Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:26:53.033Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Towards a theory of neoliberal constitutionalism: Addressing Chile’s first constitution-making laboratory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2021

Benjamin Alemparte Open the ORCID record for Benjamin Alemparte [Opens in a new window]
Benjamin Alemparte*
Affiliation:
Duke University School of Law, United States
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Before neoliberalism became global, it was an intellectual project that had a particular view of the power of constitutions to limit sovereign states, anchor economic freedoms and protect markets from democratic pressures for greater equality. In Latin America and the developing world, neoliberalism has long been identified with the political economy of the Washington Consensus. However, the comprehensive study of its legal foundations and institutional arrangements is still an area of limited scholarly attention. This article attempts to advance in that direction. By examining the work of Friedrich A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and James M. Buchanan, it explores a theory of neoliberal constitutionalism within Chile, the so-called first neoliberal laboratory. These authors visited the country during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–90), and were connected with top Chilean authorities as part of their global ambitions to implement their theoretical agendas in real-world scenarios. The article argues that Chile’s constitution-making process between 1973 and 1980 offered an on-site experiment in introducing neoliberal’s radical economic transformation. It addresses how the dictatorship’s natural law-based rule of law principles were compatible with the neoliberal constitutional ideology by supporting a distinctive view of the state’s role and designing the innovative institutional arrangements necessary to guarantee the market’s priority in the structural and rights dimension of the 1980 Constitution. In the wake of Chile’s recent constitutional change agenda, this article not only contributes to the existing debate by reflecting on the ideological origins of the still-persistent constitutional neoliberal features, but also works as a case study for evaluating new global turns towards authoritarian neoliberal politics.

Keywords

authoritarianismconstitutionalismneoliberalismrule of lawChile
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 83 - 109
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Tushnet, M, ‘The Globalization of Constitutional Law as a Weakly Neo-liberal Project’ (2019) 8 Global Constitutionalism 1, 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 I take the concept ‘neoliberal constitutionalism’ from Purdy, J, ‘Neoliberal Constitutionalism: Lochnerism for a New Economy’ (2014) 77 Law and Contemporary Problems 195.Google Scholar

3 Wiener, A, Lang, AF, Tully, J, Maduro, MP and Kumm, M, ‘Global Constitutionalism: Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law’ (2012) 1 Global Constitutionalism 1, 7–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See Williamson, J, ‘A Short History of the Washington Consensus’ in Serra, N and Stiglitz, JE (eds), The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008) 16–17 Google Scholar. As Thomas Piketty argues, this ‘new ultraliberal wave emanating from the developed countries forced the poor countries to cut their public sectors and lower the priority of developing a tax system suitable to fostering economic development’. See T Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-first Century (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2014) 491–92.

5 Polanyi, K, The Great Transformation, The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (2nd edn, Beacon Press, Boston MA, 2001) 147 Google Scholar. See also F Block and MR Somers, The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi’s Critique (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2014) 218–19.

6 See generally, Reinhoudt, J and Audier, S, The Walter Lippmann Colloquium: The Birth of Neo-Liberalism (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017).Google Scholar

7 Foucault, M, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–1979 (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2008) 167.Google Scholar

8 Slobodian, Q, Globalists: The End of Empire and The Birth of Neoliberalism (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2018) 2–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 See e.g. DS Grewal, A Kapczynski and J Britton-Purdy, Law and Political Economy: Toward a Manifesto, (2017) <https://lpeproject.org/blog/law-and-political-economy-toward-a-manifesto>; Britton-Purdy, J, Grewal, DS, Kapczynski, A and Rahman, KS, ‘Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis’ (2020) 129 The Yale Law Journal 6, 1784–1835.Google Scholar

11 Grewal, DS and Purdy, J, ‘Introduction: Law and Neoliberalism’ (2014) 77 Law and Contemporary Problems 6.Google Scholar

12 Ibid 1–3.

13 Ibid. In other work, Grewal would declare that ‘neoliberals would like to see the ultimate withdrawal of politics from production in all areas of the economy, not just those affecting international trade’. See Grewal, DS, Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization (Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 2008) 247, 250.Google Scholar

14 Brabazon, H (ed), Neoliberal Legality: Understanding the Role of Law in the Neoliberal Project (Routledge, New York, 2017) 1–3, 16–19Google Scholar. However, this book does not refer to the role of constitutional law or constitutionalism in the neoliberal phenomenon. Instead, it focuses more specifically on private property, private providers regulation, labour regulations, contract law and the protection of foreign investors, among other topics.

