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Social sciences in Latin America (1930–2003)
Les sciences sociales en Amérique latine (1930–2003)
Manuel Antonio Garretón
Social sciences and society in Chile:Social sciences and society
in Chile:institutionalization, breakdown and
rebirthinstitutionalization, breakdown and rebirth
Abstract. Social sciences emerged in Chile during the mid-1950s
in a context ofsocial transformations that marked their foundation
and consolidation as scientificdisciplines. This article deals with
the general background of the installation of thesedisciplines,
particularly sociology, their later consolidation and the
subsequent processof dismantling and re-composition, from the point
of view of their institutionalizationand internationalization. Like
all research, this is a partial perspective, nurturedwith the views
of the generation that followed the foundational phase, which has
itsconceptual bases in what we have called the ‘‘social sciences
development model’’ orproject, and the contributions of a series of
other authors. In the Chilean case, severalauthors agree on the
identification of three periods in the development of social
sciences,viewed as institutional milestones, even though we
consider sub-periods within eachone. A first period of creation,
institutionalization and professionalization goes fromthe mid-1950s
until 1973. A second period coincides with the military
dictatorship(1973–89), during which the majority of social sciences
had to abandon their homein universities. Such a loss was
compensated by the creation of a variety of independentacademic
centers, which permitted a development of these disciplines
associated with agrowing process of thematic specialization. The
third phase corresponds to the return ofa democratic regime
(1990–2003), a period in which social sciences again
situatedthemselves preferably in universities, occasioning a new
expansion of professionaltraining programs and institutions. The
article traces these phases in view of goingbeyond a history of the
disciplines to develop an analytical perspective that accounts
forthe characteristics of the context, the institutional
dimensions, the thematic contentsand their role in society.
I thank Carolina Gaı́nza, Claudia Gutiérrez and Angélica Cruz
for their collaboration in data
collection and the elaboration and revision of preliminary
manuscripts of this article, and
Catalina Moya for the preliminary translation and Antonia
Errázuriz for the revised translation.
Social Science Information & 2005 SAGE Publications (London,
Thousand Oaks, CA and NewDelhi), 0539-0184
DOI: 10.1177/0539018405053292 Vol 44(2 & 3), pp. 359–409;
053292
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Key words. Chile – Democracy – Institutionalization –
Internationalization – Militarydictatorship – Professionalization –
Social sciences – University
Résumé. Les sciences sociales sont apparues au Chili vers le
milieu des années 1950dans un contexte de transformations sociales
qui ont marqué leur fondation et leurconsolidation en tant que
disciplines scientifiques. Cet article s’intéresse au
contexteglobal de l’installation de ces disciplines (en particulier
la sociologie), à leurconsolidation institutionnelle, et au
processus de démantèlement puis de re-compositionqui a suivi, du
point de vue de leur institutionnalisation et de
leurinternationalisation. Comme toute recherche, il s’agit d’une
perspective partielle nourriepar les points de vue de la
génération qui a suivi la phase de fondation, et dont
lesfondements conceptuels se trouvent dans ce que l’auteur a
appelé le ‘‘modèle dedéveloppement des sciences sociales’’ et
dans les contributions d’autres auteurs. Dans lecas Chilien,
nombreux sont ceux qui s’accordent sur l’identification de trois
périodesdans le développement des sciences sociales, qui
constituent des jalons institutionnels,même si l’on considère
également des sous-périodes. Une première période de
création,institutionnalisation et professionnalisation va du
milieu des années 1950 à 1973.Une deuxième période coı̈ncide
avec la dictature militaire (1973–89) durant laquellela majorité
des sciences sociales ont du quitter les universités. Cette perte
a étécompensée par la création de divers centres académiques
indépendants, ce qui a permisle développement de ces disciplines
associé à l’essor de la spécialisation thématique. Latroisième
phase correspond au retour d’un régime démocratique (1990–2003),
périodeoù les sciences sociales retrouvent à nouveau leur place
privilégiée dans les universités,et qui résulte en une nouvelle
expansion des carrières et des institutions. L’articleretrace ces
différentes phases en se proposant d’aller au delà de l’histoire
de cesdisciplines et de développer une perspective analytique qui
rende compte descaractéristiques, du contexte global, des
dimensions institutionnelles, des contenusthématiques et du rôle
de ces disciplines dans la société.
Mots-clés. Chili – Démocratie – Dictature militaire –
Institutionnalisation –Internationalisation – Professionnalisation
– Université
1. Creation, institutionalization and professionalization
Background
Several authors (Godoy, 1974; Barrios and Barrios, 1986;
Courardand Frohman, 1999; Garretón, 1989) agree on the
identification ofthree periods in the development of modern social
sciences inChile (see Tables 1 and 2). The first period, which goes
from thebeginning of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, more
preciselyto 1973, could be defined as a foundational period, and
one of
360 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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growing valuation and expansion of the social sciences, which
trans-lated into rapid professionalization and institutional
development.This process was based on some assumptions not always
made expli-cit. On the one hand, there was a social atmosphere that
had to dowith a society feeling it was undergoing a deep
transformation andwhich recognized the necessity of calling on a
kind of ‘‘expert’’understanding of the new things that were going
on and proposingalternatives to what was happening. On the other
hand, there wasa high level of legitimacy of critical thought on
society with an insti-tution for its pursuit. Thus, the social
sciences were recognized as theconscience of society and were aware
of their different historical pro-jects (Arrau, 1984; Baño, 1984;
Garretón, 1982; Vasconi, 1996).
The institutionalization of disciplines was preceded by a
transitionphase from a ‘‘chair’’ and ‘‘essay’’ sociology1 to an
empirical scien-tific sociology. In the former phase sociology was
understood ascourses given by amateur professors and as diverse
papers by avariety of authors interpreting the national
reality.2
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 361
Acronyms used
AHC Academia de Humanismo Cristiano (Christian Humanism
Academy)
CEP Centro de Estudios Públicos (Public Studies Center)
CEPAL Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe
(Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean)
CEPLAN Centro de Estudios de Planificación (Planning Studies
Center at the
Catholic University) later
CIEPLAN (Centro de Investigación y Estudios de Planificación –
Center for
Research and Planning Studies)
CERC Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Contemporánea (Center
for
Research on Contemporary Reality)
CEREN Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Nacional (National
Reality
Center)
CESO Centro de Estudios Socio-económicos (Socio-economic
Studies
Center of the University of Chile)
CLACSO Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (Latin
America
Social Sciences Council)
CONICYT Comisión Nacional para la Ciencia y la Tecnologı́a
(National
Commission for Science and Technology)
FLACSO Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Latin
American
School of Social Sciences)
PPD Partido por la Democracia (Party for Democracy)
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TABLE 1
Institutional-political panorama according to the
institutionalization periods of social sciences
Period Foundations
1950–73
Rupture
1973–89
Post-authoritarianism
1990–2003
Political regime and
its evolution
Stable presidential democracy based
on 1925 constitution, with slow
gradual electoral inclusiveness.
Military dictatorship. Imposition of
1980 constitution and the neo-liberal
model. Decentralization and
privatization with a geopolitical view
of power.
Presidential regime, incomplete
process of democratization. Presence
of institutional authoritarian enclaves.
Bi-nominal, non-representative
electoral system that gives over powers
to the Right, initial veto power of
armed forces with impunity for
dictatorship crimes.
Type and
consistency of party
systems
Full party landscape from right to left.
1952–8 Attempt to destroy party
system (Ibañez). Electoral Law (1958)
allows consolidation and expansion
of the system in the 1964 elections.
Radicalization and polarization
(1967 onwards).
Elimination of electoral registers and
official suppression of parties.
Re-emergence of old opposition
parties and creation of new right-wing
parties. Beginning of large party
alliances against (center-left) or for
(right-wing) dictatorship.
