¹ The classic study of the Chilean political party system in the pre-1970 period is Gil, Federico, The Political System of Chile (Boston, 1966)Google Scholar. For analyses of the Chilean political party system of the pre-1973 period, see Valenzuela, Arturo, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile (Baltimore, 1979)Google Scholar; Aldunate, Adolfo, Flisfish, Angel, and Moulián, Tomás, Esttidios sobre sistemas de partidos en Chile (Santiago, 1985)Google Scholar; and Garretón, Manuel Antonio, El proceso político chileno (Santiago, 1983)Google Scholar.

² Loveman, Brian, Chile: The Legacy of Hispanic Capitalism (New York, 1988), p. 265Google Scholar.

³ For an excellent account and analysis of the post-1973 trajectories of the two dominant parties of the Popular Unity coalition, the Chilean Socialist and Communist parties, see Roberts, Kenneth, In Search of a New Identity: Dictatorship, Democracy and the Evolution of the Left in Chile and Peru, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 07 1992Google Scholar.

⁴ For a description of the process of ‘renovation’ of important sectors of the Chilean Socialist Party from 1973 to the mid-1980s, see Walker, Ignacio, Socialismo y democracia: Chile y Europa en perspectiva comparada (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar. There are also several published memoirs, as well as personal interview and essay collections, which recount this process and their roles in it, including: Arrate, Jorge, El retorno verdadero: Textos políticos 1987–1991 (Santiago, 1991)Google Scholar; Guardia, Alexis, Chile, pais centauro: perfil del socialismo renovado (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar; Lagos, Ricardo, Democracia para Chile: Proposiciones de un Socialista (Santiago, 1985)Google Scholar; Viera-Gallo, José Antonio, Chile: Un nuevo camino (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar; and Vodanovic, Hernán, Un socialismo renovado para Chile (Santiago, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁵ Among works in this vein are: Lechner, Norbert, Los patios interiores de la democracia: subjectividad y políico (Santiago, 1988)Google Scholar; Brunner, José Joaquín, La cultura autoritaria en Chile (Santiago, 1981)Google Scholar; Vergara, Pilar, ‘Las transformaciones del Estado chileno bajo el régimen militar’, in FLACSO, Chile 1973–1980 (Santiago, 1983), pp. 65–104Google Scholar; Brunner, ‘La cultura política del autoritarianismo’, in Chile 1973–1980, pp. 211–28; and Tironi, Eugenio, Autoritarismo, modernizatión y marginalidad (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar.

In addition, several Chilean social psychiatrists have been among the pioneers in work on the effects of political repression on Latin American culture and society. See among others, Lira, Elizabeth, ‘Consecuencías psicosociales de la represión en Chile’, Revista de psicología de El Salvador, vol. 7, no. 28 (1988), pp. 143–59Google Scholar; Lira, Elizabeth, Becker, David, Koalskys, Juana, Gómez, Elena, and Castillo, María Isabel, ‘Daño social y memoria colectiva: perspectivas de reparatión’, in Becker, David and Lira, Elizabeth (eds), Derechos Humanos: Todo es según el dolor con que se mira (Santiago, 1989), pp. 195–213Google Scholar; and Lira, Elizabeth and Castillo, María Isabel, Psicología de la amenaza politico y del miedo (Santiago, 1991)Google Scholar.

⁶ I am grateful to Tomás Moulián for his clarification of this point in an interview in November, 1993.

⁷ The term, ‘the common good’, is understood here as the good of others or the good of society as a whole. In opting to examine such debates, this article assumes that individuals who are members of the left have defined their thinking and behaviour largely in terms of action on behalf of the common good. Such thinking and behaviour can hypothetically occur out of pure self-interest, or not, or a mixture.