15 See Huntington, S, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late 20th Century (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK, 1993).Google Scholar

16 See Elster, J, Offe, C and Preuss, UK, Institutional Design in Post-communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Ginsburg, T (ed), Comparative Constitutional Design (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012) 4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ginsburg cites the work of James M Buchanan as representative of this turn.

18 See generally R Viciano Pastor and R Martínez Dalmau, ‘Fundamento teórico del nuevo Constitucionalismo Latinoamericano’ in R Viciano Pastor (ed), Estudios sobre el nuevo Constitucionalismo Latinoamericano (Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2012); C Storini and JF Alenza García (dirs), Materiales sobre neoconstitucionalismo y nuevo constitucionalismo latinoamericano (Editorial Aranzadi, Pamplona, 2012). See also R Gargarella, Latin American Constitutionalism 1810–2010: The Engine Room of the Constitution (Oxford University Press, New York, 2013).

19 See Harvey, D, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) 7; N Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Picador, London, 2008).Google Scholar

20 Taylor, M, From Pinochet to the Third Way: Neoliberalism and Social Transformation in Chile (Pluto Press, London, 2006) 3–7.Google Scholar

21 Ibid.

22 According to this report, in 2019 the top 10 per cent national income share captured 60 per cent of the average national income, and together with Brazil and Mexico, these income inequalities have increased for the past 20 years. See M De Rosa, I Flores and M Morgan, Inequality in Latin America Revisited: Insights from Distributional National Accounts, World Inequality Lab–Issue Brief 2020/09, November 2020, <https://wid.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/WorldInequalityLab_IssueBrief_2020_09_RegionalUpdatesLatinAmerica.pdf>.

23 See Mirowski, P, ‘Postface: Defining Neoliberalism’ in Mirowski, P and Plehwe, D (eds), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Though Collective (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2015), 438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 See Ackerman, B, The Future of the Liberal Revolution (Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1992) 61–62 Google Scholar. See also J Linz and A Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD, 1996) 205–18.

25 See Przeworski, A, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991) 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 See B Milanovic, ‘Chile: The Poster Boy of Neoliberalism Who Fell from Grace’ (26 October 2019) <https://glineq.blogspot.com/2019/10/chile-poster-boy-of-neoliberalism-who.html?m=1>.

27 See e.g. RH Fallon Jr, ‘Legitimacy and the Constitution’ (2005) 118 Harvard Law Review 6, 1795. In Fallon’s words, a constitutional regime possesses sociological legitimacy insofar ‘as the relevant public regards it as justified, appropriate, or otherwise deserving of support for reasons beyond fear of sanctions or mere hope for personal reward’.

28 Burgin, A, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Depression (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2012) 153–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 I take this expression from Foucault, who mentions Hayek and Ludwig von Mises as intermediaries between the German ordoliberals and the Chicago neoliberals. See (n 7) 161.

30 J Reinhoudt and S Audier (n 6), 35–36; Burgin (n 28) 154.

31 Similarly, P Mirowski (n 23) 429.

32 Kaufman, BE, ‘Chicago and the Development of Twentieth-century Labor Economics’ in Emmett, R (ed), The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2010) 132.Google Scholar

33 Ebenstein, L, Milton Friedman: A Biography (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007), 142.Google Scholar

34 See RV Horn and P Mirowski, ‘The Rise of the Chicago School of Economics and the Birth of Neoliberalism’ (n 23) 166–67.

35 See generally B Caldwell and L Montes, ‘Friedrich Hayek and His Visits to Chile’ (2015) 28 The Review of Austrian Economics 3.

36 See CE Cubitt, A Life of Friedrich August von Hayek (Authors OnLine Ltd, 2006) 19. I thank Professor Bruce Caldwell for providing me with access to this work.

37 Friedman, M and Friedman, RD, Two Lucky People: Memoirs (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998) 399.Google Scholar

38 Ibid 593.

39 Ibid 594.

40 Ibid.

41 JM Buchanan, ‘Democracia Limitada o Ilimitada’ (1982) 6 Estudios Públicos 7. Recent scholarship has focused on Buchanan’s role in Chile. See N MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (Penguin, New York, 2018); A Farrant and V Tarko, ‘James M. Buchanan’s 1981 Visit to Chile: Knightian Democrat or Defender of the “Devil’s Fix”?’ (2018) 32 The Review of Austrian Economics 1.