Creation of large coalitions –
Concertación de Partidos por la
Democracia (Coalition of Parties for
Democracy) (center-left), Alianza por
Chile (Alliance for Chile) (center-right
and right more conservative). Left-
wing parties like the Communist Party
without parliamentary representation.
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3
Social-economic
context
‘‘Inward development’’ model based
on import substitution
industrialization. Growing
mobilization of social actors.
Agrarian reform since 1965.
Widespread nationalization of firms
and ‘‘Chilean road to socialism’’
1970–3.
Neo-liberal model. Radical processes
of deregulation and privatization.
Big economic crisis in 1981–2.
Increasing poverty and inequalities.
Market-oriented model with
corrections to the role of the state and
policies against poverty.
Historical role of
the state
Benefactor and reformist state.
Principal agent in socio-economic
development and reference of
collective action.
Substantive reduction in role of
development. Main agent of
repression and control. Few targeted
policies.
Regulatory state. Active role in
globalization, infrastructure and social
policies (health, education).
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Institutionalization and internationalization of social sciences
according to institutionalization periods
Period Foundations
1950–73
Rupture
1973–89
Post-authoritarianism
1990–2003
Sociopolitical and
cultural context
‘‘Inward development’’ model based
on import substitution
industrialization. Stable democratic
political regime. Gradual and
progressive although segmented
social democratization. Growing
mobilization of social-political actors
endowed with ideological and
organic identity. Ideology inclined
towards social change. State role as
engine for economic development
and as reference of collective action.
Role of party system in the
constitution of actors and
orientations. Polarization and
radicalization since mid-1960s.
Military dictatorship. Imposition of
1980 Constitution. Neo-liberal model.
Decentralization and privatization
with a geopolitical view of power.
Attempt to eliminate and break up
previous social mobilization and
organization. Extensive and intensive
use of repression of individuals and
organizations. Permanent ‘‘state of
emergency’’.
Presidential regime, incomplete
process of democratization. Presence
of institutional authoritarian enclaves:
non-representative bi-nominal system,
climate of impunity for dictatorship
crimes. Mechanisms inherited from the
military regime have a strong impact
on current higher education system.
Media concentration linked to the
Right. Since 1990, three-party center-
left coalition government, with
corrections of the inherited socio-
economic model, especially social
policies.
Institutionalization
of disciplines
Institutes and schools of sociology
and anthropology in main
universities created since mid-1950s.
Political science present in only one
university in 1970. Interdisciplinary
centers in main universities since
mid-1960s.
Break-up of previous model and
dispersion and struggle for survival.
Military intervention in universities,
quantitative and qualitative
reduction especially in sociology and
anthropology. Exile. Reconstruction
outside universities of independent
Reformulation of the social science
model. Expansion and differentiation
of university social science institutions
under the inherited regulatory
framework for higher education and
without a special effort on the part of
the democratic governments in social
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5
academic centers since 1976, some
with protection of the Church since
the end of the 1970s. Some teaching
presence of social sciences in new
private universities.
science matters. Weakening of
independent academic centers.
Opening of undergraduate and
graduate (master’s degrees only)
programs in all social sciences and
graduate programs in interdisciplinary
areas like education, communications,
gender, culture, ecology, urbanism,
international relations.
Professionalization
and job market
Relative expansion of job market.
Enterprises: economics; state:
economics and sociology; universities:
economics, sociology, history,
anthropology. Sociologists in social
organizations and Church
institutions, etc.
Closing of university institutions,
interruption of degrees, exile, high
unemployment. Stigmatization of
social scientists caused their ban
from job market. Independent
centers and teaching in private
universities, churches, publicity
and marketing.
Diversification and expansion. New
type of professionalization. Job
market: NGOs, grants from national,
regional and local governments,
organs of market research,
communications consultants, teaching
in universities and minor modes of
research.
Contents and
orientations
Professional-scientific and critical-
scientific projects. In schools,
structural models and Parsons’s
functionalism predominate. In centers,
in addition to the structural dualism
scheme, are added the development,
sub-development and marginality
models. Integrated approaches to
national problems: development,
agriculture, education,
Intellectual production outside
universities. No unique or exclusive
paradigms. Restricted academic
production describes and, until
mid-1980s, denounces the economic,
social, ideological and political model.
Re-evaluation of the social processes
preceding the military regime and
new subjects like state, democracy,
renewal of politics and socialism.
Transition, democratization,
modernization and national
integration as the principal context of
study. Phenomenon of domination
and resistance; themes of exclusion,
politics of the state, civil society. A new
actor: public opinion. The question:
whether we are facing a change of
regime or a change in the type of
society.
continued on next page
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Period Foundations
1950–73
Rupture
1973–89
Post-authoritarianism
1990–2003
Contents and
orientations
regional planning, etc. Also global
analysis of society: structural reforms,
modernization, non-capitalist paths to
development, etc. (academy and
professionals). Since mid-1960s,
predominance of structural Marxism,
class struggle and dependency
approaches.
Incipient search for re-formulations
of theoretical-analytic frameworks.
Reflection aimed at understanding
the nature of the structural and
institutional transformations. Study
of social actors. Techniques: statistical
study, systematic observations, action-
research, documentary work. Opinion
surveys and focus groups prohibited
until mid-1980s and then deployed.
Internationalization International institutions devoted to
social sciences (CEPAL, FLACSO,
Escuela Latinoamericana de Post
Grado [Escolatina]). External
support for the formation of centers,
schools and institutes that allow
institutionalization of disciplines,
with academic exchange for training.
Institutional grants for graduate
training abroad.
Training abroad of social scientists
expelled from the country at
undergraduate and graduate levels.
Financial aid to and academic
cooperation with independent
academic centers as alternative to
universities. Crucial role of external
governmental and private
foundations and networks.
Redefinition. On one hand, reduction
of foreign funds to independent
academic centers and lack of
significant funding to universities for
institution building. On the other,
reinforcement of agreements for
graduate study with foreign
universities; re-inauguration of
government and non-government
scholarship programs for graduate
studies. Importance of Latin American
comparative studies.
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The transition between these sociological styles was in the
contextof the process of social change that marked the 1940s. The
first land-mark was the victory of the Popular Front in 1938 and a
coalitiongovernment made up of the middle and working classes,
whichaffected power distribution. The second was the new model
ofdevelopment advanced by the post-war period, consisting of
animport substitution industrialization, especially since the
creationof the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción
(Corporationfor the Promotion of Production), which transformed the
produc-tive structure and diversified the economic system in
accordancewith the changes in the sociopolitical structure. All
these processescontributed to increase urban concentration and
expansion of publicservices.
Opposite the economic and sociopolitical diversification
thatincreased the complexity of Chilean society there emerged the
neces-sity of creating academic structures for research on those
processes,which involved the different social disciplines as well
as the forma-tion of specialists.
Context: political, socio-economic and cultural
transformations
In the 1930s a series of changes began in Chile that modified
themodel of development and challenged the established
oligarchicorder, a transformation, which, after a political
recession between1947 and 1957, profoundly accelerated from 1964 on
(Godoy, 1974).The foundational process of the social sciences is
related to the prin-cipal traits of this sociopolitical, cultural
and institutional trans-formation: first, the correlation between
an ‘‘inward’’ model ofdevelopment, a stable democratic political
regime and a gradual pro-cess of social democratization, although
segmented and contra-dictory, with growing mobilization of
sociopolitical actors endowedwith ideological and organic
identities; second, the predominantrole of the state as the motor
of economic development and as areferent of collective action, and
the significant role of the partysystem in the constitution of
actors and social orientations; third,the legitimacy and
predominance of ideologies of social change.
