The Popular Sector

Response to an Authoritarian Regime

Shantytown Organizations Since the Military Coup
by
Philip Oxhorn

The emergence of base-level organizational activity in Chilean

poblaciones (shantytowns) beginning in the late 1970s under a repressive
military regime is one of the most puzzling social and political phenomena
in Latin America today. On one hand, such organizational activity repre-
sented an attempt to restructure the social fabric of society virtually destroyed
by the progressive dismantling of the state’s social welfare apparatus in a
highly restrictive environment. On the other hand, its emergence reflected
both the cessation of traditional political party activity under authoritarian
rule and an attempt by the urban poor to re-create a public space for the
expression of the interests of the lower classes, or &dquo;popular sectors.&dquo; The
violence unleashed by the 1973 military coup had gradually led to a shift in
the locus of political activity to the base level. The sudden reappearance of
political parties as important political actors in 1983 in the wake of the
dramatic and unprecedented wave of national protests only complicated the
prospects for a transition to democracy in Chile. &dquo;New&dquo; and &dquo;old&dquo; political
actors had to reconcile divergent claims in order to mount an effective
opposition to an entrenched, personalistic military regime intent on trans-
forming not only Chile’s political system but Chilean society as well.
This article will argue that the emergence of organizations in the
poblaciones of Santiago was conditioned by factors relating both to the
authoritarian regime itself and Chile’s preauthoritarian heritage. After examining

Philip f)xhom is an assistant professor of political science at McGill University. His research interests
include new social movements in Latin America, relations between political parties and the popular
sectors, and the role of popular organizations in the consolidation of new democratic regimes. He is
completing a book manuscript tentatively titled Democratic Transitions and the Democratization
of Ciuil Society : Chilean Shantytown Organizations under theAutharitariart Regime. This article
is a substantially revised version of the author’s Qrgauizaciones poblacianales, la reconstituc16n
de la sociedad civil y la interacci6n elite-base (Santiago: Centro de Estudios Sociales, 1987).
The author thanks Terry Karl, Philippe Schmitter, Cynthia Sanborn, and the Latin American
Perspectives reviewers for their comments on various portions of the revised article.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 67, Vol. 18 No. 1 Winter 1991, 6-91
@ 1991 Latin American Perspectives
66

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 67

the nature of structural changes in Chile’s economy since 1973, an attempt

will be made to demonstrate that the emergence of popular sector organiza-
tions was a function of the nature and level of coercion, the regime’s
economic model, and, from Chile’s preauthoritarian heritage, the presence
of a protective umbrella and Chile’s prolonged period of political democracy.
Some of the implications of this analysis will then be explored by examining
the political and social meaning of popular sector organizations and their
interactions with political parties.
A study of this nature, however, must first address the ambiguity and lack
of clarity surrounding the concept of popular in the social science literature
(Oxhorn, 1988, 1989). At the root of this problem is the lack of a precisely
defined sociological category which is capable of encompassing otherwise
quite diverse categories of social actors. While it should be obvious that this
category would not be exhausted by the concept of the &dquo;proletariat,&dquo; the
&dquo;working class,&dquo; or even the &dquo;workers,&dquo; it is not so apparent exactly which
groups and persons are encompassed within the so-called popular sectors and
why (cf. Ballon, 1986; Campero, 1985; Garreton, 1983).
Fundamentally, the notion of &dquo;popular sectors&dquo; in Latin America refers to
the &dquo;disadvantaged&dquo; groups in highly segmented, unequal societies. While
this distinction at first glance seems somewhat arbitrary and imprecise, it
directs attention toward a key defining characteristic of this sociological
category: the limited life chances and consumption possibilities of these
sectors.
In the societal contexts found in Latin America, &dquo;popular sectors&dquo; are
necessarily heterogeneous. In addition to an organized working class, the
popular sectors in these countries include those workers with more or less
regular employment in the formal economy but who lack any functional or
class organization, the unemployed who are seeking employment, the in-
creasingly large numbers of people associated with the informal or under-
ground economy, the lumpen proletariat who are largely outside of both the
formal and informal economies, and, in the countryside, the peasantry.
Overlapping all of these, two groups in particular are frequently singled out
for special consideration because of their important influence in any charac-
terization of the popular sectors: youth and women.’
While this heterogeneity frequently generates important tensions within
popular sectors---a point which will be returned to later-there is also an
underlying commonality of interests which could potentially serve as a basis
for organizing the popular sectors into a single social actor. All of these
sectors are disadvantaged in comparison to a minority composed of the
middle and upper classes. The notion &dquo;popular&dquo; thus becomes associated with
democracy in the sense that popular interests represent the interests of the

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68

vast majority in developing societies. The sense of being disadvantaged, or

that other groups in society are in some way &dquo;privileged,&dquo; forms a basis
for distinctive popular cultures and common experiences. In a similar
fashion, &dquo;popular&dquo; becomes associated with all that is indigenous to a
society-traditional culture, values, art forms, beliefs, and so on. While not
rejecting everything that is &dquo;foreign,&dquo; influences from the developed indus-
trialized nations tend to be associated with the &dquo;privileged&dquo; sectors, and the
popular sectors often see themselves as reservoirs of national identity.
In focusing on popular sector organizations in the poblaciones, the con-
cept of marginality becomes important. This is marginality in a concrete
sense: state services in popular communities tend to be minimal to nonexis-

tent, the basic rights of their inhabitants receive little or no protection under
the law, and there is a dearth of opportunity for socioeconomic advancement.
The inhabitants of popular sector communities often live in squalor and
poverty; their interactions with the productive system do not provide them
with economic security and often leave them without sufficient resources to
properly feed, clothe, and care for themselves and for their families. Their
&dquo;marginality&dquo; is thus defined in terms of access to the basic necessities of
life, as well as to the amenities of modern society such as health care,
education, and adequate housing.

STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND

THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF CHILE SINCE 1973

After almost 17 years of military rule, Chile has suffered a dramatic

impoverishment as the result of the authoritarian regime’s attempt to impose
a neoconservative economic model on the country. The average standard of
living in Chile has improved at best only marginally since 1970.’ Real per
capita gross domestic product (GDP) was just 2.5 percent greater in 1987
than in 1970. Fluctuating widely, real per capita GDP surpassed that of 1970
in only five of the fourteen years between 1974 and 1987 (Ffrench-Davis and
Raczynski, 1988: 77). Other estimates place 1987 per capita GDP at levels
substantially below that of 1970 (Cademartori, 1988).
The effect of this stagnation in per capita GDP has been dramatic.
Unemployment from 1975 to 1981, including those employed in state
minimal employment programs, averaged 18 percent-hree time the aver-
age during the 1960s. Since then, unemployment has averaged 23 percent
through 1987, reaching a high of 31.3 percent in 1983. Wages in 1987 were
just 84.7 percent of what they had been in 1970 (Ffrench-Davis and

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 69

Raczynski, 1988). In 1986, the World Health Organization found Chile’s

caloric food consumption so far below minimum standards that it was
characterized as a country &dquo;with nutritional deficiency.&dquo; Prior to the coup,
Chilean caloric food consumption had surpassed minimum standards
(Cademartori, 1988).
The popular sectors have been affected disproportionately by Chile’s
general economic deterioration. Between 1969 and 1978, the level of con-
sumption of the poorest 20 percent of Chilean families fell by more than 30
percent. Income inequality is high. In 1983, the richest 20 percent of Chilean
families received 61 percent of total national income, compared to the 3.3
percent which the poorest 20 percent of Chilean families received
(Rodriguez, 1985). The unemployment rate for heads of households was
three times higher among the poorest 20 percent of families compared to all
other families (Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski, 1988). A 1985 study found that
half of the workers in the poblaciones of Santiago were in a situation of
&dquo;exclusion&dquo;: 25 percent were unemployed, 14 percent were in state minimal
employment programs earning substantially less than the legal minimum
wage, and 11 percent were involved in marginal or domestic service
(Campero, 1987). In 1987, the legal minimum wage was 65 percent less in
real terms than in 1981 (Cademartori, 1988), even though the cost of living
has risen considerably faster for the poor than for other sectors of society (see
Table 1).
The result of these trends was a tripling of the number of Chileans living
in extreme poverty, defined as the inability of a family’s total income to cover
the cost of meeting minimum dietary consumption needs. Studies based on
a national sample of households in both 1983 and November 1985 found that

30 percent of all households were living in extreme poverty, up from just 10

percent in 1970. Other studies suggest that the situation may be considerably
worse in many poblaciones (Rodriguez, 1985; Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski,

1988; Campero, 1987).

High levels of unemployment, growing income inequality and rising
levels of poverty are not transitory problems which can be overcome in the
short term. They reflect deep structural changes in the Chilean economy
which have been caused by the imposition of an extreme neoconservative
model of economic development.
One important consequence of the military government’s market-oriented
development model has been the deindustrialization of Chile (Gwynne,
1986; Martinez and Tironi, 1985; Foxley, 1983). Economic austerity during
the regime’s first two years, the reduction of the general level of tariffs from
an average of 94 percent in 1973 to 10 percent in 1979, and a basic disregard

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70

TABLE 1
Consumer Price Index (CPn
Weighted for the Consumption Patterns of the Poor

SOURCE: Ruiz-Tagle (1986), cited in Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski (1988: 82, Table A.9).
*All statistics are for September of each year.

for industry in setting exchange rates, anti-inflation, and monetary policies

have taken their toll on Chile’s industrial capacity. Industrial production
declined approximately 11 percent between 1973 and 1983 (Gwynne, 1986).
Per capita manufacturing output in 1987 was just 78.8 percent of what it had
been in 1970 (Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski, 1988).
The effects of the new economic development model have been even more
severe on industrial employment, traditionally the bulwark of the Chilean
labor movement (Angell, 1972). While industrial production declined 11
percent, a conservative estimate of the corresponding decline in manufactur-
ing employment is 33 percent. Where growth did occur, it tended to rely on
capital inputs rather than increased labor. In seven sectors which overall
experienced an 81.7 percent increase in production between 1973 and 1980,
employment actually declined 16 percent (Gwynne, 1986). The relative size
of the industrial working class had declined 8.3 percent as a percentage of

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 71

the economically active population through 1980, implying &dquo;a displacement

of approximately 103,000 manual workers from regular wage-earning
employment to independent [informal] employment or open unemployment&dquo;
(Martinez and Tironi, 1985 : 146). The capacity of the labor movement to act
as an independent social actor without alliances with other social actors is

decreasing as the &dquo;strategic weight&dquo; of the working class in the Chilean

economy continues to diminish (Martinez and Tironi,1985).
Given these structural changes in the Chilean economy, the longer term
outlook for a major improvement in the economy’s capacity to absorb labor
and generate higher standards of living is not hopeful. Advocates of the
current development model admit that even with rapid economic growth, it
will take 50 years to reduce extreme poverty to a minimum (Cademartori,
1988). The existing industrial structure is extremely vulnerable to external
shocks. While external shocks contributed to a 14 percent decline in GDP in
1982, discounting for the worsening of the terms of trade, manufacturing
value added dropped 22 percent (Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski, 1988).
Moreover, future economic growth will require large amounts of imports of
capital goods. The modest 4 percent growth rate achieved in 1984 caused
imports to grow by 17.3 percent, despite strong government attempts to keep
imports down (Gwynne, 1986). Financing such imports will be difficult.
Chile’s debt burden is extremely high, with a debt to GDP ratio of nearly
double the Latin American average (Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski, 1988).
Chilean society will be characterized by the presence of a large segment
of people who are poor and disadvantaged for many years. What do these
people expect from society? Are they &dquo;maximalists&dquo; seeking a rapid and
complete resolution of their chronic problems? Or are they more pragmatic,
willing to recognize the need for sacrifice and work with other segments of
Chilean society in order to build for a more solid and equitable future? How
do the popular sectors expect to be incorporated into the political process?
What are their &dquo;minimal&dquo; demands that must be met to win their confidence
and cooperation? The significance of the answers to these questions will be
strongly influenced by the capacity of popular sectors to organize themselves,
define their interests, and then pursue them in the political arena. Will the
popular sectors be able to transform themselves into an effective social
actor-ra movimiento popular--~vhich is capable of pursuing a program that
reflects popular sector interests? Much can be learned by examining the
experiences of existing organizations in the poblaciones, and it is to this that
we now turn.

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72

THE RESURRECTION OF CIVIL SOCIETY: SHANTYTOWN

ORGANIZATIONS UNDER THE AUTHORITARIAN REGIME

Since the military coup, literally thousands of organizations have emerged

in the poblaciones of Santiago, grouping together approximately 200,000
people in 1986 (Campero, 1987). Chilean grassroots organizations in the past
had been structured hierarchically by political parties and the state. A high
degree of control was exercised at the national level. Organizations looked
to the state for the realization of their interests (Garret6n, 1983, 1989). The
political repression and extreme reorientation of state policies under the
military regime forced a dramatic change in the way that base-level organi-
zations could function. New issues emerged concerning the defense of human
rights, the process of forging a unified movimiento popular as a new social
actor, and the capacity of people in the poblaciones to deal with the mounting
socioeconomic problems which they confronted.
The majority of organizations in the poblaciones are devoted to economic
self-help. Such organizations serve four principal functions: the production
and commercialization of goods and services, the solution of housing needs,
the securing of employment, and the provision for basic consumption needs.
Other popular sector organizations strive to protect human rights and coor-
dinate organizational activity among individual organizations. A number of
women’s and youth groups have also been formed (Razeto et al., 1986).
The development of base-level organizational activity in the poblaciones
was closely associated with the nature of the authoritarian regime. But at the
same time, it also reflected key elements from Chile’s preauthoritarian

heritage. Factors relating to both sets of experiences will therefore be

examined.

