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CHILE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE 1990s. By David E. Hojman. (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. Pp. 242. $49.95 cloth.) THE CHILEAN ECONOMY. POLICY LESSONS AND CHALLENGES. Edited by Barry P Bosworth, Rudiger Dornbusch, and Raul Laban. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994. Pp. 441. $46.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.) CHILE'S FREE-MARKET MIRACLE: A SECOND LOOK. By Joseph Collins and John Lear. (Oakland, Calif.: Food First, 1995. Pp. 320. $15.95 paper.) POLITICS IN CHILE: DEMOCRACY, AUTHORITARIANISM, AND THE SEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT By Lois Hecht Oppenheim. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993. Pp. 260. $54.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.) DEMOCRACY AND POVERTY IN CHILE. By James Petras, Fernando Ignacio Leiva, and Henry Veltmeyer. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994. Pp. 215. $54.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.)
PINOCHET'S ECONOMISTS: THE CHICAGO SCHOOL IN CHILE. By Juan Gabriel Valdes. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. 334. $49.95 cloth.)
Chile is often taken by admirers and critics alike to be the quintessential model of neoliberal modernization in Latin America in the late twentieth century It was the first country in the region to embrace economic neoliberalism after the 1973 coup that brought down the socialist coalition government of Salvador Allende. Chile's embrace of neoliberalism was also the most thoroughgoing inasmuch as the country avoided the heterodox detours that characterized many other Latin American countries throughout the 1980s. Chile's adherence to the classical economic development doctrine based on liberalization and free trade has been so complete and so successful in generating high rates of export-led growth that the country's recent economic record has been favorably compared by some to the performance of the four `Asian tigers" (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan).
The Chilean experience in neoliberalism is also distinguished from those of other Latin American countries in that its economic reforms were initiated, carried out, and consolidated largely prior to its transition back to democratic government. The Chilean case thus contradicts much thinking that envisions a necessary and causal link between political and economic liberalization. This review essay will provide an overview of selected recent scholarship on the political economy of neoliberal reform in Chile and will comment on the specifics of the Chilean case as well as the more general lessons it implies for other "transition economies."
Broad agreement...