In political terms, one must have in mind some political
sub-periods surrounding the foundation and institutionalization
ofsocial sciences. The first is the Ibañez government and the
attemptto destroy the party system (1952–8), even though the
political
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 367
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parties were rebuilt and consolidated as a central element of
thecollective action. The second is the enactment of the electoral
lawof 1958 that rescinded the ban placed on the Communist Party
in1947 and allowed the expansion of political participation
expressedin the elections of 1964. Then came the first right-wing
government,beginning in the 1930s, with Jorge Alessandri (1958–64),
and theconsolidation of the poles of the center (Democracia
Cristiana/Christian Democratic Party) and the left (Frente de
Acción Popular/Popular Action Front, and later Unidad
Popular/Popular Union).The sub-period 1964–73 was one of great
radicalization and polari-zation, and included the reformist
governments of Eduardo Frei andthe Democracia Cristiana, and their
‘‘revolution in liberty’’ (1964–70), and the Salvador Allende
government and Unidad Popular(Communists, Socialists and other
minor left-wing parties) withtheir ‘‘Chilean road to socialism’’
(1970–3).In this frame, the central ‘‘problématique’’ for the
social sciences
were the creation of institutional bases and analysis of the
society,with emphasis on the issues of underdevelopment and the
structuralreforms that were going on. In this sense, the first
generation ofsocial scientists, basically sociologists, had a
heightened role inFrei’s government of the ‘‘revolution in
liberty’’. With his presi-dential campaign and under his
government, the social sciencesfound a space of professional
insertion through the development ofsocial diagnosis and the
policies of socio-economic, agrarian andeducational reforms, and
popular promotion. Nevertheless, in thesame period, the first
suspicions about the new discipline appeared,after the polemics
surrounding the Camelot Plan (1965), as anexpression of the
manipulation of the social sciences by internationalpolitical
power, in other words, the USA.3
In 1967, a political radicalization in the country began that,
from1970 onwards, led to polarization. The same phenomenon also
per-meated the universities. On the one hand, at an institutional
level,academic structures were transformed into a battleground
forpower, which in some cases was resolved by creating parallel
institu-tions, particularly in the social sciences (Garretón,
1982). On theother hand, the contents of the social sciences were
ideologized,with an apologetic or denunciative emphasis on reality.
In addition,structural Marxism (Althusser, Poulantzas) was
widespread in thetheoretical field, which criticized the
structural-functionalist viewspredominant until then, considering
them to be linked to Americanviews on the Cold War. At the
political level, the radicalization was
368 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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associated with Marxism-Leninism and the influence of the
Cubanrevolution. Consequently, the student movement and students
insocial sciences – the majority of whom were leftists – tended to
aban-don the universities and the disciplines for involvement in
social andpolitical strategies, which were played out outside the
classrooms.On the horizon was the 1970 presidential election in
which for thefirst time the left wing established a socialist
project and a program:to create a social-property area by legally
expropriating monopoliesso as to make way for socialism within the
democratic frame.
From an economic point of view, the deepening of the
‘‘inwarddevelopment’’ model translated into big state investments,
con-sumption expansion and increasing expenditure on education,
whichimplied the expansion of university enrollment and budget.
The cultural atmosphere favoring radical social change
trans-formed in a common sense the thesis of the exhaustion of the
refor-mist process of the Frei government. Consequently, the right,
centerand left were radicalized. The right wing affirmed a more
authori-tarian capitalist development, the Christian Democratic
Partyformulated the necessity for an ‘‘anti-neo-capitalist’’
revolution, andthe left wing and Unidad Popular proclaimed
socialism on an elec-toral basis. This coalition governed from 1970
to 1973, unleashing aradical process of economic and social
transformation that endedwith the overthrow of the government by
the military coup led byGeneral Pinochet.
Institutionalization and disciplines
In contrast to the later phases, when politics intervened
directly inthe development of the university and social sciences,
our hypothesisconcerning their creation and institutionalization is
that the socio-political context acted more as a cultural climate
or dominant intel-lectual ideology, where the central problem was
development.University and academic discipline and life have a
density of theirown. This density was thinning at the end of the
period.
The installation, in Santiago, of the Comisión Economica
paraAmérica Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL, Economic Commission
forLatin American and the Caribbean) in 1949 and, since 1955,
itsDivision of Social Affairs, as well as the School of
EconomicSciences and the Institute of Economics of the University
of Chile,responded and contributed to this esprit du temps. These
institutions
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 369
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defined development as the fundamental and central
historicalproblem of our societies. Thus, the need for experts to
deal with thisnew issue was legitimized and identified basically
with sociologists.The best and the earliest definition of sociology
as a theoretical
and empirical scientific discipline having a specific objective
forLatin America was formulated by Medina Echavarrı́a, first
inMexico and then in Chile; later he was appointed Head of the
Sociol-ogy School of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias
Sociales(FLACSO, Latin American School of Social Sciences). At
CEPALhe brought in sociological reflection and research both from a
theo-retical perspective and from the standpoint of the analysis of
socialdevelopment. Around him grew an important group of young
LatinAmerican sociologists.We will consider two main sub-phases of
this period of creation:
institutionalization, which involved the foundations and early
steps(from 1950 to the beginning of the 1960s); and
professionalization,consolidation, and expansion (from beginning of
the 1960s until1973).4
The mid-1950s to the beginning of the 1960s: foundations and
firstinstitutionalization phase
The first period was characterized by the building of the first
institu-tions linked to anthropology and sociology, starting in the
mid- andlate 1950s (Berdichewsky, 1998).In 1946, the Sociology
Research Institute was created in the
University of Chile, though without much success in the
beginning.In 1956, it was re-founded, with Eduardo Hamuy as
Director, whichsubstantially improved its work. Sociology degrees
began beingawarded in 1959 in the Catholic University of Chile,
which wasbetter developed than the University of Chile. Even though
theSchool of Sociology at the University of Chile was founded
in1958, it did not actually get under way until the beginning of
the1960s, principally because of the conflict between ‘‘chair’’ and
‘‘pro-fessional’’ sociologists.The University of Chile’s Institute
of Sociology completed a fun-
damental task in the institutionalization of empirical and
scientificsociology, being one of the pioneers in the region. The
Institutesent students to Europe and the USA, thereby initiating
systematictraining of sociologists; it also organized a specialized
library, the
370 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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first of its kind in Latin America, and initiated field research
onissues like land ownership in agriculture, education, public
opinionand industry.5
In its turn, the School of Sociology of the Catholic
University,with Roger Vekemans, SJ, initially emphasized social
philosophyand the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The
return ofChilean sociologists sent to the USA to acquire
professional trainingre-oriented the discipline in a more
scientific way,6 while the Institutehad a greater influence on
professional training than on research.A short time later, the
Central Institute of Sociology was createdat the University of
Concepción; it was founded by Raúl Samueland afterwards
reorganized byGuillermo Briones, rapidly increasingenrollments.
The institutionalization of anthropology and political
scienceduring this period was weaker (Orellana, 1988). The partial
exclu-sion of anthropological studies was maintained throughout
the1960s (Bengoa, 1997). Although the Anthropology Study Centerwas
set up in 1954, it was only at the end of the 1960s that the
pro-fessional training program began at the University of
Concepciónin 1968 (Garbulsky, 1998), and in 1970 at the University
of Chile(Arnold, 1990).
In 1954 the Political and Administrative Sciences Institute
wasfounded at the University of Chile, in 1957 an institute bearing
thesame name was created in the University of Concepción, and
in1970 the Institute of Political Science was started in the
CatholicUniversity. The first two, however, despite being
institutions, con-tinued to be strongly marked by the tradition of
law teaching(Fernández, 1997). Thus until the end of the 1960s the
only placeof research and systematic formulation in modern
political sciencewas the Escuela Latinoamericana de Ciencias
Polı́ticas (LatinAmerican School of Political Sciences) at
FLACSO.