FACTORS RELATING TO THE AUTHORITARIAN REGIME

The nature and level of coercion. Repression was neither too massive nor
indiscriminate to totally stifle autonomous organizational activity in Chilean
civil society. Instead, repression under the Chilean military regime was
directed at disarticulating traditional mechanisms for the expression of
societal interests, especially those mechanisms most closely associated with
the Unidad Popular (UP) experience (Frughling, 1984; Garreton, 1983,
1989).
Political party activity was severely curtailed by the regime’s use of
repression.’ For many years, political parties functioned only at the elite

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 73

level, often from exile outside of Chile. Political parties were largely cut off
from their social bases. Popular sector organizational activity became wide-
spread in this context. Unlike the experience prior to 1973, organizational
activity within the poblaciones has largely tended to be autonomous from
formal political party structures. When the political parties again began to
reassert themselves in a rapidly opening public political space in 1983 on the
wave of the first mass national protests, organizational activity in many po-
blaciones was already well established. A new organizational leadership
group of pobladores (shantytown residents) living in the poblaciones had
already formed and was asserting its capacity to formulate and represent the
demands of the pobladores independently of any party organization. Many
of the leaders and members of these organizations were, or would soon
become, party militants, but successful organizational activity was almost
always the result of pluralist structures and the refusal to allow party politics
to interfere with the organization’s smooth functioning. Party militants
increasingly were finding it necessary to place their parties’ interest behind
those of their organizations.
Of course, these organizations are not immune from repression. This was
especially the case after the first outbreak of mass opposition social mobili-
zation in 1983. The increasingly preponderant role which pobladores played
in these mobilizations brought with it a dramatic increase in repression and
intimidation by the regime.’ The same repression which contributed to the
need for many of these organizations also created fear, and most people
refused to participate in organizations because of the real and imagined
dangers that membership in any popular organization represented. Just 15
percent of all pobladores participated in organizations in 1986 (Campero,
1987).
Repression also contributed to the atomization of organizational activity
in the poblaciones. Efforts to organize and coordinate activities among a
number of groups were particularly difficult. The work involved in setting
up networks among different organizations was relatively conspicuous and
easily targeted by the regime’s security apparatus. Traditional mechanisms
for integrating grassroots organizations into intermediate-level structures and
institutions via political parties and the state no longer functioned satisfacto-
rily. As will be discussed in greater detail later, many efforts at coordination
were unsuccessful due to excessive interparty competition for control over

any new organizational structures that might have emerged to represent the
interests of the pobladores. As a result of these factors, in 1987, there were
only 25 to 30 coordinating bodies in all of Santiago operating at levels that

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74

encompassed several poblaciones or more, representing just 3,000 people,

or 1.5 percent of the organized pobladores (Campero, 1987).
The Chilean military regimen socioeconomic model (see Garretón, 1983,
1989; Foxley, 1983). The exclusionary nature of the regime (O’Donnell,
1979), combined with the &dquo;radical conservative experiment&dquo; that its eco-
nomic policies came to represent, created new needs and political space for
organizations in poblaciones.
The impoverishment of the popular sectors caused by structural changes
in the Chilean economy has already been discussed here. This occurred as
the state’s social welfare apparatus was progressively dismantled. Under the
military regime, national social expenditures experienced their first &dquo;signif-
icant and permanent&dquo; decline since the 1920s and in 1985 still had not
regained their per capita level of 1970 (Arellano, 1985). Although the
military regime had implemented a number of positive changes in state social
welfare programs designed to channel resources directly to those sectors with
the greatest need,the overall effect of such efforts was insufficient to
counteract the increase in the magnitude and intensity of poverty since 1973
(Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski,1988). Participants in state minimal employ-
ment programs received between 40 percent and 67 percent of the legal
minimum income in 1986. Social security coverage, which had reached 76
percent of the labor force in 1970 and 79 percent in 1974, declined to
approximately 63 percent of the labor force in 1983, a level similar to that of
1960. Pensions in real terms, calculated on the basis of changes in the general
consumer price index (CPI), were still below their 1970 level in 1985. Public

housing expenditure measured in constant pesos was 35 percent lower in

1981 than in 1970, and it declined still further during the 1982-1983 reces-
sion. Although public housing construction rose substantially during the
1984-1986 period, the housing shortage rose to 1.2 million units, up from
500,000 in 1973 (Cademartori, 1988). Despite impressive improvements in
the nutrition and life expectancy rates of children under the age of five, a
result of government programs directed specifically at this age group, other
evidence indicates an overall deterioration in the health of the poor and
suggests that trends in these statistics are no longer an accurate measure of
the health of the Chilean population as a whole.5 In effect, the inhabitants of
Santiago’s poblaciones had few alternatives other than self-help organizations.

FACTORS RELATING TO CHILE’S PREAUTHORITARIAN HERITAGE

of a protective umbrella. A key element in the potential for

The presence
organizational activity in the poblaciones under the military regime was the

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 75

ability and willingness of the Catholic Church to fill the role of a &dquo;protective
umbrella.&dquo; The Church was integral in opening up the necessary organiza-
tional space. Given the tenuous legal status of most organizations in the
poblaciones, the Church was particularly important in providing organiza-
tions with physical space for carrying out their various functions. Church
facilities not only provided a degree of shelter from repression; the permis-
sion to hold reunions in a Church facility provided organizations with a
certain legitimacy that helped people overcome their initial fear of partici-
pating in any organization. As the poblaciones gradually developed their own
capacity to organize themselves, the role of the Church was increasingly
limited to material support. In the mid-1970s, with the creation of the Wcaria
de la Solidaridad, the Church became a principal catalyst for organizational
activity in the poblaciones. New groups were continuously organized under
the direct sponsorship of the Church, and priests and professional social
workers were critical in providing needed leadership formation and in
promoting collective solutions to the problems which individual families
faced. In part because of the Church’s earlier success, the organizational
impulse and the capacity to organize increasingly began to come from the
pobladores. There was a progressive separation between the Church and
organizations in the poblaciones as the organizations themselves sought
greater freedom to pursue a variety of goals. Such goals frequently dealt with
the development of member’s political awareness and personal growth from
a more explicitly nonsectarian perspective. These goals, if they were not

