Central Planning and Big Data in Allende's Chile

Simply fascinating article in The New Yorker about consultant Stafford Beer being invited to Chile to help the Salvador Allende government set up what we would now call a "Big Data" project to coordinate central planning. It is based on Eden Medina's book Cybernetic Revolutionaries, which I have not read but should.

The idea was science fiction-like. You would sit in a futuristic chair--of course equipped with ash tray and glass holder--in a room with screens, which would feed constantly updated data about production, supplies, etc. and even allowing for quick projections of the probable effects of your decisions before you commit to them. "La vía chilena" would therefore be as scientifically based as possible. It never actually worked, in part because of the difficulties inherent in such a project but also because the Allende government had so little time in office.

It made me think of how interesting a comparison would be between different efforts at central planning, and what kinds of political and economic impacts those strategies had. Both Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez seemed much more whimsical, focused on their gut feelings.

h/t Mark Healey on Twitter

Chile Taking on Bolivia

The Chilean Foreign Ministry put together a short video outlining why Bolivia has no legitimate claim at the International Court of Justice for the land lost as a result of the War of the Pacific.

It's a frontal assault and includes clips from Michelle Bachelet, Ricardo Lagos, Eduardo Frei, Sebastián Piñera, as well as Heraldo Muñez (FYI, it is in Spanish but with English subtitles). They argue that Bolivia's claim basically tries to undo the fabric of the international system, even while Chile spends millions and millions to provide port access and acts like a good neighbor.

Evo Morales was not pleased:

"Son promesas solemnes de otorgarnos el acceso soberano al mar, Bolivia no es un país sin Litoral sino que es un país privado de Litoral, ya que nació como país con 400 kilómetros de costa que le fueron arrebatados por Chile tras una invasión violenta de 1879", fundamentó. 

El Jefe de Estado boliviano argumentó que todas las naciones mediterráneas gozan de facilidades equivalentes a un acceso soberano, "mucho más que quien lo pide tuvo por más de medio siglo 120.000 kilómetros cuadrados de territorio ribereño" 

En esa dirección, apuntó que Bolivia no presentó una demanda contraria al derecho internacional ni pretende alterar el orden mundial de límites. 

"Por el contrario si el derecho internacional fuera inmutable no se justificaría la existencia de la Corte Internacional de Justicia, que ha resuelto en justicia y en derecho decenas de disputas entre estados", dijo. 

Agregó que en el video chileno, Bachelet hace referencia a un espíritu de integración y de diálogo con Bolivia y expresó su coincidencia con esas ideas. 

"Invocó a su sensibilidad (de Bachelet) y la del pueblo chileno cuyos representantes pidieron mar para Bolivia con soberanía, ayer en Palacio de Gobierno de La Paz, para hacer realidad espíritu de hermandad y de proyección de ambas naciones en este siglo XXI, que se logrará cuando las palabras se conviertan en actos de voluntad y de buena fe", afirmó.

Sorry, I don't have time to translate. If you don't read Spanish, the quick version from Morales is "you're full of crap."

And what about the timing? Bolivia filed its case with the Hague in 2013, delivered documents earlier this year, and it will take years to sort out. The latest move in the case was in July 2014, when the court told Bolivia it had until November 2014 to respond to the Chilean argument that the court had no jurisdiction. I suppose this is some early spin, though I do wonder how many people see such a video.

Pacific Alliancing

Michelle Bachelet, Juan Manuel Santos, Enrique Peña Nieto, and Ollanta Humala have a joint op-ed about the Pacific Alliance. Its basic thrust is that the free movement of goods and people will improve welfare.

One interesting point to consider is that both Bachelet and Humala were bashed when they took office for being leftists (remarkably, this was true even just recently for Bachelet). Santos, meanwhile, is center-right but bashed by his predecessor for, among other things, being willing to reach out to the left. So all the easy ideological labels don't work too well.

