State Change in Chile, 1973-1.988 Karen L. Remmer All of the Southern Cone military regimes of the 1970s articulated a commitment to a neoconservative program of state change. Nowhere, however, was the com- mitment translated into policy with greater zeal, speed, and consistency than in Chile. What differed in Chile was less a lack of resistance to neoconservatism than the capacity of the economic team to ignore or override that resistance due to the extreme concentration of political power achieved by General Augusto Pinochet. The Chilean experience consequently underlines the importance of institutional arrangements for understanding variations in policy outcomes. 6 6 r~he greater the state interference in a society, the less its true liberty, how- l ever widespread the exercise of political rights." l With this statement, the military junta that seized power in Chile in 1973 signalled not only its contempt for human rights but also its commitment to state change. The translation of that com- mitment into reality over the course of the 1973-1988 period took the process of state transformation in Chile far beyond a mere reversal of the socialist initiatives of the early 1970s. From the privatization of state enterprises and health services to the opening up of the economy to international competition, the military drastically reduced the state's socioeconomic role while simultaneously augmenting the power and autonomy of state actors. In the process it constructed a counterrevolutionary state designed to act as a bulwark against any future resurgence of socialism. The 1973 coup ousting President Salvador Allende thus came to signify more than the breakdown of Chilean democracy or the so-called "peaceful road to socialism." Apart from the revolutionary experiences of Cuba and Nicaragua, modern Latin American history offers no more dramatic instance of state change than that of Chile under military rule. The Chilean experience is also unusual by broader comparative standards. In the first place, drastic transformation of the state typically results from major changes in Karen L. Remmer is a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico and associate editor of the I_zttin American Research Review. Her research interests revolve around the interface between politics and eco- nomics in Latin America with special reference to the policy impact of regime change. Address correspondence to: Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131. Studies in Comparative International Development. Fall 1989. Vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 5-29