Thus at the beginning of the 1960s there was already an
affirma-tion of disciplinary identities linked to scientific
training and research.Despite the later development of political
science, this was a timeof expansion of the social sciences in the
country, in which theywere gaining prestige and experiencing a
social demand for theirknowledge.
With few exceptions, the institutional base was provided by
theuniversities, where the teaching was basically at the
undergraduatelevel with a few graduate courses in economics. As to
the theoreticalorientations in sociology, the functionalist focus
with its analytic
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 371
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frame, based on modernization and a limited concept of
develop-ment, prevailed. As a consequence of the preoccupation with
teach-ing, works published in sociology during that period were
scarce.7
Beginning of the 1960s to 1973: professionalization, expansion
andconsolidation
This period saw the consolidation and expansion of social
sciences.At this stage, all of the disciplines had a systematic
undergraduatecycle that ensured professional and academic
reproduction. Theenrollment of undergraduates in social sciences,
which was 10.4 per-cent of the total university enrollment in 1957,
increased to 15.2 per-cent in 1967, falling back only slightly to
15.0 percent in 1973.The graduates, especially those in economics,
from schools and
institutes encountered a job market in relative expansion,
generatedprincipally by the state, the universities and companies.
To this canbe added a small occupational market linked to social
organizationsor industrial and agricultural unions, and the
churches.Concerning teaching, the sociology schools adopted plans
and
study programs that mixed the curricula of the American
uni-versities with some of the more humanist traditions of
Europeansociology. That meant going through an initial phase
(philosophy,history, mathematics, introduction to social sciences,
etc.) andthen moving on to sociology; specialization was left for
advancedcourses. To the predominant survey-methodological approach
wasadded a more comprehensive analysis of the social frame,
usingdemographic, social, economic and cultural indicators
(Godoy,1974).More integrated views were promoted for analyzing
national
problems. That gave rise to interdisciplinary centers at
universitiesand at state agencies which were defined by their
research on prob-lem areas (development, agriculture, education,
urban and regionalplanning) or by a more global analysis of
society. These institutionsbrought together academics and
professionals from diverse scientificsocial disciplines.The
creation of those centers helped reduce the gap between
empirical research and teaching,8 and, at the same time,
promotedthe study of social change in Latin American, that is,
Latin Americaas an analytical object of social research. While
formal and abstractmodels linked to functionalism predominated in
the schools, the
372 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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analytical approaches in the new university research centers
weremore concretely oriented towards national and regional
reality(Brunner, 1986; Godoy, 1974).
At the end of this period, a new emphasis on
interdisciplinaryviews of social science was developed, this time
under the influenceof academic Marxism and its affirmation of the
necessity of a‘‘single social science’’. This weakened the
disciplinary identitiesand the differences between them.9 Marxism
severely criticized the‘‘American functionalist model’’ and
proposed a new model forsocial sciences which co-existed with the
previous one in the univer-sities. Academic life became strongly
polarized.
This state of increasing ideologization and polarization,
especiallyaround 1967, was linked to the national political process
thatended with the overthrow of Allende’s Popular Union
government(1970–3). The result was a deepening radicalization and
an internalcrisis of the foundational model. The social sciences,
especiallysociology, were part of the political struggles and
processes reflectedin the academic and intellectual fields. This is
not to say that, duringthe foundational and institutionalization
period, there were no ideo-logical influences and struggles, in
fact the Marxist views appearedas an answer to the hegemony of
former visions, but in this periodsocial sciences were more
directly linked with concrete politicalprocesses.
The institutionalization and consolidation of social
sciencesdescribed above dramatically collapsed with the 1973
military coup(Garretón, 1982).
Predominant orientations
In schematic terms, slightly forcing the reality of the
discipline andbeyond the artificiality of the labels, it is
possible to identify twomain intellectual projects in the social
sciences that, as I have said,coexisted during the period, with
different emphasis (Garretón,1978). The transition from one
project to the other was not inde-pendent of the sociopolitical and
cultural context. The exhaustionof the ‘‘scientific-professional’’
project was influenced by the criti-cism of Frei’s ‘‘revolution in
liberty’’ project, by the formulationof a ‘‘non-capitalist way to
development’’ alternative within theChristian Democratic Party and
the left-wing ‘‘Chilean way tosocialism’’ as expressed by the
Popular Union Party. At the same
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 373
-
time, the military coups in Brazil and Argentina in the 1960s
pro-voked the exodus of social scientists, who came to work in
Chileand thereby gave ideological strength to revolutionary and
criticalpositions.Thefirst, ‘‘scientific-professional’’,
positionwas articulated around
scientific modernization, specialization of the disciplines and
theirprofessional roles, the pre-eminence of a
structural-functionalistfocus emphasizing quantitative methodology
for empirical datacollection andmeasurement. This project was
concernedwith aspectsof the society that could be defined under
‘‘development’’ or ‘‘moder-nization’’; e.g. agricultural
structures, urban marginal integration,formulation and design of
sectorial state policies.The second position, which was of a more
‘‘critical-intellectual’’
kind, was articulated around the criticizing role of the
socialsciences. It emphasized the integrated character of the
differentdisciplines, recognizing structural Marxism as its
theoretical baseand highlighting the comprehensive and global
analysis of societyin terms of its own principal contradictions and
processes. The mainissues were ‘‘dependent capitalism’’ or
‘‘transition to socialism’’, andthe focus was the Chilean
socio-economic and political processes:property concentration,
structure and class struggles, political pro-cesses, ideology and
communication.10
These theoretical orientations were present in the graduate
pro-grams, publications and research on property concentration,
classstructure, communication and ideological discourse. Finally,
itshould be noted that the concern of social sciences with
nationalprojects and processes was present in their strong
participation inthe government programs of both Frei and
Allende.
Professionalization and insertion of graduates
Summarizing what we have said, the shifting of social sciences
pro-jects also brought a change in the professional insertion of
socialscience graduates, particularly sociologists. During the
foundationalphase, primacy was given to the scientific researchers
who worked inacademic institutions and for the state. In the
institutionalizationand consolidation phase there was a successive
differentiation ofsocial insertion: from academic researcher to the
expert or techno-crat in new social problems, to the intellectual
and ideologue. The
374 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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state was always a place of insertion, especially its agencies
linked tosocial actors. In universities social scientists looked at
social organi-zations and sought to ‘‘embrace the real social
world’’. To this mustbe added the tasks of training and political
education carried out bypolitical parties and social organizations
in which social scientistsused to participate.
Internationalization
The process of internationalization during the first phase
reliedparticularly on external support for the foundation of social
institu-tions, which contributed to the institutionalization of the
disciplines,and to the academic and professional training of
Chilean socialscientists in Europe and the USA. That is, the
support for the foun-dation of academic institutions, research
institutes and schoolsusually operated as an exported model from
Europe or the USA,for the most part through institutional grants or
graduate trainingin foreign countries of professionals coming from
other areas (law,for example). Upon their return to Chile, the
graduates were putin charge of new institutional spaces. From
around the mid-1960suntil the first part of the 1970s, there was an
intensification andexpansion of scholarships for graduate study,
primarily throughintergovernmental cooperation.
In addition, international cooperation was implemented
throughthe influence of different international institutions
operating inChile. A particularly important institution was FLACSO,
whichwas established in 1957, and its Latin American School of
Sociology(1959) which, as we have said, was the only political
science schoolof the period. This effectively contributed to the
formation of aninitial critical mass of research and social
scientists, whose contribu-tion relied on research and education of
national universities.
Alternatively, Chile had always been receptive to the
institutionalmodels and theoretical orientations of foreign
academic production.That dependency was in a way compensated by the
proliferation ofempirical research on national reality using models
that were some-times accepted without critical evaluation. The
connection betweentheory and research was thus deficient, the
latter looking more likean illustration of the former (Garretón,
1982).