directly at odds with the Church hierarchy’s position, often went beyond the
more narrow official Church’s conceptions of the role of Church-related

groups so that Church ties were seen as a constraint on the expansion of

organizational activities. An important point of contention between organi-
zations and the Church has also been the Church’s perceived paternalism:
groups seek to divorce themselves from the Church in order to be able to
learn---or even to force themselve~-to help themselves.’
Chile’s prolonged period of political democracy. Chile was the hallmark
of democracy in the developing world for many years. Chilean civil society
already possessed values and behavioral norms conducive to organizing at
the base level. Democratic participatory organizations were viewed as sym-
bolic repudiations of the authoritarian regime. Perhaps more important,
popular sectors were likely to perceive the possibilities for changing the
political system and pressuring the state for improved living conditions
through organizing, given the previous gains that popular sectors had made
under the democratic regime.’
As a result of Chile’s prolonged period of political democracy, there also
was a substantial pool of individuals with actual organizing experience

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76

(Campero, 1987). Repression of the labor movement provided an important

source of organizational experience in the poblaciones since 1973, as union

organizers frequently were unable to secure stable employment and turned

to organizing in the poblaciones. A second source of organizational experi-
ence was the extensive network of territorially based organizations that was
first established during the Christian Democratic government of Eduardo
Frei in the 1960s. During the six years of that government alone, 21,917 such
organizations were created, including Juntas de Vecinos, Centros de Madres,
Centro Juveniles, Clubes Deportivos, and Centros de Padres y Apoderados.8
Over 660,000 of the participants in these organizations, more than the total
number of union members in 1970, attended courses offered by the Con-
sejeria Nacional de Promoci6n Popular (National Council on Popular Pro-
motion) from 1964 through 1969 (Martinez and Tironi, 1985). Finally, with
the disruption of party structures following the coup, a number of individuals
with organizing experience gained through a particular party would begin to
devote their efforts to organizing pobladores in the new social and political
context.

&dquo;LUCHAR POR LA DIGNIFICACION DE LA CLASE POBRE&dquo;:’

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL MEANING OF
POPULAR SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS 10

The organizations which have emerged in Santiago’s poblaciones since

the military coup represent much more than the poor’s efforts at confronting
the immediate problems associated with repression and a deteriorating
economic situation. They also embody certain values. These values, in turn,
help to sustain organizations when the concrete material results of their
efforts are not sufficient. Moreover, these values have come to represent the
values which the members of popular sector organizations associate most
closely with the identity of the popular sectors as a whole.
Solidarity is a key value around which popular sector organizations are
constructed. These are poor people who share a common bond as members
of both the popular sectors and, in particular, the same community who are
working together to achieve shared goals. The identities of poblador and
vecino (&dquo;neighbor&dquo;) come together in these organizations as their members
attempt to help one another overcome their common condition of marginality
as groups. Organizational activity is based on collective action, with every-
one sharing both the responsibilities and rewards involved in maintaining an

organization. Organizations also often become important sources of social

interaction for their members, a place where friends can talk and exchange
ideas.

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 77

Significantly, virtually all of these organizations are democratically struc-

tured. Leaders are elected by all members of the organization. Frequently,
there is leadership rotation. The membership as a whole takes part in major
decisions. Each member has the right, if not duty, to express his or her
opinions in an atmosphere in which everyone is actively encouraged to
respect the opinions of others. Pluralism is highly valued and few organiza-
tions last long if this is not respected in practice.
Democracy within popular sector organizations comes to encapsulate for
their members the same values on which their organizations are based.
Participation by all members of the organization is integral to how these
organizations function and, therefore, democracy for these people is highly
participatory in nature. While majority and minority rights and opinions are
respected, the preferred manner for reaching decisions is through a search
for consensus because this is most consistent with the idea of community
embodied in popular sector organizations.&dquo;
Popular sector organizations emerged in part as a response to the percep-
tion of being isolated and as part of the search for dignity for the &dquo;poor class&dquo;
or popular sectors. Members of these organizations want to be listened to and
taken into account by those who set national policies. Organizational auton-
omy in defining and defending their interests is jealously guarded against
encroachment by the state, the Church and, in particular, political parties.
Such encroachment not only violates values of solidarity, community, and
consensus but can seriously curtail both democracy and participation within
the organization. More than just an effort for overcoming the immediate
economic hardships of their members, these organizations can be seen as
embodying the basis for the effective integration of the popular sectors into
Chile’s sociopolitical system.
Pobladores in 1986 overwhelmingly appeared to be realistic in their
expectations for immediate dramatic improvements in their socioeconomic
situation under a democratic regime. Democracy was not viewed as a panacea
by members of popular sector organizations. There appeared to be a consis-
tent appreciation of the severity of Chile’s crisis and the long period of
national sacrifice that will be required to overcome it. For most pobladores,
political democracy was seen as a prerequisite for change because it offers
the popular sectors the possibility of gaining real influence in the decision-
making processes which will set national priorities and decide how sacrifices
will be distributed among different segments of the population. Popular
sector organizations engaged in an active struggle against exclusion saw
democracy as necessary for guaranteeing their inclusion. An important test
for the current democratic regime is its capacity to incorporate popular
sectors in such a way as to ensure at least the appearance that the sacrifices

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78

required for Chile’s socioeconomic recovery are being equitably shared

among all segments of society.
The ability of the popular sector’s own autonomous organizations to play
a role in their effective integration into Chile’s sociopolitical
system will
depend on a variety of factors, but most important, these organizations will
have to overcome their state of atomization. This will not be an easy task, in
part because these organizations are so closely tied to the community or
poblacifln in which they function. The historical importance of political
parties in the formation of social actors in Chile (Garreton, 1983, 1989) and
their ability to reassert themselves in Chilean politics in the latter years of
the military regime suggest that political parties will play an important role,
with either negative or positive consequences, in the efforts of popular sector
organizations to overcome their atomization.

