Power Sharing and Administrative Reforms: The Case of Chile, 1925–31

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Origins of State Building

Abstract

A large body of literature seems to agree that power concentration increases decision-making efficiency in democracies, but that power sharing is the key to understand critical reform in autocracies. In this paper we argue, based on data from a case study of Chile before and after the breakdown of democracy in 1924, that power sharing may indeed block reforms in democracies but that it can also do so in autocracies. Using novel longitudinal data on number of personnel and salaries in the Ministry of Finance, as well as a comprehensive compendium of administrative and fiscal reforms, we examine the degree to which the Chilean state reformed its bureaucracy during this period and the role that power-sharing played in it. Our preliminary results suggest that the military dictatorship brought about substantial administrative reforms based on a severe restructuration of the fiscal administration as well as meritocratic rules of appointment and promotion. The ability of the dictatorship to sideline previous powerful actors in parliament and to gain the acquiescence of the army as well as mining and industrialist interests appear to be key to these transformations. The dictatorship built a new support coalition based on young officers and middle-class professionals that resented what they saw as an inefficient oligarchic parliamentary system. The new regime succumbed to the 1930s economic crises and the rise of social turmoil, but some of the administrative reforms persisted, setting Chile on a path to become one of the strongest states in the Southern Cone to date.

Authors

• Per Fredrik Andersson, Stockholm University

• Oriol Sabaté, University of Barcelona

• Jan Teorell, Stockholm University