42 ‘Libertad Económica: La base para la libertad política’, El Mercurio (7 May 1980), C1. See also MacLean (n 41) 159.

43 Hayek, F, Law Legislation and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy (Routledge, Abingdon, 2012) 267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also B Harcourt, The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2011) 128–29.

44 See (n 23) 435.

45 Hayek, F, The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents–the Definitive Edition (Volume 2, The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek), Caldwell, B (ed), (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007) 86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Ibid 90.

47 Hayek, F, The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition (Volume XVII, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek) (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2011) 346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Ibid.

49 See (n 43) 91; (n 47) 345.

50 See (n 43) 127. See e.g. H Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1967). For Hayek, Kelsen’s theory was used by ‘all those reformers who had found the traditional limitations [of the Rule of Law] an irritating obstacle to their ambitions’. See (n 47) 347.

51 See (n 43) 115.

52 See (n 45) 340–41. See also (n 43) 248–49.

53 Ibid (n 43) 245–47.

54 Ibid 263–64.

55 Ibid 264.

56 See (n 45) 110; (n 43), 349. Similarly, JA Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, (3rd edn, Harper Perennial, New York, 2008) 269. Schumpeter suggested a procedural concept of democracy as an institutional arrangement in which individuals would acquire decision-making political power through a competitive electoral process.

57 See (n 47) 172.

58 Ibid 167.

59 See (n 43) 471.

60 Ibid 438.

61 Ibid 435.

62 Ibid 353, 439.

63 Ibid 447–57.

64 Piketty, T, Capital and Ideology (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2020) 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Ibid 707.

66 Ibid 709. Piketty would support writing into the Constitution ‘a minimal principle of fiscal justice based on nonregressivity (that is, the proportionate burden of the wealth or income tax on the wealthiest segment of the population should not be lower than the proportionate burden on the poorest segment) and requiring the government to publish adequate information on how the tax is apportioned so that citizens can judge whether the principle of nonregressivity has been respected’. Ibid 999–1000.

67 Friedman, M, Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962) 3.Google Scholar

68 M Friedman, ‘The Fragility of Freedom’, in (1976) Milton Friedman in South Africa, Cape Town Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town, 3.

69 See (n 67) 23.

70 Ibid 24.

71 M Friedman, ‘Neo-liberalism and Its Prospects’ (1951) Farmand 89.

72 Ibid 92.

73 See (n 67) 2, 15, 25.

74 Ibid. 180–3. See also infra (n 182).

75 See Hayek (n 43) 387.

76 See (n 67) 178.

77 Friedman, M and Friedman, RD, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Harcourt, New York, 1990) 32.Google Scholar

78 See (n 67) 24.

79 Friedman, M, Tyranny of the Status Quo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1984) 53–55.Google Scholar

80 See Buchanan, JM, ‘The Domain of Constitutional Economics’ in The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Volume 1: The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty (Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, IN, 1999) 377–78.Google Scholar

81 JM Buchanan and G Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1965). See also S Amadae, Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2003) 155.

82 Buchanan and Tullock (n 81) 169.

83 Ibid 286–87. Similarly, Tullock’s Politics of Bureaucracy is a rational-choice attack on Max Weber’s traditional view of bureaucrats as impartial servants of the public good. See G Tullock, ‘The Politics of Bureaucracy’ in CK Rowley (ed), The Selected Work of Gordon Tullock: Volume 6, Bureaucracy (Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, IN, 2005).

84 Ibid 190, 201, 142–43.

85 Ibid 169.

86 Buchanan, JM, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975) ix–x, 166.Google Scholar

87 Ibid 15, 166–69.

88 Biebricher, T, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2018) 56.Google Scholar

89 Ibid 57.

90 Ibid

91 See (n 86) 170.

92 Ibid 171.

93 Ibid 177.

94 See (n 88) 150.

95 Ibid.

96 Ibid.

97 Buchanan, JM and Wagner, RE, Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes (Academic Press, Cambridge, MA, 1977) 3.Google Scholar

98 Vergara, P, Auge y Caída del Neoliberalismo en Chile (FLACSO, Santiago, 1985) 4.Google Scholar

99 Stepan, A, ‘State Power and the Strength of Civil Society in the Southern Cone of Latin America’ in Evans, PB, Rueschemeyer, D and Skocpol, T (eds), Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985) 322.Google Scholar

100 Valdés, JG, Pinochet’s Economists: The Chicago School in Chile (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008) 49. See also Klein (n 19) 59–62.Google Scholar

101 See Valdés (n 100) 118.

102 Ibid 181, 184. See Biglaiser, G, ‘The Internationalization of Chicago’s Economics in Latin America’ (2002) 50 Economic Development and Cultural Change 2, 269–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

103 Valdés (n 100) 127.

104 Barros, R, Constitutionalism and Dictatorship: Pinochet, the Junta, and the 1980 Constitution (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002) 89 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also R Cristi, El Pensamiento Político de Jaime Guzmán: Una biografía intelectual (LOM ediciones, Santiago, 2011).

