The day Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London, I landed in San Diego for an academic conference to debate what was called the ‘Chilean model’ of democracy. This was supposed to describe the results of Chile´s democratic transition eight years earlier, when the reins of government were taken from the all-powerful dictator after 17 years in power. Paradoxically, his dictatorship was defeated by a referendum.
Newly elected officials ushered in a decade of unprecedented growth, poverty reduction and expanded freedoms. The Chilean process was praised as a model to be emulated. A new democratic ‘consensus’ appeared to have emerged, pressed by the fear of conflict with a military still holding many levers of power.