This is also notable for the "losing Latin America" argument I've periodically tried to counter. A majority of Latin American countries are market-oriented, which has consistently been a U.S. policy goal. Like it or not, it's reality. The Pacific Alliance is a good example of how Latin American countries can actually come together in pursuit of something the U.S. favors but is not directing. That's hardly "losing." It just means that leading is not synonymous with directing.

Kissinger on Chile

I happened to be in the car and hear a bit of an NPR interview with Henry Kissinger (not sure about the link, though here is a link to what I think is another part of the interview). My ears perked up at one exchange, and then I was disappointed in interviewer and interviewee.

The topic was realism vs. idealism. Point blank, Kissinger was asked about "engineering the coup in Chile." What had been a pretty smooth interview suddenly became confrontational. Kissinger's main response was that a) this happened a long time ago; b) in a short interview there was no way to get at the details, which are being manipulated for political reasons; and c) we needed to always remember that policy makers are serious people doing their best for the country.

Unfortunately, it was a missed opportunity. No one in the United States created the coup. The coup was domestic. To say otherwise is to pretend that Chilean politics had almost nothing to do with it. The most important thing the Nixon administration did was to send clear signals that if a coup succeeded, it would receive immediate support (I write about this in more detail earlier this year). That was an important part of the puzzle but it is not synonymous with "engineering." I would've preferred a question that asked why the U.S. supported the destruction of democracy when we claimed to revere it.

But Kissinger's answer was mostly non-sequiturs. Who cares how long ago it was? You don't get a pass just because you supported destroying democracy a long time ago. And who cares what kind of interview it is? If you alternate views of the facts, then give them. Finally, the third part--which he repeated--is scary. So if a policy maker is serious, then outcome doesn't matter?

I have to figure this last point has become his primary justification for the most controversial policy decisions. If he meant well (which of course can be defined in any way) and was serious about it then if things went wrong, people died, etc. then he has no real responsibility.

UDI Leader Arrested in Venezuela

The president of the far right Chilean UDI youth party has been detained in Venezuela. Rightfully, the party is very vocally calling on the Chilean government to do whatever it can to get him released.

The irony, of course, is that this is the party that stayed close to Augusto Pinochet and never embraced human rights. That may gradually be changing precisely because of younger members. Chilean democracy would be greatly strengthened as a result.

One interesting phenomenon in recent years is the left/right "shoe on the other foot." Leftists lauded human rights organizations until they started criticizing leftist governments. Conservatives hated those organizations during the Cold War and now embrace them. After years of supporting arbitrary detentions, now the right denounces them.

So either this pendulum will just keep going back and forth or we'll finally agree that there are universal rights.

Bachelet and Radicalism

An article in The Santiago Times takes Andres Oppenheimer to task for his recent anti-Bachelet article. I did the same on Twitter when I first saw it.

Notwithstanding Oppenheimer’s piece in El Mercurio, people who live in Chile and read the non-corporate press (El Mostrador, The Clinic, Radio Bio Bio, La Cooperativa) know Oppenheimer’s characterization of Bachelet is phoney. Her open-minded, conciliatory May 21 address emphasized the continuity of her agenda, while at the same time standing firm in her allegiance to Chile’s democracy.

I actually had a similar conversation with a Chilean academic while at the LASA conference. Bachelet may at times talk like she is seeking grand reforms but in general they're not radical and are even incremental. What the right and the corporate media (both of which feed Oppenheimer's columns) fear is that somehow there is a hidden agenda and the "real" Bachelet will deliver the country into the arms of Nicolás Maduro and Raúl Castro. Since Bachelet is a known quantity with four years of a presidency to look at as evidence, it's difficult to fathom how deeply held those suspicions are.

The CIA and the Chilean Coup

Former CIA agent Jack Devine just published an article in Foreign Affairs about the Chilean coup that is getting attention because he argues the CIA was mostly clueless about the details of the coup and therefore was not successfully plotting as often portrayed. The CIA had the desire and the resources but the Chilean military was a tough nut to crack.