The predominance of what we called the critical approach
meantwidespread acceptance of the academic Marxism imported
from
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 375
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Europe and Latin America. At the end of the period, the
inter-nationalization took on a more Latin American character.
Thiswas due in part to dependency theoretical approaches, but
overallto the political impact of the Cuban revolution and the
presenceof intellectuals and social scientists from Brazil, and
somewhatfewer from Argentina.Finally, the Chilean political process
also attracted intellectuals
and social scientists from all over the world, who brought
withthem their own visions, together with their research. To that
wasadded a series of international seminars and conferences on
the‘‘Chilean way to socialism’’, with much effervescence but a
weakChilean reflection on their own reality.
2. Crisis and re-foundation under the military dictatorship
Background
The military coup on 11 September 1973 and the Constitution
of1980,11 which attempted to legitimize and institutionalize the
newregime, produced a deep turn in the economic,
sociopolitical,cultural and institutional history of the country,
which affectedthe development of social sciences because it
eliminated their insti-tutional bases, the universities, and
imposed a new institutionaliza-tion that affected their work. There
were two main impacts on theinstitutionalization and
internationalization processes of the socialsciences.First, the
repression of the social sciences produced a deteriora-
tion and regression of the disciplines, culminating in the
UniversityLaw of 1981, which did not consider social sciences,
except econ-omics, as strictly university disciplines.12 This was
accompanied bythe reduction of the state resources allocated to
education, especiallyto universities, together with the disjunction
and reorganization ofpublic universities dispersed throughout the
country and lackingthe resources to develop high-quality academic
work. On the otherside, a private sector of universities mainly of
middle and lowacademic level was created with strong competition
between themand an inorganic expansion of first-year offers in the
profitableprofessions.Second, during the military regime, the
institutional base of the
extra-university research centers was created and
consolidated,
376 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
-
and reached a relatively stable financial position, stemming
fromforeign foundations and organizations.
The military dictatorship: sociopolitical, economic and
culturalcontext
The military dictatorship combined a reactive or defensive
dimen-sion with a foundational dimension that attempted to
globallyreorganize society.13 The two dimensions were inseparable
andhad reciprocal effects, even though, in the first phase, the
reactivedimension was stronger, while later on the foundational
dimensionpredominated. The reactive dimension consisted in
eliminatingand dismantling the social mobilization and organization
that hadexisted before the military coup; this dimension was
characterizedby intensive and extensive use of repression of
individuals and orga-nizations, and by the declaration of a ‘‘state
of emergency’’, whichbecame both permanent and ‘‘normal’’. The
foundational dimen-sion implied a capitalist re-composition and
re-insertion in theworld economy, with an aspect of structural
change due to the intro-duction of a new model of development and
to institutional re-organization in all the spheres of social life.
This change in thedevelopment model consisted in passing from
import substitutionindustrialization, in which the state played a
strong role, what wereferred to as the ‘‘inward development mode’’,
to a so-called‘‘open economy’’. This meant reorienting the
productive systemtowards services and the external market,
privatizing state proper-ties, which gave the private sector and
the market a major roleand at the same time drastically reduced the
state’s economic andredistribution role. Self-financing of services
like education andhealth and competitiveness in all aspects of
social life were intro-duced, which reversed the social
democratization process that hadprevailed up to then.
The changes in the development model, in the state and in
therelations between state and civil society were expressed in a
doubleprocess of regime institutionalization. One was political,
and itsmajor expression was the constitution of 1980, which
confirmedthe power relations established in 1973, and sought the
definitiveinstallation of a conservative political order with
political participa-tion restricted to military regime partisans.
The other was social, and
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 377
-
sought normative crystallization of the principles of structural
trans-formation across the diverse social spheres. Those principles
werebased on market competition, reduction of the public space
andsocial fragmentation and control of society.This political
context began to change in the 1980s. An economic
crisis exploded between 1981 and 1982, with diverse political
andsocial effects. Strong social mobilizations began in 1983, with
theconsequent irruption of politics in public spaces, reappearance
ofpolitical parties and rebuilding of social organizations. The
founda-tional project of the military regime lost coherence, while
the mainpreoccupation of the military and civilian power was to
resolvethe economic crisis and to ensure victory in the 1988
referendumestablished by the constitution, which provided for a
transitionfrom a military regime to an authoritarian civilian
government withmilitary veto and maintenance of Pinochet in power.
After themobilization cycle and complex discussions, the opposition
cametogether in the referendum to reject the government
alternative,and won with a significant margin. The result was
flexibility of theconstitutional framework, presidential and
parliamentary electionsin December of 1989, again won by the
democratic sectors, and theend of the Pinochet government (March
1990).
Institutionalization and disciplines
As we have said, the foundational model of the social sciences
wasdismantled under the military regime, and another model
startedto emerge. Its principal characteristics were an
extra-university insti-tutional frame, greater fusion among
disciplines and an interruptionof training cycles that was barely
compensated by training abroad(Brunner and Barrios, 1988). The
proportion of social science enroll-ments of total undergraduate
university enrollment dropped from15 percent in 1973 to 8.3 percent
in 1983, and to 7.8 percent in 1985.It is possible to distinguish
three sub-phases.
1973–6: dismantling the previous model
The main processes of this period were the dismantling of the
pre-vious model, the dispersion of the persecuted social scientists
andtheir fight for their own survival. A month after the military
coup,
378 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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the military intervened in the universities, and military
rectors wereappointed. It was an exclusively negative phase without
a model thatcould replace the previous one (Garretón, 1982;
Lechner, 1990).
From the beginning, a quantitative and qualitative reduction
wasimposed on the universities. The highest price was paid by the
socialsciences: many professional training programs and research
centerswere closed.14 Therefore the institutional space where the
socialsciences were developed for the most part was nearly
destroyed bythe regime’s policies: elimination of centers and
institutes, expulsionof students and professors, censure and
control of subsistingacademic organizations, exile of academic
personnel. The officialpolicies varied, depending on the previous
situation in the academiccenters. The most affected were those that
had an explicitly criticalperspective close to the Popular Union
project.
A small nucleus of social scientists survived in the
universities, butteaching was interrupted in many disciplines. The
most affected weresociology and anthropology; the impact on history
was smallerbecause there was a strong group of conservative
historians. Theprivileged discipline was economics, as we shall
see.
In a first stage, the main problem of the social sciences
wasbasically the survival of students, researchers and teachers.