⁸ While individuals engage in a dynamic relationship with collectivities to define their own identities, the model presented here is concerned with individual rather than collective political identity. The author views the processes of individual and collective identity formation as quite distinct from one another, even though they are related. Moreover, this article has driven home the idea that there is little sense of shared, collective political ideologies, that we are in a period in which individual left political thinkers and activists are struggling to reformulate their visions regarding such questions as the relationship between democracy and social justice and the role of political parties. In an effort to understand such reformulations and their meanings for politics and society, therefore, this article proposes close attention to individual political identity.

⁹ During that period, I conducted approximately seventy interviews of Chilean left leaders and activists. Of these, twenty-five were intensive interviews with Chilean leaders, averaging two-to-three two-hour sessions with each individual. While they do not represent a random sample, they compose approximately one-quarter of the top Chilean left political leadership forced into exile during the Pinochet dictatorship. The individuals in this study span the left political spectrum. At the fall of the Allende government, six were leaders of the Chilean Socialist Party, seven of the Chilean Communist Party, three from the United Popular Action Movement (MAPU), three from the United Popular Action Movement-Worker Peasant Party (MAPU-OC), three from the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), two from the Christian Left (IC), and one from the Radical Party. Seven members spent the majority of their exile in East Berlin (home to the Socialist Party headquarters in exile and a major receiver of Chilean Communist party members), five in Mexico City, four in Rome, three in Central America, two in Moscow, two in West Berlin, one in Budapest, and one in Vienna. By 1990, party allegiance for these members had changed significantly from the past: two members remained in the Chilean Communist Party, while fourteen joined the Chilean Socialist Party (as the MAPU, MAPU-OC, and the IC have essentially collapsed into the Socialist Party), five joined the Party for Democracy (a creation of the Socialist Party which has become its own party), and four joined new left tendencies, including the Party of the Democratic Left (PDI) and the Autonomous Workers Movement (MAS).

During the sessions, members were first asked to recount their life histories and then to discuss their views of democracy, equity, the role of the party and party leaders in the polity society, and their visions and concerns for Chile's future. While I used a questionnaire to ensure basic themes and issues were addressed in the sessions, my questions were primarily open-ended and the interviews were free-flowing.

The objectives of this method were twofold: First, to explore and analyse the individuals' own understandings of their political life trajectories, including the ways they felt they had come to think about politics and their political roles as they did. Second, to relate these narratives to the broader questions of political identity formation and transformation in their historical and political contexts.

This method is quite similar to that used by political scientists Robert Lane and Jennifer Hochschild. In an attempt to reveal the processes by which the ‘common man’ comes to formulate ways of thinking about the world in political terms, Lane created fifteen ‘political autobiographies’ based on a series of intensive interviews with fifteen American men. See Lane, Robert E., Political Ideology: Why the American Common Man Believes What He Does (New York, 1967), pp. 1–11Google Scholar. To examine American notions of distributive justice, Hochshild conducted a similar study with a group of twenty-eight men and women. See Hochschild, Jennifer, What's Fair? American Beliefs about Distributive Justice (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 1–26Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Monroe, Kristen Renwick (ed.), The Economic Approach to Politics: A Critical Reassessment of the Theory of Rational Action (New York, 1991), p. xGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Frohlich, Norman, ‘Self Interest or Altruism, What Difference?’ Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 18, no. 1 (03 1974), p. 57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Ibid. p. 58.

¹³ For a useful overview of the influence of Olson over the past two decades, as well as of recent challenges to concepts deeply influenced by Olson's work, see Mueller, Carol McClurg, ‘Building Social Movement Theory’, in Morris, Aldon and Mueller, Carol McClurg (eds.), Frontiersin Social Movement Theory (New Haven, 1992), pp. 3–25Google Scholar. See also Cohen, Jean, ‘Strategy or Identity: New Theoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements’, Social Research vol. 52 (1985), pp. 663–716Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Kristen Monroe, Michael C. Barton and Ute Klingemann, ‘Altruism and the Theory of Rational Action: An Analysis of Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe’, in Monroe, The Economic Approach, pp. 325–30. For examples of rational actor theorists' approaches to altruism, see Arrow, Kenneth, ‘Gifts and Exchanges’, in Phelps, E. (ed.), Altruism, Morality, and Economic Theory (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Becker, Gordon, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago, 1976)Google Scholar; and Wintrobe, R., ‘It Pays to Do Good. But Not More Good Than It Pays’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 2, no. 3 (1981), pp. 201–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ Cohen, ‘Strategy or Identity’, p. 688.