A few thoughts:

First, can we stop saying "what really happened" about anything? He gives us one viewpoint and so it is only what "really happened" to him, or at least his version of it.

Second, his version is basically what I've been teaching in my classes for a long time and I think has already settled into scholarly conventional wisdom. Every single indication is that the CIA was trying hard to support a coup but was mostly in the dark.

Third, not being directly responsible for the coup is not the same as not being responsible at all. The Nixon administration played an important role in making it happen. In class I discuss what Kathryn Sikkink has called "green lights," whereby the signals of approval the U.S. gives are critical for assuring coup-makers that they'll be supported if successful. So:

Washington hailed Allende’s demise as a major victory. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, were pleased. So was the CIA: against all odds, the Santiago station had helped create a climate for the coup without tainting the effort by becoming directly involved.

Public statements, covert meetings, throwing CIA money, and the like are not plotting with the military but are powerful tools nonetheless for creating a coup climate. And, of course, they are also major violations of sovereignty.

Fourth, the persistent belief that the U.S. was more actively involved in making the coup happen stems in part from the also persistent U.S.-centric assertion that the United States government drives just about all major events around the world. Latin American agency disappears. Chileans wouldn't possibly do this on their own!

Fifth, the CIA does enough--and Devine notes how he tossed money around, even claiming credit for the women banging pots--that conspiracy theories of major plots all over the place are just believable enough. He lauds covert operations but the CIA has done tremendous damage to U.S. credibility, U.S. moral authority, and sometimes even U.S. national security.

Michelle Bachelet and Electoral Reform

I've written a million times about proposals to reform Chile's binomial electoral system, which has been a goal of center-left parties for the past 24 years. In recent years it has gained momentum and is once again the news.

It's a slippery topic. I've noted before how the center-right, especially Renovación Nacional, became more intrigued at the possibilities as they decided it might benefit them. That obviously increased the chances of passage.

This particular proposal, though, adds a new dimension--literally--by changing the shape of districts. Robert Funk notes the socio-economic angle:

“Currently, districts are drawn along very specific socioeconomic lines,” Funk told The Santiago Times. “It would be interesting to see how that [change] would affect elections.”

Meanwhile, both the right and the left are wary of increasing the number of legislators. Aside from the uncertainty about how those new seats would shake out, there is an additional question of cost. Simply put, adding new people takes money.

Finally, add the 40% gender quota for candidates and you have quite a complicated situation. Chile is currently 91st in the world in terms of female legislators and so this would have a major impact. I have yet to see what the response has been to this part of the proposal but it is reasonable to assume it will generate debate, especially from conservatives who see it in similar terms to the way conservatives tend to see affirmative action in the United States.

The reforms require a 3/5 majority, which requires keeping your own people in line while selectively reaching out across the aisle. Is Bachelet up to the House of Cards-esque arm-twisting plus wooing that will be necessary?

I poked fun at Bachelet being chosen as person of influence by Time (and thanks to The Santiago Times for picking it up!) and this will be a perfect test because it is going to require her active participation. Pushing it through successfully in some form would be a big deal. Given all the past failures and the political complexities involved we should be skeptical, but let's sit back and see what the president can do.

How Influential is Bachelet?

Michelle Bachelet, who in her first term was well known for failing to fulfill promises and proclivity for creating commissions more than actually achieving things, is one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. There is absolutely nothing in the description that mentions influence.

Michelle Bachelet, who earlier this year became Chile’s President for a second time, is a courageous and committed leader — and a longtime champion of women’s rights who was the founding executive director of UN Women. Her life experience — from exile following a coup in her country in the 1970s to President — has imbued her with a passion to make a difference. She has always displayed extraordinary resilience and intelligence in addressing the toughest of issues. Her governance style is an unusual combination of humanity and solid leadership. She is gentle and accessible, yet also strong and determined. As she has said, she is “just another Chilean woman who works, cares for her house and goes to the supermarket.” But she is also “a woman with a calling for social struggle and public service.”

