Next year, 2023, will mark fifty years of the bloody US-supported coup d’état in Chile that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and installed a brutal military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. The Pinochet regime’s logic of ‘usurping’ and ‘economizing’ the democratic has been enacted in the decades since in many countries, including Western democracies. Subordinating political rights to economic freedom and identifying democratic legitimacy with passive consent, some of them have also responded to movements like Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion with laws and regulations virtually outlawing public protests.

The inaugural event of the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy’s annual workshop on 'Economic Freedom and Political Rights: Neoliberal Challenges to Democracy' addressed these tensions. The workshop took place over two days—on 31 May and 1 June—and welcomed scholars from Latin America and beyond.

AHCD Co-Director Gopalan Balachandran opened the discussion by stressing the event’s objective was to mark the importance of the coup d’état for Chilean democracy but also for globally, as it could be thought of as a foundational moment for the push towards neoliberal politics. AHCD Co-Director Graziella Moraes da Silva underlined the Chilean case was neither the first nor unique, but offers an important avenue to unpack the genealogy of neoliberalism.

Rafael Sanchez, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology and AHCD Faculty Affiliate, then moderated a panel discussion. Rossana Castiglioni, Professor and Dean of the College of Social Sciences and History, Diego Portales University, Santiago de Chile, noted two essential questions: why was Chile was able to introduce radical neoliberal reforms? And why was neoliberalism maintained after the democratic transition?

Claudia Heiss, Head of Political Science of the Institute of Public Affairs, Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile, noted that the 1980 Constitution entrenched anti-political, neoliberal ideas that gave power to the military and made economic decisions look inevitable. Patricio Silva, Professor of modern Latin American history at Leiden University, The Netherlands, spoke of the international impact of the coup internationally by exploring Allende as a referent for Latin American and left-wing European politics.

This event, and the workshop that ensued, will culminate in a conference to be convened by AHCD in September 2023.