105 K Fischer, ‘The Influence of Neoliberals in Chile Before, During, and After Pinochet’ in Mirowski and Plehwe (n 23) 312.

106 See e.g. Aldunate, A Fontaine, Los Economistas y el Presidente Pinochet (Zig-Zag, Santiago, 1988) 30.Google Scholar

107 Fisher (n 105) 317.

108 Talavera, A Fontaine, ‘El Miedo y otros escritos: El pensamiento de Jaime Guzmán E’ (1991) 42 Estudios Públicos 294.Google Scholar

109 Ibid 252. See infra Constable and Valenzuela (n 121) 190, 340. In an interview on 22 August 1987, Guzmán said to these authors that his discovery of Hayek had significantly altered his own views since 1974. I thank Professor Arturo Valenzuela for confirming Guzmán’s expressions.

110 See Valdés (n 100) 247–51; Fisher (n 105) 316; Fontaine Aldunate (n 106) 18–19.

111 S de Castro, El Ladrillo: Bases de la Política Económica del Gobierno Militar (Centro de Estudios Públicos, Santiago, 1992).

112 Harberger, AC, ‘Secrets of Success: A Handful of Heroes’ (1993) 83 The American Economic Review 2, 345.Google Scholar

113 De Castro (n 111) 48.

114 Ibid 60.

115 Ibid 142. The Brick will follow Friedman’s model of direct transfer or subsidy targeted to the extreme poor population.

116 Whyte, J, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism (Verso, London, 2019) 172.Google Scholar

117 Ibid 185.

118 Ibid 184.

119 Ibid 173.

120 See Fontaine Aldunate (n 106) 20.

121 See Constable, P and Valenzuela, A, A Nation of Enemies: Chile under Pinochet (WW Norton, New York, 1993) 171.Google Scholar

122 Fisher (n 105) 320.

123 See (n 121) 190. The support from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for these policies would be decisive for its success. See also P Silva, In the Name of Reason: Technocrats and Politics in Chile (Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park PA, 2008) 231.

124 Kelsen would call constitutional revolution a constitutional change not following the existing constitutional reform procedure. See Kelsen (n 50) 208–09.

125 Article 3, Law Decree No. 1, 18 September 1973 and Law Decree No. 128, 16 November 1973. See also Barros (n 104) 84.

126 Supreme Decree No. 1.064, 12 November 1973.

127 See CENC Session No. 388 (06/27/78).

128 Ibid 174–75. This draft was sent to the Council of State for review, and in July 1980 the junta introduced the final changes.

129 CENC Session (hereinafter, Session) No. 243 (08/11/76).

130 See Session No. 37 (05/02/74). See also Session No. 361 (04/27/78).

131 Declaración de Principios de la Junta de Gobierno de Chile, 11 March 1974. Underlying the common good is a rejection of the Marxist idea of class struggle. Thomas Aquinas defines law as ‘an ordinance of reason made for the common good’. See T Aquinas, Philosophical Texts, (Oxford University Press, New York, 1960) 354–55.

132 See Declaración de Principios de la Junta de Gobierno de Chile (n 131), Sección II.

133 Ibid.

134 See ‘Discurso de S.E. el Presidente de la República General de Ejército D. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte’ (1977) Nueva Institucionalidad en Chile.

135 Session No. 353 (04/19/78). Also, Session No. 327 (11/15/77) and 328 (11/16/77).

136 See Hayek (n 47–50).

137 Friedrich, CJ, The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective (2nd edn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963) 43, 50.Google Scholar

138 As Foucault notes, neoliberalism was connected with Hayek’s effort to apply the rule of law to the economic order. See (n 7).

139 ‘Entrevista a F von Hayek: La fuerza de la libertad’ (1981) 24 Revista Realidad 2, 27–28.