So "influence" boils down to passion and courage, as well as going to the supermarket. As Silvia Borzutzky and I have argued, she was hobbled because her emphasis on consensus (in various forms) actually ended up generating conflict. She's a popular president and a well-known figure globally, but I'm not sure exactly what type of influence she has.

Tinsman's Buying into the Regime

I read Heidi Tinsman's Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States (2014) to review for Journal of Interdisciplinary History. I don't know when that will come out, but here is a small taste. It analyzes what became a strong connection between the two countries based on grape exports and what I like in particular is that Tinsman consciously avoids easy answers and simplifications, which makes it a worthy contribution to the already large literature on Cold War Chile. There are a lot of contradictions and contrasts:

Academics from the United States are part of the contrasts. The Chilean grape industry grew substantially under the market-driven economy of the military government, but existed in the first place because of the state-driven policies of the Eduardo Frei and Salvador Allende administrations. Universities in the United States played important roles in both, as researchers from the University of California at Davis gave extensive agricultural assistance in the 1960s and Chilean economists from the University of Chicago created the policy architecture for the grapes to be exported in the 1970s and beyond.

As Tinsman points out, consumption was central to the historical development of the grape export industry and the long-term responses to it. Depending on your vantage point, eating (or choosing not to eat) grapes could denote support for a government, opposition to a government, general nationalism, protest over a repressive global economic system, support for labor and/or recognition of the human costs of feeding the United States. Those perspectives shift if you are a Chilean or if you are a U.S. citizen, and if you are eating fruit from Chile or from the United States.

Don't Know Much About Geography

This photo has been making the rounds:

It makes more sense when you consider that Telesur is controlled by the Venezuelan government, which believes that northern Chile is in fact Bolivia.

Book chapter on Chile

Just got my copy of a new book chapter:

Gregory Weeks, “The Military and Twenty Years of the Concertación.” In Kirsten Sehnbruch and Peter M. Siavelis (eds.). Democratic Chile: The Politics and Policies of a Historic Coalition, 1990-2010 (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2014): 103-117.

Anticipating the ICJ Ruling for Chile and Peru

It's not easy to sum up the feeling as Chile and Peru wait for tomorrow's ruling from the International Court of Justice in The Hague--there is a lot of anticipation but not excessive, and there is nationalism but muted. As a reminder, the stake is a chunk of Pacific Ocean, which dates back to the War of the Pacific (with updates in 1952 and 1954) and is currently valuable for fishing, mostly anchovies:







Source: Defense-Update

Both presidents have made a show of meeting with their respective predecessors (well, not Fujimori!) and to that Sebastián Piñera even added a very public meeting of his National Security Council. I see this is as good for public consumption, as it makes a show of national unity even while the presidents make moderate statements.

So this is the sort of thing that Ollanta Humala has been saying:

“We have a shared commitment to abide by and enforce the judgment to be rendered by the International Court of Justice that will turn, I am sure, the paradigm of our relationship toward a profitable and enduring one for the future of our peoples,” President Ollanta Humala of Peru said from the United Nations General Assembly in September last year.

And this is the sort of thing that Piñera has been saying:

He added “we have also tried to maintain an atmosphere of harmony and peace with our Peruvian neighbors, because Peru will be our neighbor before, during and after the ruling by The Hague.”

Another positive sign is that Michelle Bachelet announced that Heraldo Muñoz, a very well-known and moderate diplomat, will be the new foreign minister. The Peruvian government immediately signalled its approval of the choice.