&dquo;OLD&dquo; AND &dquo;NEW&dquo; POLITICAL ACTORS:

POLITICAL PARTIES AND
POPULAR SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS

Attempts by Chile’s political parties to establish strong organizational

links with popular sector organizations under the military regime, while
numerous, were most notable for their lack of success. The reasons for this
involve factors relating to the Chilean political process prior to the coup, as
well as newer developments which were the result of many years of author-
itarian rule. Political parties demonstrated a remarkable resilience after ten
years of suppression when they once again assumed an important public role
in 1983, but they still remained organizationally weak. The imposition of
authoritarian rule effectively severed the elite of each party from its social
base, and the process of reconstructing party organizations was slow and
difficult. The parties, until relatively recently, had been incapable of reestab-
lishing their organizational capacity to aggregate interests and formulate
demands at the level of civil society and then translate them into concrete
political programs at the national level.
A certain tension seems inevitable in the relations between the party elite
and the pobladores represented in popular sector organizations. While pop-
ular sector organizations generally had always considered themselves as
being opposed to the authoritarian regime, these organizations had become
increasingly vocal and explicit in their demands for basic political change.
Particularly after the first national protests in May of 1983, popular sector
organizations came to realize that any real solutions to their socioeconomic
problems would have to be political in nature. Moreover, popular sector

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 79

organizations became focal points in the Chilean political process under the
military regime due to their capacity to mobilize people, their association
with the more violent aspects of social mobilization (street barricades,
looting, the destruction of public property, armed confrontations with the
security forces, and so forth), and their claim to be legitimate representatives
of perhaps the largest single social sector in Chile. Many parties saw popular
sector organizations as the foundation for potential organic structures which
they still lacked in civil society. They provided a tempting target for party
organizers seeking to broaden their party’s active support in the poblaciones.
Political parties frequently were engaged in direct competition with each
other to maximize their influence over popular sector organizations.
Chile’s political party elite, for the most part, gained its political formation
prior to the 1973 coup.&dquo; Chilean political elites are accustomed to a highly
centralized political process. The Chilean political process had been struc-
tured around an all-powerful state. With political power highly centralized,
the parties also exhibited a high degree of centralization in order to strengthen
their respective positions vis-a-vis the state and other political parties in
competition for control over the state apparatus. Party structures were vertical
and hierarchical, with decisions generally being taken at the top and then
explained or simply passed down to lower levels in the party’s organization.
Internal democracy and the autonomy of social organizations were con-
strained (Garret6n, 1983, 1989).
Moreover, the tumultuous experience of the late 1960s and early 1970s
has generated a certain fear of popular sector autonomy in Chile’s political
elite-a fear that can only be exacerbated by the ever present danger of a
future military intervention under the current democratic regime. Politicized
popular sectors are often viewed as destabilizing when divorced from close
party control. Party elites frequently view their relationship to the popular
sectors in terms of the party’s ability to control, and thus moderate, popular
sector aspirations in order to minimize the pressures that the popular sectors
bring to bear on the political system. The relationship between political
parties and the popular sectors becomes a delicate balance between party
control of the politically active sectors and a cautious attempt to otherwise
limit popular sector participation to periodic electoral contests.
Members of popular sector organizations frequently have a distinct vision
of their links with political parties. Pobladores generally accept the legitimate
role of political parties as interlocutors between civil society and the state.
They reject party attempts to control and manipulate popular sector organi-
zations. Years of organizing experience in the absence of traditional political
party activity has generated the expectation that organizational autonomy
will be respected by political parties. Today’s party leaders also are often

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viewed as being at least partially responsible for the breakdown of Chilean

democracy and its consequences. The political parties’ often clumsy attempts
to establish organizational links with the popular sectors during the military
regime only added to a general distrust of politicians.
Opposition political parties continuously referred to the necessity of
helping those most in need, but the popular sectors found concrete proposals
for addressing their problems noticeably lacking. Pobladores felt abandoned
by the political party elite. They frequently lamented what they saw as the
unwillingness of party leaders to meet with them in the poblaciones, to hear
their concerns and see how they live---to &dquo;bajarse.&dquo;13 Divisions within the
opposition reinforced the popular sectors’ skepticism regarding whether the
political parties were genuinely concerned with popular sector interests or
were insteadxpursuing narrow party interests. Pobladores thus came to value
actions-hecho5-&dquo;Over what often appear to be empty words, turning first
to various forms of self-help to alleviate their most pressing needs and then
later to the active forms of opposition exemplified by the national protests.
The tensions between the political parties and popular sector organiza-
tions had many concrete manifestations. The most obvious were the numer-
ous organizations which were undermined by direct party intervention in
their internal activities. The April 1986 Congreso Unitario de Pobladores is
particularly illustrative of all of these various tensions and will be examined
in some detail.&dquo;
Four ideological and political &dquo;referents&dquo; were functioning in Santiago in
1986: the Movimiento Poblacional Solidaridad, the Movimiento Poblacional
Dignidad, the Coordinadora Metropolitana de Pobladores (METRO) and the
Coordinadora de Agrupaciones Poblacionales (COAPO) (Campero, 1987).
These four groups explicitly worked to help promote the spread of popular
sector organizations within each poblacion. Their efforts to promote the
coordination of popular sector organizational activity among different
poblaciones were aimed at forging a new social actor or movimiento popular
that would serve as the legitimate interlocutor for popular sectors in the
Chilean political process. In practice, however, each referent had come to be
closely associated with a particular political party. Despite each referent’s
claims to be pluralistic and autonomous from direct party influence, their
activities were increasingly being seen as tied to party attempts to capture
the incipient movimiento popular in order to mold it in line with each party’s
own interests. Thus Solidaridad had a distinct bias toward the Democracia
Cristiana (DC), Dignidad was dominated by the Izquierda Cristiana (IC), the
Partido Comunista (PC) controlled METRO, and COAPO represented the
Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). The three referents of the

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 81

Left-Dignidad, METRO, and COAPO-jointly organized the Congreso

Unitario de Pobladores in order to generate a comprehensive list of popular
sector demands and elect a Comando Unitario de Pobladores (CUP) to be
the sole legitimate representative of the pobladores. Dignidad, METRO, and
COAPO would then be absorbed by the CUP as a single pluralistic organi-
zation democratically constituted through the direct participation of
pobladores representing distinct poblaciones throughout Santiago.
Questions about the representativeness of the congress and interparty
competition for control over the CUP prevented the CUP from assuming the
leadership of a genuine movimiento popular with strong roots in the po-
blaciones. To some extent, the problems of the congress’s representativeness
reflected the difficulties involved in organizing any large-scale political
activity in Chile at that time, especially one involving pobladores, given the
high levels of fear and repression in the poblaciones. But these difficulties
must not be allowed to hide the fact that in many important respects, the
congress failed to achieve its objectives and instead brought to the fore deep
political divisions and the deliberate attempts of the political parties involved
in the congress to use the incipient movimiento popular to their own advantage.
The problems associated with the congress first surfaced in the various
assemblies held throughout Santiago to select delegates to the congress. A
race had begun early on to ensure that each party would have a maximum
number of its members as delegates. In the end, over 90 percent of the
delegates to the congress were party militants, with the PC and the IC
respectively having the first and second largest blocs of delegates.&dquo; The
majority of organized pobladores, who were not members of any party, were
systematically excluded from participating in the congress. There was also a
marked overrepresentation of those areas in Santiago where the political
parties were strongest. Areas with weak party presence were either deliber-
ately excluded or simply did not know about the pre-congress assemblies.
At the congress, the election of. the CUP was reduced to a blatant
demonstration of political party infighting. The PC rejected a compromise
proposal offered by the IC and MIR for recognizing the nonrepresentative
nature of the congress by declaring it transitory and electing only an executive
governing body without officers which would then work toward the goal of
holding a representative congress and electing a permanent CUP in Decem-
ber of that year. Instead, the PC insisted on having elections for officers within
a permanent governing council. Behind closed doors, the
approximately 25
percent of delegates with voting rights elected COAPO’s candidate as
president and gave the office of vice president to METRO’s candidate. The
IC and MIR had agreed to combine forces in order to block the PC’s attempt