140 The state was not weakened; to the contrary, it only retired from some functions, such as public sector companies, to strengthen others, such as macroeconomic policy. See Martínez, J and Díaz, A, Chile: The Great Transformation (The Brookings Institution, Washington DC, 1996) 67–68.Google Scholar

141 Session No. 320 (10/05/77).

142 See session No. 345 (04/04/78).

143 See Müller, J-W, Contesting Democracy: Political Thought in Twentieth-Century Europe (Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 2011) 221.Google Scholar

144 See Session No. 9 (10/23/73).

145 See Silva (n 123) 232–34.

146 Art. 62, 1980 Constitución Política de la República (hereinafter, 1980 CP).

147 Session No. 320 (10/05/77).

148 Art. 67, 1980 CP.

149 See session No. 349 (04/12/78); 353 (04/19/78).

150 Art. 64, 1980 CP.

151 Ibid.

152 Ibid.

153 Session No. 394 (07/04/78).

154 Ibid.

155 Session No. 384 (06/14/78). See Art. 97, 98, 1980 C.P.

156 Session No. 3 (09/26/73).

157 See Art. 63 and 82, 1980 C.P. See session No 344 (04/04/78).

158 Session No. 1 (09/24/73). See generally Art. 116–119, 1980 C.P. See also session No. 374 (05/23/78).

159 Art. 1, 1980 C.P.

160 Session No. 388 (06/27/78).

161 Session No. 400 (07/12/78) and 405 (08/08/78).

162 Art. 19 No. 21, 1980 CP.

163 Ibid.

164 Session No. 388 (06/27/78).

165 Art. 19 No. 22, 1980 CP. See also Art. 19 No. 23, 1980 CP.

166 Art. 20, 1980 CP.

167 Session No. 398 (07/11/78) and Session No. 384 (06/14/78).

168 Session No. 399 (07/12/78).

169 Art. 60 No. 7, 1980 CP.

170 Ibid. See Session No. 398 (07/11/78).

171 Art. 60 No. 8 and 9, 1980 C.P. Articles 60 No. 7 and 8 would not apply to the Central Bank.

172 See Session No. 161 (10/28/75).

173 See (n 167). See also art. 19 No. 24, 1980 CP.

174 Ibid.

175 See Session No. 1 (09/24/73); Session No. 3 (09/26/73) item number 3, and Session No. 10 (10/25/73).

176 See Session No. 1 (09/24/73). Also, see Session No. 10 (10/25/73).

177 See Session No. 1. (09/24/73), Session No. 18 (11/22/73).

178 The previous 1925 Constitution, after its 1971 reform known as Estatuto de Garantías Constitucionales, declared in Art. 10 No. 16 that the state would ‘adopt all measures to facilitate the fulfillment of social, economic, and cultural rights necessary for the free development of the personality and human dignity, for the community’s integral protection, and to promote an equitable redistribution of the national income’.

179 See Cea Egaña, JL, Sistema Constitutional de Chile: Síntesis Crítica (Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, 1999) 149.Google Scholar

180 Session No. 139 (07/17/75). See also Session No. 187 (03/10/76) and Session No. 194 (03/25/76).

181 See Session No. 11 (10/30/73) and Session No. 407 (08/09/78).

182 Art. 19 Nos. 9;10;11;18, 1980 C.P. See also Session No. 403 (07/18/78).

183 C Huneeus, El Régimen de Pinochet (Editorial Taurus, Madrid, 2016) 407. See also J Piñera, ‘Milton Friedman y sus recomendaciones a Chile’ (2006), <https://www.elcato.org/milton-friedman-y-sus-recomendaciones-chile> This system was first implemented in Chile; later, other countries such as Mexico, Perú, Colombia and Argentina would follow the same path.

184 Hayek (n 43) 387.

185 Art. 19 No. 16, 1980 CP.

186 Ibid. See also Art. 19 No. 19, 1980 CP.

187 Art. 19 No. 26, 1980 CP.

188 Couso, J, ‘Constructing “Privatopia”: The Role of Constitutional Law in Chile’s Radical Neoliberal Experiment’ in Golder, B and McLoughlin, D (eds), The Politics of Legality in a Neoliberal Age (Routledge, Abingdon, 2018) 92–93.Google Scholar

189 See e.g. Huneeus, C, La democracia semisoberana: Chile después de Pinochet (Taurus, Santiago, 2014).Google Scholar

190 See T Moulian, Chile Actual: Anatomía de un mito (LOM-ARCIS ediciones, Santiago, 1997) 33; MA Garretón, Neoliberalismo corregido y progresismo limitado: los gobiernos de la Concertación en Chile 1990-2010 (Editorial Arcis CLACSO, Santiago, 2012) 85.