Thatimplied emphasis on helping the persecuted leave the country or
insome cases precariously relocating them inside the country.15 In
asecond stage, university budget reductions, individual
persecutionsor periodical waves of repression and generalized
control over anykind of dissidence further diminished the
university sector ofsocial sciences.16 Some centers were able to
reconstruct themselvesoutside the universities, others were reduced
to the minimum andother simply disappeared.17 As a consequence, the
first researchcenters outside universities emerged, financed from
outside and seek-ing free academic development. This new trend
would be consoli-dated in the next period.18
The persecution of social scientists was compounded by new
prob-lems created by the universities’ own policies. From the
beginning,the regime had put pressure on the universities to
rationalize, whichin fact meant adopting a policy of
entrepreneurial efficiency, com-petitiveness, adaptation to market
values and rules, and self-financing. This rationalization
obviously affected the less profitableareas, which coincided with
those most affected by the purge andde-politicization. In the case
of the social sciences, it implied a grow-ing reduction of academic
staff, deterioration of salaries, reduction
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 379
-
of student enrollment and, in some cases, especially in
sociology,closing the door to first-year students and thus
eliminating theprofessional training program within five years
(Brunner, 1986;Courard and Frohman, 1999; Garretón, 1982; Lladser,
1988).As we have said, economics took a leading role in the
social
sciences, expanding its resources and students because of the
neo-liberal project of the military government. Economics also
contri-buted to the official ideology, which combined military
doctrine,fundamentalist Catholic philosophy and a neo-liberal
discourse(FLACSO-Chile, 1983). The new economic model established
thepredominance of market mechanisms and financial capital; on
thisbasis, a line of action was developed to control the
elaboration ofeconomic thought, research and teaching. On the face
of it, thismodel was imposed by the military leadership, but in
fact it wasbasically developed by a dogmatic and homogeneous group
of tech-nocrats educated in the Chicago School, the so-called
‘‘Chicagoboys’’, who established close links with financially
prominentgroups. More than a strictly economic vision, it was a
global viewof society inspired by neo-liberalism, closer to a
political ideologythan to a scientific theory. The ‘‘Chicago boys’’
gave significantimportance to the socialization of their ideas and,
thanks to themilitary control of the universities, used teaching
and instrumentalresearch to turn economic schools and institutes
into a place forreproducing the economic elite and indoctrinating
them with the‘‘new economic truth’’. Any other economic thought was
excluded.The other side of the coin was provided by sociology and
partly by
anthropology. These were the disciplines devastated by the
regime’spolicies. There was no official model of reference imposed
inacademies, but what did exist was a negative image, expressed
inthe reduction and freezing of the development of these
disciplines,and even their elimination. This could be explained by
two com-plementary reasons. First, the emergence and development of
uni-versity sociology were associated with progressive structural
andpolitical changes linked to the critical and reformist view of
society.Thus sociology and sociologists were regarded by the new
rulers aselements of subversion, extremism or Marxist ideological
infiltra-tion. Second, there was no influential group in the state
that couldclaim sociological knowledge as a basis for a societal
project,unlike the case of economics. Thus the question was how to
controlor suppress sociology in the universities, and only
marginally how todevelop its tools for the regime’s project.
380 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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The School of Sociology of the University of Concepción
wasclosed, and its professors and students were expelled at the
begin-ning of the military coup. At the Catholic University and in
theUniversity of Chile, this happened more gradually. In the
studyprograms, there were areas which disappeared or were
minimizeddrastically (e.g. political sociology), and the Marxist or
so-called‘‘leftist’’ perspectives were eliminated entirely. In
their place, socialpsychology and functionalism were privileged,
neglecting the newtendencies of American, European and Latin
American thought.In the meantime, methodology came back to the
traditional linesof quantitative teaching but without any
application to the realsociopolitical context.
Research also felt the effect of the regime. There was no
supportfor university research, and each researcher had to look for
theirown funds outside the university. That affected basic
research,reducing it to narrow problems and partial studies,
without acritical-theoretical focus. Surveys were initially
prohibited and,when they were finally accepted, were submitted to
official censure(Lladser, 1988).
Nevertheless, despite an unfavorable atmosphere, there
werevaluable personal efforts in some universities. Most were
concen-trated on ‘‘non-contaminated’’ issues and areas, with some
quantita-tive emphasis and without an explicit theoretical profile
so as toavoid suspicion. That produced a relative thematic
specializationon the part of researchers, and intellectual and
scientific isolation.Those partial efforts prevented the definitive
disappearance ofsociology at the universities but did not make up
for the absenceof a collective elaboration and social
reflection.19
The situation of political science (Fernández, 1997;
Sepúlveda,1996) and anthropology (Arnold, 1990; Bengoa, 1997;
Garbulsky,1998; Orellana, 1988) during the military regime was
aggravatedby the previous insufficiency of their development. The
only univer-sity institution cultivating political science was the
Political ScienceInstitute of the Catholic University, which was
purged between 1974and 1975. Its academic level – with few
exceptions – was very low,with little disciplinary research. The
Center for Political Docu-mentation, which lasted until 1975, was
under surveillance and notopen for work. In general, the academic
community did not developany common orientation that surpassed the
individual vegetativedimension. The situation of anthropology was
similar, even thoughvacancies for the first year had grown to 25 in
1975: the professional
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 381
-
training program had a vague structural-functionalist
methodologybut without a strong theoretical and methodological
orientationable to give a structure to the 55 courses offered,
which superficiallycovered many subjects with much repetition
between them.
From 1976 to 1980: emergence of a new model
In this sub-period, some basic elements from the previous time
wereheld over, but other elements pointed to the creation of a new
modelof social sciences, coinciding with the foundational sub-phase
of themilitary regime and society’s response to it.On the one hand,
in the academic sphere a sort of guideline crys-
tallized for the social sciences, characterized by the reduction
anddisciplinary style of sociology and political science. It was
also afrozen situation, with some freedom in history and a
theoretical-ideological control on economics, with periodical
punitive measuresagainst students in all programs and selective
elimination ofacademic staff. Except for economics and history,
which almostmonopolized social sciences enrollment, undergraduate
studies insocial sciences were constantly interrupted.The sociology
training program in the Catholic University was
closed in 1976, and at the end of 1979 the Sociology Institute
ranout of students after suffering a substantive change in its
curriculumsince 1974. Its faculty decreased from 36 full-time and 4
part-timeteachers in 1973 to 12 and 5 respectively. The University
of Chileclosed admissions to the program in sociology in 1981,
eventhough in 1980 hundreds of students applied for only 20
vacancies.Of its academic staff, the university initially
eliminated 37 of the 40teachers there in 1973, and the total fell
to 12 full-time teachers in1980.In anthropology, first-year
admissions to the University of Chile
were closed in 1981. The main orientation was the formation of
aprofessional that would give a ‘‘cultural focus’’ to social
develop-ment and advise on social plans and policies. That
definition wasnot accompanied by adequate training and was also
fought by thestudents (Arnold, 1990; Bengoa, 1997; Garbulsky, 1998;
Orellana,1988).During this period, independent academic centers
were consoli-
dated. (Brunner, 1985; Brunner and Barrios, 1988; Lladser,
1988).That changed the institutional pattern of the discipline: its
principal
382 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
-
base for research and intellectual production usually had an
inter-disciplinary character and concentrated on a problem area,
whileresources came from foreign public or private foundations.
Herewere produced the informal contacts with students and the
mostimportant production of knowledge about national reality.
Theorigins of these centers were varied: for example, the
first,FLACSO, originated with the departure of many students and
pro-fessionals to foreign countries and their replacement primarily
byacademics expelled from national universities. Other centers
wereformed by complete teams of researchers coming from a
universitydepartment. There were others that existed before 1973,
but theiractivity and sometimes their legal situation changed
meaningfully.Some others were projections of international
institutions. Many,however, were new. The creation of new centers
grew after 1977;they could arise from an initiative of a research
group that haddecided to set up a stable institution for their work
or from peoplewho were not involved in research but decided to
create an institu-tional space in which to develop specific
research lines and hiredsuitable staff for this purpose.20
In general, the independent centers were small with a reduced
staffof rarely more than 15 researchers, but they were surrounded
by agood number of people, especially graduate students acting as
assis-tants, scholarship holders, and adjuncts or associate
researchers.
Apart from their infrastructure and their economic
precarious-ness, the main problem of the independent centers was
their socialisolation beyond their own networks. That raised a
communicationand publishing challenge because of the absence, until
that point, ofa true public space in the society.
From 1981 to 1989: relative consolidation of a new model
As we said before, a new development model of the social
sciencesrooted in the previous period seemed to be becoming
consolidated.It was framed by the landmarks of the new constitution
in 1980, theUniversity Law in 1981, the economic crisis with the
reappearance ofsocial mobilizations from 1983, and the referendum
of 1988 thatended the dictatorship.