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82

towin control of the CUP through its presidency. The &dquo;compromise&dquo; candi-
date chosen to thwart the PC was a member of the least representative party
present at the congress. Consensus was finally achieved after the near crisis
which resulted when METRO immediately withdrew from the CUP after
losing the election. The next day, with no official explanation, the elections
of the previous night were conveniently forgotten and a transitory CUP
governing body without elected officers was presented before the full
congress.
The congress represents a clear example of the problems that party elites
had created in attempting to establish organizational links with the
poblaciones. The extreme which party control over the delegates reached led
even the party militants themselves to recognize how unrepresentative the

congress actually was. The congress had been transformed into a sort of
political convention, with back-room bargaining and negotiations intended
to influence the distribution of power within the incipient movimiento
popular. Political infighting led to embarrassing divisions, exposing the
weaknesses of popular sector organizations rather than creating even the
appearance of a new democratically constituted organization with legitimate
claims to be the sole interlocutor for Chile’s popular sectors in the political
process.
The congress also highlighted another important problem in party rela-
tions with the popular sectors: the radicalization of party militants in the
poblaciones in comparison with the party elite. The alliance between the MIR
and the moderate socialist IC to deny the PC the CUP’s presidency was more
than just a tactical measure in pursuit of the parties’ immediate interests. It
also reflected a clear rejection of the PC’s allegedly excessive moderation in
seeking some form of dialogue with the DC. At the national level, the fear
was that the PC had become too radical and had opted for the same revolu-

tionary strategy that the MIR supported; yet in the poblaciones, the PC was
viewed as being too moderate by party militants because of its overtures to
open a public dialogue with the Christian Democrats. While the IC had kept
its distance from the more radical positions of the Communist-dominated
Movimiento Democratic Popular (MDP) political alliance at the national
level, IC militants from the poblaciones were entering into open alliances
with the MDP’s most radical component.
The experience of the congress thus suggests that normal channels of
communication between party elites, party militants at the grassroots level,
and the majority of the people who are not members of a political party had
been severed. The task of repairing these lines of contact, essential for the
successful operation of democratic political institutions, will be a hard one.

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 83

CONCLUSIONS

After 16 years of military rule, the socioeconomic structure of Chile has

changed. The popular sectors are now larger and poorer. The problems with
high levels of unemployment and dwindling state resources have no imme-
diate or easy solution. What will become of Chile’s popular sectors and, in
particular, their organizations during and after a transition to democracy?
Although any definitive answer to this question is beyond the scope of this
article, several tentative conclusions can be drawn.
As has been argued, members of popular organizations in Chile under the
military regime generally were not &dquo;maximalist&dquo; in their demands: they
recognized the depth of Chile’s socioeconomic and political crisis and
strongly desired a role in helping to set national priorities and apportion the
sacrifices that national recuperation will entail. Chilean popular sectors
wanted to overcome their situation of exclusion. They wanted to be listened
to and respected by the rest of society in the conviction that only then can
their fundamental problems be effectively addressed. As Campero (1987)
pointed out, popular sector organizations were marked by a double dimension
of struggle, as they actively resisted socioeconomic exclusion imposed on
them by the military regime and sought integration into the political processes
unfolding in Chilean society.
The integration of popular sectors into the Chilean political process will
depend fundamentally on their organization. In order to transform themselves
into a social actor capable of engaging in a meaningful political discourse
with other segments of Chilean society, the popular sectors will have to
organize themselves into a real movimiento popular that can fill the role of
interlocutor for the popular sectors with both the state and political parties,
defining and defending popular interests.
Structuring such a movement is no easy task. As mentioned earlier, for
popular sector organizations to coalesce into a coherent social movement,
they will have to overcome their atomization. But more important, popular
organizations will have to resist the possible efforts of political parties to
capture any incipient movement.
A principal theme which has been developed here is the problematic
relationship between popular organizations formed at the base level and
Chilean political parties which were attempting to reestablish their own
social bases after years of repression. The failure of the 1986 congress to gen-
erate a democratically constituted and representative CUP demonstrates the

capacity of political parties to fragment and absorb popular organizations in

order to subordinate the interests of the popular sectors to party interests. But

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84

the participatory, grassroots nature of these organizations also suggests that

popular organizations can serve as a basis for more democratic and represen-
tative political parties if the political parties are prepared to come to terms
with popular organizations which enjoy a certain degree of autonomy in
defining and pursuing their own interests. Political parties themselves might
begin to reflect the participatory and democratic values associated with
popular organizations as the parties endeavored to integrate pobladores into
more democratic and less hierarchical party structures (Oxhorn, 1989).
This &dquo;democratizing&dquo; potential of popular organizations is closely related
to the need to find suitable organizational forms which can overcome the
possibly conflicting interests created by the very heterogeneity of the popular
sectors. When viewed in terms of their relationship to the means of produc-
tion, unionized workers, unorganized workers in the formal sector, workers
in the informal sector, the unemployed seeking work, and the &dquo;lumpen&dquo; have
different objective interests. Policies which favor one sector may find indif-
ference and even opposition in others, given the competition for scarce
resources. While those who have stable jobs, for example, are most con-
cerned with holding on to them, the unemployed are often in a desperate
search for work.
Many of the problems which the opposition had to face in attempting to
organize an effective national strike under the military regime reflected this
fundamental conflict of interests within the popular sectors. With high rates
of unemployment and labor laws which have strengthened the rights of
employers at the expense of workers, those with jobs were extremely reluc-
tant to participate in either strikes or protests, even though national labor
movement leaderships had been instrumental in organizing the national
protest movement since its inception in 1983. Instead, it was the unemployed
youth from the poblaciones who participated most actively in the protests, in
part to stop public transportation by constructing barricades on major trans-
portation arteries and stoning or even fire-bombing buses so that workers
could not get to their jobs.
The problems generated by the popular sectors’ heterogeneity are only
exacerbated to the extent that functional organizations, particularly labor
unions, are given priority over the territorially based organizations examined
here in any effort to forge a social actor capable of representing Chile’s
popular sectors. The inhabitants of poblaciones all share certain fundamental
interests and needs as residents of marginal communities. Important con-
cerns, such as basic urban services (sewage, clean water, electricity, and
paved roads), children’s education, health care, hunger, crime and delin-
quency, and so forth, are shared by all of the inhabitants of these communities