This matters much more in Peru than it does in Chile, since Peru has felt aggrieved for well over a century, while Chile has generally felt a sense of superiority, so at least on the surface can better afford to appear magnanimous. So probably the biggest question is what the Peruvian response will be if the decision goes against them. A secondary question might be what Peru's response is if Chile loses, but then drags its feet, since the government has indicated any change would have to be "gradual."

At any rate, we will see starting tomorrow.

Juxtaposition: Egypt & Pinochet's Chile

From Egypt's 2014 constitutional referendum:

Unofficial results Thursday indicated that Egypt’s new constitution was approved by about 98% of voters, a lopsided margin reminiscent of elections that were held prior to the uprising against Hosni Mubarak three years ago.

AND

From Chiles 1980 constitutional referendum:

Even adjusting for population growth, the reported 1980 vote total implies a completely unprecedented 91% participation rate by all registered voters (p. 23).

Egypt, welcome to Chile's authoritarian past.

The Saga of Electoral Reform in Chile

Daniel Hojman has a very nice post on the Chilean binomial system. He shows how it over-represents the right and also under-represents groups outside the Left/Right blocs even though they have significant electoral bases. These groups are mostly on the left. The problem, then, is the (correct) perception that the system is essentially locked up.

This made me think of the Communist Party, though. It viewed the political system as closed but finally actually decided to join them rather than beat them. That is precisely the type of incentive that the binomial system was designed to create. Ironically, then, the Communists joined the system not long before it would be dismantled.

It is worth adding, moreover, that Renovación Nacional seems to believe that it over-represents the UDI so has moved more in favor of reform over the past several years. RN has therefore been working with the Christian Democrats to get a proposal together.

I've been blogging for years with cautious optimism about the prospects reforming the electoral system. It's the sort of thing that appears both glacial and inevitable.

Outlawing Parties and Blowback in Latin America and Egypt

Outlawing political parties you don't like has a long history in Latin America. So as Egypt declares the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization we can look at, among other things, the Communist Party in Latin America.

I thought immediately of the ironically named Law for the Permanent Defense of Democracy in Chile, which outlawed the Communist Party in 1948 and lasted for a decade. During that time, however, the party became even more popular than before and in a short time joined the coalition that brought Salvador Allende to the presidency. As in Egypt, outlawing the party was done in the name of national security but under it lay concern (or in the Egyptian case, knowledge) that the party could win elections. It needed to be proscribed so it could not have that chance.

Or you could look at the Guatemalan Labor Party, which was the Communist Party and had influence in Jacobo Arbenz's government when--like Mohamed Morsi--he was overthrown and the party was outlawed. The result was radicalization and decades of civil war.

The point here is not that these parties are somehow paragons of democracy, but rather you cannot successfully legislate them into oblivion. Even more importantly, there is a very high probability that in doing so you will make them more popular and powerful, and perhaps even more radical than they already are.

There almost certainly will be blowback, the suffering of unintended--but in this case entirely foreseeable--consequences. Back in July 2013 I made essentially the same point about supporting coups in Egypt vs. Latin America. I also wrote a piece for Foreign Policy on the problem of boycotting elections in Egypt vs. Latin America.

Post-Pinochet

In both op-eds and news stories about the Chilean election, both in the U.S. and in Chile (though admittedly more in the former, I think) you see plenty of mention of both Pinochet and transition. I published a book chapter on the latter a few years ago, looking at how no one could even agree when the transition was supposed to be over, whatever that meant.

Augusto Pinochet has been dead almost exactly seven years, and has been out of office for almost 24. So how long does it continue? There are many countries with personalistic dictatorships and traumatic pasts, but after a certain point their politics are no longer defined by that leader.

Francisco Franco died in 1975, for example, and Spain suffered a coup attempt in 1981, but then moved steadily toward a stable democracy--how long before people stopped saying post-Franco? In the Dominican Republic they even went around renaming all the streets/places Trujillo had named after himself, and eventually was no longer "post-Trujillo."

