Separating lo social from lo politico: The remodeling of party -union relations under Chile's first post -authoritarian government

In this dissertation I examine how the switch to an open and export-led economic growth model in Chile has generated changes in the relationship between center and leftist parties and the organized labor movement. Through extensive interviewing with party and social leaders, I found that the acceptance by center and leftist party elites of trade liberalization and reductions in the economic role of the state forced them to adopt new strategies for meeting the demands of their traditional lower and middle-class constituencies. Prior to the breakdown of democracy in 1973, political parties directed social demands toward the state since it possessed enormous distributive productive and regulatory capacities. Economic reforms implemented by the authoritarian government (1973--1990) dramatically reduced the state's role in the economy, forcing parties to reevaluate their traditional behavior and develop different strategies. The new strategies depend more on preparing individuals to compete effectively in the market place and less on the mobilizational and contestatory role of traditional social movements which are increasingly marginalized from the political arena.