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 85

to one extent or another, and the &dquo;differences&dquo; which functional organizations

help to emphasize tend to lose at least some of their importance by compar-
ison. These are the factors which condition the pobladores’ limited life
chances and consumption possibilities.
The challenge in creating a genuine movimiento popular consists in
reinforcing these potential
sources of interest commonality, while simulta-
neously mitigating the cross-tensions generated by the heterogeneity of the
popular sectors when viewed from a structural perspective. As Katznelson
(1986) insightfully pointed out, class in capitalist societies must be under-
stood both at the level of groups sharing dispositions and the level at which
shared dispositions are transformed into collective action. Such dispositions,
Katznelson (1986: 19) noted, are not coextensive with class structures as
determined by economic development, but &dquo;are plausible and meaningful
responses to the circumstances workers find themselves in.&dquo; Under the
military regime, this appears to be the precise role which popular organiza-
tions played for their members. Moreover, the values which members of
popular organizations associated with their organizations and the identity of
&dquo;popular&dquo; itself----solidarity, a sense of belonging to a community, collective
action, democracy based on participation and, when possible, consensus or
pluralism-may represent the emergence of the kinds of shared dispositions
associated with processes of class formation.
Perhaps what we were witnessing in Chile in early 1987 was the begin-
nings of a process by which an important segment of society-the popular
sectors--was simultaneously acquiring certain shared dispositions and at-
tempting to transform those dispositions into collective action at both the
local and, with much less success, national levels. Such a process should be
encouraged, for it provides for the possibility of something genuinely novel
in a world which is accustomed to formulating the struggle of the lower
classes in terms of the working class or proletariat and a working-class
project: a &dquo;popular class&dquo; project that can serve as the basis around which
popular sectors can unite and effectively participate in a political process with
other social actors.

POSTSCRIPT

When the research for this article was completed in early 1987, Chile’s
political future was still uncertain. Since then, there have been remarkable
changes beginning with Pinochet’s defeat in the October 1988 plebiscite and
culminating with the election of Patricio Aylwin as president in December
1989. Political parties dominated the political process during this period

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86

much more than before. Political activity was channeled almost exclusively
through political parties as the opposition focused its attention on winning
the plebiscite in 1988 and then on winning the presidency and as many seats
as possible in the legislature in the 1989 elections. Popular organizations,

per se, became less active in the opposition as individual pobladores worked
more closely with political parties.
Yet popular sector organizational activity did not wither away as the
number of people participating in popular organizations continued to grow.
For example, the number of economic self-help organizations almost dou-
bled, from 1,435 in 1986 to 2,479 at the end of 1989. One obvious reason for
this is that, despite the improvement in Chile’s economic situation over the
past several years, 42.2 percent of the families in the Santiago metropolitan
area still lived below the poverty line and 14,9 percent were classified as

&dquo;indigent&dquo; in 1989 (Programa de Economia del Trabajo, 1989). Nor did the
increased cooperation between pobladores and the parties necessarily imply
that the old sources of tension between popular organizations and political
parties would not reemerge as the sense of euphoria surrounding Aylwin’s
impressive electoral victory waned and politics once again returned to
normal.&dquo;
The new government had pledged itself to address many of the most
urgent concerns of the popular sectors, and its commitment to decentraliza-
tion and the democratization of local levels of government bodes well for
opening up new possibilities for popular sector participation in Chile’s
democratic regime (La Concertacion de Partidos por la Democracia, 1989).
But the Aylwin government is severely constrained in its ability to deal with
these issues given the restrictions placed on it by the 1980 constitution, the
strength of the Right in the legislature and a projected shortfall in 1990
government revenues of $380 million in the budget inherited from the
military regime (Alvarez, 1990).
Only time will tell how effectively the Aylwin government will be able to
deal with these multiple challenges and constraints. Similarly, it remains to
be seen what role, if any, the popular sectors will play in this process. So far,
the new government has focused on organized labor in its efforts to reach a
tripartite agreement between workers, employers, and the state. While such
an agreement is, no doubt, very important, organized labor is but one segment
of the popular sectors, and popular organizations have not yet been given a
major role to play. The evidence from an earlier period suggests that the
contribution of popular organizations to the consolidation of the new demo-
cratic regime can be potentially very positive. As the current government
looks for innovative solutions to the numerous problems it faces, hopefully
it will try to tap into this potential.

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 87

NOTES

1. The high proportion of young people in most developing countries, the dim prospects for
their future, and their tendency to seek more violent and radical solutions are among the reasons
why this group is so important in understanding the nature of the popular sectors (see Valenzuela,
1984; Agurto, Canales, and de la Maza, 1985). In recent years, women have become key actors
in popular sector organizations throughout Latin America, as economic hardship and political
repression in combination have thrust them into new roles (see Kirkwood, 1986; Barrig, 1986).
2. This is despite an average annual GDP growth rate of 2.7 percent during the 1973-1984
period. The reason for this apparent paradox is found in the depth of the two recessions which
Chile has experienced since the coup. The recovery from the sharp drops in GDP experienced
during the 1975-1976 and 1982-1983 recessions allows for a high rate of growth, even though
it may take years for GDP to again reach the levels attained before the recession’s onset.
Calculations of annual per capita GDP growth rates based on official statistics will also vary
widely, depending on which years are included in the calculations. For example, the annual
growth rate for the period 1974-1981, including the negative impact on GDP of the 1975-1976
recession, is just 2.2 percent (Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski, 1988). This economic volatility has
led the prominent Chilean economist Aníbal Pinto to describe economic performance under the
military government as "an economy in permanent recovery," noting that "after incomparable
sacrifices and effort, the average Chilean is no better off than he or she was at the beginning of
the seventies" (quoted in Cademartori, 1988: 2).
3. The labor movement also was the object of a high level of repression. On developments
within the labor movement under the military regime, see Campero and Valenzuela (1984).
Ironically, one unintended effect of repressing the labor movement was the strengthening of
territorially based organizations in the poblaciones. Frequently blacklisted and unable to obtain
stable employment, former union organizers became active in organizing the poor in the
poblaciones. Since many of these labor leaders were members of the Partido Comunista (PC),
this also helps explain the PC’s marked success in gaining support in the poblaciones since the
coup (see Oxhorn, 1986).
4. Violent confrontations between pobladores and soldiers, police, and armed civilians
generally believed to be connected to right-wing extremist groups and the government security
apparatus were frequent. A disproportionate number of pobladores were killed and seriously
injured during days of protests, regardless of whether they were actually participating (de la
Maza and Garces, 1985). The result was a generalized level of fear within many poblaciones
during days of protest. One particularly dramatic example of this fear is that of an olla comun
(soup kitchen) which could not operate during days of protests. The women were afraid to leave
their homes because "the soldiers shoot at everyone—women, old people, children." These
women thus became prisoners in their own homes and had to worry about how they would feed