191 See Constitutional Court Decision No. 2935/2015 and No. 3016-3026/2016.

192 See PNUD, Informe de Desarrollo Humano en Chile 1998, 210–13, <http://www.undp.org/content/dam/chile/docs/desarrollohumano/undp_cl_idh_informe1998.pdf>.

193 Solimano, A, Chile and the Neoliberal Trap: The Post-Pinochet Era (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2012) 93–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

194 Ibid 95.

195 Ibid.

196 Ibid 119, 134.

197 Streeck, W, Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (Verso, London, 2017) 7–9.Google Scholar

198 Ibid 72–73.

199 Ibid.

200 Ibid 62. As a consequence, citizens increasingly perceive their governments not as their agents, but as those of other states or of international organizations, immeasurably more insulated from electoral pressure than in the traditional nation-state. See W Streeck, ‘How will Capitalism End?’ (2014) 87 New Left Review 92.

201 Notably, former President Eduardo Frei Montalva would refer to the need for the election of a constituent assembly in 1980. The Alianza Democrática, the predecessor of the Concertación, in 1983 would also try to negotiate with the dictatorship convening a constituent assembly. See MA Garretón, Incomplete Democracy: Political Democratization in Chile and Latin America (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC, 2003) 125–31.

202 See Arriagada, G, Pinochet: The Politics of Power (Unwin Hyman, Boston MA, 1988) 55–65.Google Scholar

203 Tushnet, M, ‘Social Movements and the Constitution’ in Tushnet, M, Graber, MA and Levinson, S (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the U.S. Constitution (Oxford University Press, New York, 2015) 241–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

204 JM Balkin, Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2011) 71. Balkin conceptualize this concept with ‘the idea that no institution has a monopoly on the final meaning of the Constitution’. Ibid 10. Balkin is inspired by Sanford Levinson’s concept of protestant constitutionalism. See S Levinson, Constitutional Faith (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2011) Ch 1.

205 Ibid 246. See Eisenstadt, TA, LeVan, AC, and Maboudi, T, Constituents Before Assembly: Participation, Deliberation, and Representation in the Crafting of New Constitution, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017) 104.Google Scholar

206 See RB Siegel, ‘The Jurisgenerative Role of Social Movements in U.S. Constitutional Law’(2004) Seminario en Latinoamérica de Teoria Constitucional y Política (SELA) 5. See also RB Siegel, ‘Constitutional Culture Social Movement Conflict and Constitutional Change: The Case of the De Facto ERA’ (2006) 94 California Law Review 1418.

207 See e.g. Atria, F et. al., El otro modelo: Del orden neoliberal al régimen de lo público (Random House Mondadori, Santiago, 2013).Google Scholar

208 See Ruiz-Tagle, P, Cinco Repúblicas y una tradición (LOM Ediciones, Santiago, 2016) 258–59. See also Garretón (n 190) 187.Google Scholar

209 Ackerman is thinking in the United States, and has no intention of applying his theory to other national constitutional transformations. Ackerman’s purpose is to argue that there is a different type of constitutional change that does not follow the procedure available in Article V of the US Constitution. This does not discard the didactic value of Ackerman’s dualist distinction between a ‘normal politics’ mode that works under the assumption of granting ‘plenary lawmaking authority to the winners of the last general election’ and a ‘higher lawmaking system’ to understand decisions made with the legitimacy of the people in a genuine constitutional moment. The latter is characterized by the existence of a strong political movement or institutional actor that earns the authority to claim this higher lawmaking power after its transformative constitutional reform proposals are successfully tested and are finally subject to a process of legal codification, during which both the legislature and the Supreme Court–in Ackerman’s narrative–translate constitutional politics into constitutional law. See B Ackerman, We the People, Volume 1: Foundations (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991) 6–8, 266–67. Ackerman would return to these phases with a different classification. See B Ackerman, ‘2006 Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures: The Living Constitution’ (2007) 120 Harvard Law Review, 1737, 1757–92.

210 See e.g. Welp, F Soto Barrientos y Y, Los diálogos ciudadanos: Chile ante el giro deliberativo (LOM ediciones, Santiago, 2017).Google Scholar