¹⁶ Ibid. p. 677. This is not to say that identitarian approaches emerged solely as critiques of rational choice approaches. On the contrary, identitarians such as Touraine were engaged in the study of individual and collective action well before the ascendancy of rational choice. My point is that identitarians offer a series of important critiques to rational choice-based explanations.

¹⁷ Bert Klandermans, ‘The Social Construction of Protest and Multiorganizational Fields’, in Morris and Mueller, Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, p. 77.

¹⁸ Cited in Mueller, ‘Building Social Theory’, p. 9.

¹⁹ Monroe et al., ‘Altruism and the Theory of Rational Action’, pp. 326–8.

²⁰ Mansbridge, Jane, ‘The Rise and Fall of Self-interest in the Explanation of Political Life’, in Mansbridge, (ed.), Beyond Self-interest (Chicago, 1990), p. 20Google Scholar.

²¹ David Johnston, ‘Human Agency and Rational Action’, in Monroe, The Economic Approach p. 95.

²² Erikson's two general theoretical works on identity are Identity and the Life Cycle and Identity – Youth and Crisis. His two classic case studies on ego identity are Young Man Luther (1958) and Ghandi's Truth (1969). For a fairly succinct explanation of identity, see ‘The Problem of Ego Identity’, in Erikson, , Identity and the Life Cycle (New York, 1980), pp. 109–74Google Scholar. For a brief and useful analysis of Erikson's work on identity and its potential significance for theories of international relations, see Bloom, William, Personal Identity, National Identity, and International Relations (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 35–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle, cited in Bloom, Personal Identity, p. 37.

²⁴ Erikson, , Life History and the Historical Moment (New York, 1975), p. 19–20Google Scholar. For a useful exploration of the self-other identification process within the field of sociology, see Brim, Orville Jr and Wheeler, Stanton, Socialization After Childhood: Two Essays (New York, 1966)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Bloom, Personal Identity, p. 47. Here again, Bloom provides an extremely useful summary of Habermas's contribution to identity theories.

²⁶ Habermas, Jürgen, Legitimation Crisis (Boston, 1973), p. 69Google Scholar.

²⁷ Bloom Personal Identity, p. 47.

²⁸ Habermas Legitimation Crisis, pp. 3–4.

²⁹ Laitin, David, Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change Among the Yoruba (Chicago, 1986)Google Scholar.

³⁰ Ibid. pp. 19–20. See also ch.7 ‘Rational Choice and Hegemony’, pp. 136–69.

³¹ Laitin provides a detailed appendix regarding his research methodology in Hegemony, pp. 185–205.

³² Linz, Juan and Stepan, Alfred, ‘Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia’, Daedalus, vol. 121 (Spring 1992), pp. 123–39Google Scholar.

³³ Ibid. p. 124.

³⁴ Ibid. p. 124.

³⁵ Bloom Personal Identity, p. 22.

³⁶ Ibid. pp. 23, 25–53

³⁷ Ibid. p. 23.

³⁸ Mainwaring, Scott, ‘Grassroots Popular Movements, Identity, and Democratization in Brazil’, Working Paper no. 84 (10 1986), Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame, pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

³⁹ Monroe et al., ‘Altruism and the Theory Action’, p. 326.

⁴⁰ Ibid. p. 318.

⁴¹ While I have termed a select group of individuals in this study the ‘thinkers’, this is no way meant to imply that those in other categories of my typology do not ‘think’. Indeed, all the members of this study are extremely intelligent and reflective individuals.

⁴² The Party for Democracy was founded in 1987 by the ‘renovated’ sectors of the Chilean Socialist Party and other Chilean left leaders. It was founded as an instrumentalist party in the context of Chile's 1980 Constitution rendering Marxist parties illegal.