their families on days when a protest was called, since their own family incomes were usually
inadequate (personal interview, Santiago, 1986). The frequent allanamientos of poblaciones
during this period are a good example of the military regime’s use of intimidation. Allanamientos
are combined military-police operations in which entire poblaciones were sealed off and all the
men were temporarily detained while their papers were checked and their houses searched in
such a manner as to cause substantial physical damage. In one short period prior to a scheduled
national day of protest in 1986, 33 such allanamientos were carried out in Santiago (see Oxhorn,
1986).
5. For example, the limited available information suggests that malnutrition among the
school-age population had increased. The average number of daily portions distributed under

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88

the School Nutrition Program each year from 1974 to 1985 was also less than during the
1970-1973 period, despite the obvious increase in need. Moreover, there has been an increase
in infectious and parasitic diseases, as well as mental disorders—all of which tend to affect the
poor disproportionately. Hospitals were characterized by waiting lists for nonurgent cases,
shortages of basic supplies, food and medicine, and a deterioration in the quantity and quality
of patient care provided (see Ffrench-Davis and Raczynski, 1988; Campero, 1987).
6. An important exception has been the Vicaría de Solidaridad and its efforts to promote
self-help organizations which are capable of accepting outside material support without becom-
ing dependent on that aid for their existence. These organizations are structured and controlled
by pobladores. The material resources of the Vicaría make their task more feasible, but the
pobladores must learn to take the initiative and build on the resource base that the Vicaría
provides.
The relationship between organizational activity in the poblaciones and outside groups in
general is an important issue. Most groups received some form of outside material support, but
such resources did not automatically create a situation of dependency in which the organization
could not autonomously define and pursue its own interests. Very few organizations can survive
for long periods of time if all they do is channel outside resources. Moreover, external resources
were never sufficient. Organizations that have survived for extended periods have done so at
their own initiative, their members working collectively to increase the small amount of
resources that they receive. A sudden loss of outside assistance therefore does not necessarily
result in the automatic dissolution of an organization. It is even possible that the organization,
taking advantage of its past experience, will be fortified by the sudden urgency of the situation.
Ollas comunes are the organizations which are most dependent on outside assistance, but if the
olla comun cannot provide food, its members often do not eat. An olla comun’s organizational
strength will determine whether or not it ceases to function if its outside resources are suddenly
cut off.
7. The importance of Chile’s democratic past is most apparent when contrasted to the recent
experience in Brazil, where the lack of a prior extended period of political democracy has
severely circumscribed the ability of popular sectors to gain influence in Brazil’s current
democratic regime (see Mainwaring, 1987).
8. The military regime attempted to use these organization for its own purposes and with a
few notable exceptions, they were closely controlled by the regime. Such organizations were
used to represent official policies within poblaciones, gather information on the activities of
pobladores, provide a basis for the penetration of progovernment political parties in poblaciones,
and channel resources to the poor in order to generate support for the regime. These organizations
were not included in the present study.
9. This quote is from an interview with a leader of a popular sector organization in Santiago
conducted by the author in 1986. This particular person best summarized what many view to be
the purpose of organizations in the poblaciones: "to struggle to give dignity to the poor class."
10. The following is based on a preliminary analysis of 46 in-depth, semistructured,
open-ended interviews of pobladores conducted by the author in 13 different poblaciones
throughout Santiago from June to October 1986, and the author’s participant observer experi-
ences in a variety of poblaciones from September 1985 through January 1987. The interview

findings are examined more extensively in Oxhorn (1989). The preliminary findings presented
here are largely consistent with those of other studies realized in recent years (in particular, see
Campero, 1987; also see Gallardo, 1987).
11. Many of these characteristics of popular sector organizations may be inherent to their
nature as small, territorially based groups in which members frequently interact with each other

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in a direct face-to-face fashion. To the extent that this is the case, it also makes more complicated
the transition from small individual community organizations to the creation of a genuine social
movement which reflects these same values at the national level. These issues are discussed at
length in Oxhorn (1989, chap. 1).
12. A frequently overlooked consequence of prolonged periods of authoritarian rule is the
inability of political parties to renovate their leadership levels. Normal mechanisms for leader-
ship training and socialization may be blocked by the repressive environment. In this sense,
Chile has lost a whole generation of potential political leaders which normally would have
emerged within the parties over the course of the past 15 years.
13. The term literally means "to lower oneself" and is often used by pobladores to refer to
the physical and class distance that they perceive between themselves and the political elite at
the top of national political party organizations. It should be emphasized that this section is
referring only to the period ending in 1986 and not to the current situation under the democratic
regime.
14. The following is based on interviews conducted by the author with various leaders
involved in the congress and the author’s own observations at the congress, which he attended
as a "fraternal delegate."
15. In reality, the majority of party militants in Santiago’s poblaciones at the time were
Communist. This was due both to the PC’s greater experience in organizing clandestinely and,
as mentioned earlier, the repression of the labor movement. The IC, on the other hand, was a

relative newcomer to the world of grassroots organizing in the poblaciones. But its presence had
grown significantly over the previous two years.
16. During a brief trip to Chile in December 1989, the author encountered some evidence
that such tensions were at best only latent. For, example, a number of leaders at the 1986 congress
had since grown disillusioned with their respective parties’ attitude towards them and pobladores
in general, while a number of leaders of popular organizations appeared to have assumed a "let’s
wait and see" attitude regarding the newly elected government.

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Agurto, I., M. Canales and G. de la Maza

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1990 "S.O.O: presupuesto en apuros." Análisis 13 (May 7-13): 19-21.
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1972 Politics and the Labour Movement in Chile. London: Oxford University Press.
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1985 Politicas sociales y desarrollo: Chile 1924-1984. Santiago: Corporación de In-
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