First, at the university level, the University Law produced
aperiod of deterioration of the social sciences: only economics
wasofficially and exclusively taught at universities. State funding
for
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 383
-
higher education was reduced, private universities were created,
andthe old public universities were reorganized and scattered all
overthe country. Some new universities developed a good level of
teach-ing in social sciences, but submitted to the examination
oftraditional universities. In these old universities, economics
had thehighest percentage of first-year enrollments, while other
disciplinesbecame relatively poor in research and their
undergraduate teachingwas intermittent and first-year enrollment
opened and closed irregu-larly throughout the period (Vasconi,
1996). With this, under-graduate teaching was weakened,
accentuating the generation gapinsocial sciences, while education
abroad benefited primarily Chileanyouth in exile. Researchers, for
their part, began progressively towork as teachers at the new
universities (Atria and Lemaitre, 1983).In this way, the
disciplinary development in the universities was
seriously hurt, as was the training of new social scientists.
Neverthe-less, in order to resolve financial problems through
student fees,graduate programs began to proliferate, particularly
in economics.In 1981, the Institute of Political Science was
created at the Univer-sity of Chile, dedicated to graduate teaching
and research, but with astrong geopolitical emphasis, in accordance
with the ideology of themilitary regime. Towards the end of the
dictatorship, the Universityof Chile began to open up somewhat,
when, for example, the rectorimposed by the regime was removed.In
1990, when the dictatorship was replaced by the first demo-
cratic government, there were 65 universities. Of the 25
receivingpublic funding, 16 originated from the reorganization of
the oldpublic universities and 9 from the so-called ‘‘traditional
private’’universities; the other 40 were new private universities,
some ofthem already consolidated. This implied an increase in
enrollments,which had been reduced in the first years of the
military regime, anda growing number of students in private
universities as compared topublic ones (Courard and Frohman,
1999).Second, the institutional panorama of research centers
outside
universities was consolidated; most of them received
relativelystable funding, always international. Faculty was
expanded accord-ing to specific projects, and social scientists
returning from exile wereincorporated through different modalities.
Their presence in intel-lectual circles was legitimized, something
that was demonstrated inthe organization of different seminars and
meetings, and in theincrease in publications. But even with all
this, undergraduate teach-ing was still absent – except in a small
proportion of centers within
384 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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universities – and the generation gap in the social sciences
keptgrowing (Brunner, 1985).
Third, the different disciplines tended to organize themselves
intoacademic and professional associations that, during these
‘‘years’’,held periodical congresses in an attempt to maintain the
disciplines(Garretón, 1989a).
Fourth, concerning content, the absence of unique or
compre-hensive paradigms allowed the development of new areas such
asmedia studies and international relations. This included
reflectionon very different topics like culture, democracy, the
socialist renova-tion, modernity, social actors’ identity and
public opinion, all fromdifferent points of view and combining
different methodologies.With the slight political ‘‘opening’’ and
the mobilizations in 1983–4,the public opinion survey method
started to proliferate. These sur-veys were broadcast in the mass
media and reached a peak duringthe 1988 plebiscite and the 1989
elections. This tended to lendmore rationality to the
political-ideological debate and to incorpo-rate – from a
professional standpoint – the intellectuals and socialscientists.
Alternatively, the specificity of disciplines was still
under-developed and there was no theoretical debate, properly
speaking,that allowed its deployment.
Predominant orientations
The official tendencies in universities were to abandon
theoreticalframes, areas and relevant research issues that were in
conflictwith the predominant orientations of the regime, to
suppress thoseprojects that were difficult to ‘‘sell’’ and to
privilege those thatcoincided with the official view or were
responsive to market orstate demands or were considered to be
neutral.
As we have said, inside the intellectual camp opposing the
dicta-torship there was a loss of disciplinary specificity,
thematic focusesin research and medium-range theories with combined
theoreticalframes predominating. In the beginning, this was
associated withthe abandonment of unique and exclusive paradigms in
socialsciences.
Around 1976, an academic production appeared under theauspices
of churches and international organizations. The produc-tion
circuit was semi-clandestine and limited to a few internal
orga-nizations and those outside the country. The themes were
principally
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 385
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description and denunciation of the economic, social,
ideologicaland political model imposed by the dictatorship and
re-interpretationof the pre-military regime social processes,
together with an incipientsearch for theoretical and analytical
frames, due to the explosion ofall previous analytical frames.It is
difficult to visualize a new project for social sciences in
this
period, like those developed during the foundational and
consolida-tion periods. The question of why this is difficult
suggests two levelsof explanation. First, the critical cultural
dimension inseparablefrom social sciences was repressed and was
developed in only veryreduced spaces. In other words, the dominant
project tried toreduce the institutional space of social sciences
to its technical andprofessional dimensions. Second, unlike the
democratic period, theintellectual contents of the historic project
of the military regimewere not conceptually based on the different
social science tradi-tions, nor did they find a conceptual support
in them. The funda-mental concepts came from the geopolitical
tradition and militarydisciplines, like the concept of national
security or the convergenceon ideological conceptions that were not
developed by modernsocial sciences. In that sense, there was no
intellectual space withinthe civilian–military project for ideas
and knowledge that did notlegitimize such domination, as was the
case with economics.Later a new type of reflection arose, beyond
the denunciations and
interpretations of the past crisis, aimed at unraveling the
nature ofthe structural and institutional transformations as well
as, to alesser degree than in future periods, what was happening
withsocial actors. The techniques were basically statistical
studies,systematic observation, action research practices and,
above all,documentary work. Surveys continued to be officially
prohibited.Unlike what happened at the end of the 1960s and
beginning ofthe 1970s, there was no interest in all-encompassing
theoreticalframes with a more incisive research into reality. As a
counterpart,theoretical reflection, properly speaking, was left
behind and therewas a particular delay in the evolution of the
theory and method-ology of some disciplines.The main activities of
intellectual research and production of the
independent research centers were oriented towards the
description,analysis and interpretation of the emergent Chilean
reality since1973. Therewas, on one side, a long-term historic
rescue and revision,not confined to the 1970–3 period, at a global
political as well assectorial level, where studies on specific
political periods, the state’s
386 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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role in the economy and social policy could be highlighted. On
theother side, we find an attempt at a diagnosis of the new
structuresof society, that is of the transformations that occurred
in the countryduring those years, which ‘‘also’’ implied an
analysis of the ideologythat orientated those transformations and
the specific policies imple-mented (Lladser, 1988). The shared
supposition of those works wasthe emergence of a new type of
society, characterized by a develop-ment model, an institutional
system and a cultural model thatsuddenly broke with the lines that
had characterized the countryin the earlier part of the
century.
A third research field dealt with more theoretical problems,
whichemerged from the changes undergone by the society and led to
anintellectual production that, departing from empirical
analysis,represented a more speculative tendency. Among the topics
weredemocracy, development styles, reconstruction of civil
society,relations between social movements and political
structures, themarket–state dilemma, global and sectorial
alternative economicmodels, redefinition of the political sphere,
re-emergence of thedaily styles of social life, reappraisal of
corporative dimensions, newmodes of international insertion, impact
of transnationalization,renovation of socialist thought. More than
specific lines of research,these were big areas or fields of
intellectual preoccupation orresearch (Arrau, 1984; Baño, 1984;
Brunner, 1986, 1988; Garretón,1982).21
As in the past, when the meta-scientific reference was provided
byconcepts like ‘‘development’’, ‘‘revolution’’ and ‘‘socialism’’,
themeta-scientific concept in this period was ‘‘democracy’’, which
ofits own nature shied away from exclusive and closed visions.
Thereference to democracy tended to redefine the role of
intellectualsand social scientists, linking their approaches more
to ethical posi-tions and historical options than to absolute truth
and immutablecertainties.
Professionalization and insertion of graduates
The closure of the universities, the interruption of university
studiesand professional training programs, the emigration of social
scien-tists, the high levels of unemployment and the stigmatization
ofsocial science provoked an exit from the occupational market.