⁴³ See. Snow, David, Zurcher, Louis Jr, and Ekland-Olson, Sheldon, ‘Social Networks and Social Movements: A Microstructural Approach to Differential Recruitment’, American Sociological Review, vol. 45 (1980), pp. 787–801CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Debra Friedman and Doug MacAdam, ‘Collective Identity' and Activism: Networks, Choices, and the Life of a Social Movement’, in Morris and Mueller, Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, pp. 156–73. For a useful social network approach to the study of intellectuals, see Brym, Robert J., Intellectuals and Politics (London, 1980)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Friedman and MacAdam, ‘Collective Identity’, p. 156. For a useful discussion of the structure-agency debate within the social sciences, see Mayhew, Bruce, ‘Structuralism versus Individualism’, Social Forces, vol. 59 (1980), pp. 335–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ For a classic look at generational analysis, see Mannheim, Karl, ‘The Problem of Generations’, in Altbach, Philip and Laufer, Robert (eds.), The New Pilgrims: Youth Protest in Transition (New York, 1972), pp. 101–38Google Scholar. This anthology includes several analyses of the 1960s generation as a unique twentieth-century cohort. For an overview of the generational debate, see Bengston, Vern, Furlong, Michael, and Laufer, Robert, ‘Time, Aging, and the Continuity of Social Structure: Themes and Issues in Generational Analysis’, Journal of Social Issues, vol. 30, No. 2 (1974), pp. 1–30Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Viera-Gallo, José Antonio, Chile: Un camino nuevo (Santiago, 1989), p. 21Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Ibid., pp. 29–30.

⁴⁸ In the same way it is significant that in the recent presidential elections (December 1993), the leading contestants were Eduardo Frei, Jr. and Arturo Alessandri, a son and a nephew, respectively, of former Chilean presidents.

⁴⁹ On Vietnam veterans, see Laufer, Robert, ‘The Aftermath of War: Adult Socialization and Political Development’, in Sigel, Roberta (ed.), Political Learning in Adulthood: A Sourcebook of Theory and Research (Chicago, 1989), pp. 415–57Google Scholar. On holocaust victims, see Irving Louis Horowitz, ‘The Texture of Terrorism: Socialization, Routinization and Integration’, in Sigel, op. cit. pp. 386–414. Sigel's edited volume provides a series of excellent critiques of the limits to standard political socialisation arguments, whose conventional wisdom holds that individuals' political worldviews tend to be formed and fixed by adolescence.

⁵⁰ One of the chief initiators of these inquiries was Salvadoran social psychologist and former Academic Vice Rector of the José Simeón Canas University Ignacio Martín Baró, who was one of the several Jesuit priests murdered in their residency in 1989. His most influential works included Guerra y salud mental (San Salvador, 1984); and Acción e Ideología (San Salvador, 1985). Chilean pioneers in this field include social psychologists Elizabeth Lira, María Isabel Castillo, David Becker, Valentina Arcos, Ana Julia Cienfuegos, and Cristina Monelli. Important compilations of their work can be found in Becker, David and Lira, Elizabeth (eds.), Derechos Humanos: Todo es según el dolor conque se mira (Santiago, 1990)Google Scholar; Lira, Elizabeth and Castillo, María Isabel (eds.), Psicologia de la amenaza política y del miedo (Santiago, 1991)Google Scholar; and the Fundación de Ayuda Social de las Iglesias Cristianas, Escritos sobre exilio y retorno (1978–1984) (Santiago, 1984)Google Scholar.

⁵¹ See, for example, Bermeo, Nancy, ‘Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship’, Comparative Politics, vol. 24, No. 3 (04 1992), pp. 273–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also O'Donnell, Guillermo and Schmitter, Philippe, Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, 1986)Google Scholar.

⁵² See, for example, Puccio, Osvaldo, ‘Repoliticizar la política’, Hoy, No. 862, 30 01 1994Google Scholar.