contribution to the key national protests between 1983 and 1986, alongside their peers, the youth from Santiago's shantytowns. The fundamental units of opposition, the cultural workshops and 'participation committees' at the University of Chile and the 'democratic committees' in Santiago's state schools, are evaluated and compared for the first time. Their shared preference was for consensual, participatory democracy; this reflected the legacy of Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government (1970-1973) while consciously embodying the society they sought. Within their inclusive forums, they incorporated disciplined cells of clandestine party-political activists. The advantages and tensions this arrangement brought, for the three movements and for individual student militants negotiating both a social movement and a political party, are appraised using a horizontal-vertical frame of reference. The vertical party structures delivered expertise, resources and focus through hierarchical efficiency; the horizontal social movements delivered critical mass, safety in numbers, anonymity and democratic credibility. Whereas horizontal and vertical tensions within political movements have been studied before, such as between a party leadership or vanguard and its grassroots supporters, this investigation demonstrates how the (vertical) underground parties, denied the possibility of defining their own arenas, chose to work together within the (horizontal) democratic forums that opposition students had established. |
| Exploitation Route | Listening to former protagonists in the younger ranks of the anti-dictatorship resistance telling their stories of their actions and emotions, it has been possible to build a picture, from the bottom up, of three very effective, highly motivated, autonomous movements that were well organised, collective and collaborative. Their covert leaderships were efficient and well structured, and had defined, productive relationships with other actors, especially the political parties' youth wings. They made a crucial contribution to the wider opposition to Pinochet and his brutal military junta that culminated in the return to civilian government for Chile in 1990. This contribution has been underemphasised by historians, and, crucially, was manifestly underestimated by the regime. In exploring three student movements in Chile and uncovering their common features, this research provides a correction to scholarship that has focused on the shantytown youth of Santiago as the driver of youthful opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship and contributes to a growing understanding of political contention outside the major advanced industrialised economies of Europe and North America. |
| Sectors | Government Democracy and Justice Other |