In Chile, part of it is institutional. The country still has the constitution he commissioned, and the broad contours of an economy that he was finally convinced to champion. There are calls to change them but they're very sticky. Michelle Bachelet wants to change them but votes will not be easy to come by. Let's see if the 2017 presidential election is similarly framed by Pinochet and the dictatorship.

Turnout in Chile

Lots of news stories about yesterday's Chilean presidential runoff election mention turnout. The worst offender is Fox News Latino: "Michelle Bachelet Wins Chilean Presidential Election in a Landslide, Despite Small Turnout," as if turnout and margin were somehow related. You can win or lose big no matter how many people vote.

The turnout focus, though, doesn't get adequate explanation. Voter registration is now automatic in Chile, but voting became voluntary, whereas before it was compulsory. There was every reason to believe that turnout would plummet. In particular, the combination of a lopsided contest and a stable economy left many people figuring there was no reason to vote. It happens in the United States all the time.

Plus, young people vote in smaller numbers than older people. Telling young Chileans they could choose whether or not to vote didn't change that.

So 41% of registered voters decided they would participate in an elected whose outcome was clearly predetermined. If you think about it that way, it doesn't sound quite as bad, or surprising.

Politicizing the Chilean Military in Haiti

This is a really scary and bizarre thing to ask of the Chilean military:

Chile's National Assembly will meet in a special session on Tuesday to discuss the warning of the President of the Haitian National Assembly, Simon Dieuseul Desras, of an impending institutional conflict in Haiti and requesting that Chilean soldiers defend the 'people' and defy President Michel Martelly. 

Senate President Simon Desras wrote the letter to his Chilean counterpart, Jorge Pizarro. Chilean newspaper El Mercurio reported that, dated November 4, Desras requested from the Chilean Congress to take "all actions and dissuasive prohibitive measures on their part" so that Chilean troops in Haiti will assume the role of "defending the Haitian people thirsty for democracy against excesses of a totalitarian and arbitrary power", referring to the administration led by President Michel Martelly.

Holy cow. This sounds eerily similar to the Chilean legislature's message (aimed in large part at the Chilean military) just prior to the 1973 coup.

That it is a fact that the current government of the Republic, from the beginning, has sought to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state and, in this manner, fulfilling the goal of establishing a totalitarian system: the absolute opposite of the representative democracy established by the Constitution;

It's bad enough for militaries to become politicized in their own countries, much less in others. This can't end well.

2013 Chile Election Aftermath

To no one's great surprise, Michelle Bachelet came in well ahead of all the other presidential candidates, but short of the majority required to avoid a December runoff. From Chile's electoral site SERVEL 2013:

The right cannot be too happy now. El Mostrador shows the problems that UDI in particular has. Oddly, that problem is that the winners of UDI seats seem to be more willing to compromise, whereas for years that was a position claimed by Renovación Nacional. The right was already in a mess because Evelyn Matthei was only the third choice for a presidential candidate. There is quite a bit of wound licking to be done.

Nonetheless, the Concertación/Nueva Mayoría is still hamstrung by the supermajority requirement of many reforms. In the Senate, the coalition now has 21 seats, which gives it a simple majority, but short of the 22 needed for education reform and far short of the 26 needed to reform the constitution. This means Bachelet cannot fulfill many of her campaign promises.

Another point that merits closer attention is the effect of allowing people not to vote. A total of 6,691,840 Chileans voted, which is by far the lowest number in the postauthoritarian era for a presidential election. We'll have to see the data, but there is a good bet that young Chileans stayed home. Sure, some student activists won seats, including Camila Vallejo, but the establishment won this election.

The bottom line is that, assuming she wins the runoff, Bachelet is going to face a difficult situation. Expectations are high while her ability to get key legislation passed is not. She is currently popular but her coalition as a whole is not. She'll have a honeymoon, but it might not last too long once electoral reality sets in. If the past is a prelude, then she'll name some commissions and muddle through.