Den auktoritära staten och ekonomisk utveckling i Chile : Jordbruket under militärregimen 1973-1981

Sammanfattning: The aim of this dissertation is to examine the institutional changes which occurred in Chile under the military regime from 1973-1981, and how these changes can be related to subsequent economic development in the country. The empirical material comprises of an investigation of the new economic policy in the agricultural sector, the political process behind this policy and the social and economic changes it led to. The study uses mostly secondary sources; official documents and publications as well as newspaper and journal articles. A number of interviews with civil servants and politicians were also conducted. The reason for choosing the agricultural sector is that precisely this sector has gone through a comprehensive structural transformation and experienced subsequent dynamic growth. The dissertation attempts to show that this institutional change was carried out by what I call an authoritarian developmentalist state, which both makes it possible for a special development oriented elite to strongly influence economic policy and legislation, and acts highly independently in relation to various particular special interest groups in society. First and foremost, the developmentalist state succeeded in neutralizing the old estate-owning class and its rent-seeking behaviour through a policy which favoured entrepreneurship and technical development in agriculture. In this dissertation I try to analyze the new economic policy and the institutional changes which created it. Empirically, this means that I have studied economic policy in the agricultural sector. The primary focus is on how the new economic policy developed and in what respects this has impacted the development of agriculture. Expressed more precisely, I attempt to answer the following question: How can it be that Chile, which for centuries has had a traditional estate form of agriculture supported by the state, so rapidly came to have new effective agricultural businesses which also became successful export enterprises? My answer is, as I try to show in this disssertation, that the military regime's new economic policy led to institutional changes which created entirely new conditions for agricultural production.