Onlythe creation of independent research centers provided a
restricted
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 387
-
and elite job market, which would increase with the advent of
privateuniversities and the proliferation of consultants and market
studies.Until 1980, because of the closure of study programs and
the exile
of students, there was an important gap between generations,
whichwould be reduced by undergraduate and graduate study in
foreigncountries. Later on, the forms of social insertion for
social scientistsbegan to clearly differentiate.The massive
irruption of economists in the public administration
and the private sectors (especially financial) was not repeated
inthe rest of social sciences. As professional symbols of the
regime’seconomic model, which created an illusion of success,
economistsachieved the highest prestige, a situation that would
suddenly bereversed after the failure of the economic model in
1981.With the closure of the university field came a tendency to
create a
pronounced ranking and inequity in access to public resources
andcommunications, in favor of those professionals who were able
toinsert themselves in the job market. Some social scientists had
todevote their time to the entrepreneurial effort of building
indepen-dent centers. In a restricted public space, some of them
participatedin debates and published, thus maintaining their
critical intellectualrole in the mass media. Others inserted
themselves in spaces pro-vided by the churches and, from that
standpoint, provided a descrip-tion and critical analysis of the
situation, as well as being involved inthe reconstruction of social
organizations. Yet others played a rolein the ideological
renovation of political parties and organizations.An important part
of their time was devoted to informal academicwork with students
and social organizations, on conceptual analysis,especially to
diffuse research and reflection about problems of thenational
reality. Finally, a small number joined publicity andmarket-ing
agencies.22 Towards the end of the period, it was possible
toperceive a greater identification of social scientists with
corporateor personal interests, a situation that reinforced their
autonomywith regard to the economic, political and ideological
fields.
Internationalization
The internationalization under the military regime followed
twofundamental tendencies: the undergraduate and graduate
educationabroad of social scientists expelled from the country, and
academic
388 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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and founding cooperation with independent research
centers(Garretón, 1989a).
In the sub-period that goes from the mid-1970s to the first
years ofthe 1980s, we can highlight the following aspects. On one
side, therewas a tendency for graduate studies to culminate in
exile, and a goodnumber of social scientists were able to obtain a
professional posi-tion abroad, thus strengthening their academic
careers and intellec-tual production. This raised a complex problem
of the relationbetween ‘‘what was done inside and what was done
outside’’. Onthe other side, there was a growing tendency to
channel resourcesto non-university centers, which were financed
solely by foreignresources. At the beginning these resources were
in the nature ofrelief and solidarity, but later on they were
governed more by criteriaof academic quality and focused on
specific projects. This raised theproblem of the relative
instability of institutional budgets. In thosecenters, a good
number of independent researchers participated ininternational
grants for individual research through the Ford Foun-dation,
Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the World University Service,the
Guggenheim Foundation, the Social Science Research Counciland the
Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO,Latin American
Social Sciences Research Council), among others(Stromquist,
1984).
In addition, those returning from exile and the frequency
oftravel to international seminars and meetings of those who
stayedin Chile had an impact on the contents of social sciences.
Perhapsthe most important aspect was that the debates on the crisis
of para-digms, and the crisis of Marxism in general, allowed new
partial,non-monolithic frameworks to be applied freely to the study
ofthe national reality. The type of reflection carried out on
differentissues, such as non-structural determination, the
importance ofsocial actors, the re-evaluation of democracy, the
dimension of cul-ture and language, also influenced other countries
of Latin America,where the debate was that of past decades.23 In
turn, many of thesesubjects were developed in other countries of
the Southern Cone andinfluenced Chilean social sciences.
Towards the end of the military regime, a paradox can
beobserved: the moment of greatest financial dependency on
inter-national organizations – which funded the independent
researchcenters – was at the same time the moment of greatest
intellectualindependence and local creativity for the social
sciences. Eventhough there was a time when organizations privileged
research
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 389
-
orientated towards action, there was a dialogue between centers
andfoundations that allowed a redefinition of common expectations
andinterests. New means of international collaboration started
todevelop: teacher exchange programs, joint graduate programs
andresearch projects, workshops and small working groups
organizedby researchers from national centers and foreign academic
institu-tions, and the re-opening of foreign non-governmental
scholarshipsystems (foundations, universities, etc.) for Chilean
students to goabroad.
3. The social sciences in the post-authoritarian period
Background
In 1990 a democratic regime, still incomplete and with
authoritarianenclaves, was inaugurated. This new setting became
clear in the newrelations between state and society, in the
cultural scenario and,especially, in educational institutions. It
was a period when theshort-term problems affecting the country
dominated the long-term ones and the role of politics itself was
redefined.The democratic recovery of public universities did not
imply an
institutional change in higher education. Even though, as we
willsee, in some cases social scientists displaced by the
dictatorshipwere re-incorporated and new private universities
offered opportu-nities, there was not a substantial state support
policy especiallydesigned for social sciences through organisms
like the ComisiónNacional para la Ciencia y la Tecnologı́a
(CONICYT, NationalCommission for Science and Technology). With the
end of thedictatorships and the new state requirements, the
independentacademic centers model, which in some countries of Latin
America,and in Chile in particular, had temporarily replaced the
founda-tional model of social sciences, was losing validity. This
was dueto the deployment of consultants and other types of
activities,which highlighted only the professional dimension, the
insertion ofsocial scientists in government tasks and the partial
return ofactivities to universities. The Chilean university model
had notentirely recovered from the violence of privatization
brought onby the disjunction of the public higher education system
by the dic-tatorship, the degradation suffered by public
universities, and theintroduction of market mechanisms and fierce
competition among
390 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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universities to the detriment of quality. To this, which
especiallyaffected the social sciences, must be added a state
scientific policythat largely ignored the nature and significance
of these disciplines(Bravo, 1991; Courard and Frohman, 1999).
At the level of contents, beginning with the reintegration of
thesocial science disciplines in the universities and with the
incor-poration of many sociologists in government posts, the
creation ofnew professional training programs and graduate studies
in socialsciences, new topics appeared in the academic scenario as
well asin public debate. Among them should be mentioned in
particularthose related to the processes of political
democratization, on theone hand, and, on the other, social
transformations sparked bythe socio-economic model inherited from
the dictatorship and bythe redefinition of the social actors.
The internationalization process changed its orientation.
Therewas a drastic decrease in external funding of independent
academiccenters, without this implying a significant increase in
resources touniversities for institutional re-building.
Alternatively, agree-ments to organize graduate study with foreign
universities werestrengthened, government and non-government
scholarship pro-grams for graduates were re-launched and an
academic exchangeof faculty through seminars and conferences began.
Many of thesehad as an objective the debate on the socio-economic
and politicalprocesses linked to political democratization.
During this period, the central problems for the social
scienceswere, on the one hand, rethinking their paradigms and
reconstruct-ing their disciplines, and, on the other hand,
reconstructing the insti-tutional place of their development.
Political and socio-economic context
In 1988, in the framework of the 1980 constitution, a
referendumwas held to determine whether or not Pinochet and his
regimeshould continue. The opposition, organized under the
slogan‘‘Concertación de Partidos por el NO’’ (Coalition of Parties
for aNO Vote), won the referendum. This unleashed a democratic
transi-tion that had as important milestones the 1989 referendum,
in whichthe constitutional reforms which facilitated the
presidential elec-tion the same year were voted almost unanimously,
and the oppos-ing coalition which became the ‘‘Concertación de
Partidos por la
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 391
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Democracia’’ (Coalition of Parties for Democracy), a center-left
electoral coalition and future government.24 This transition
cul-minated, in December 1989, in the election of the first
democraticgovernment.The political regime inaugurated in 1990 could
be classified as an
incomplete democracy (Garretón, 2003), since there have been
demo-cratic governments and respect for public liberties, but
within aframework of authoritarian enclaves. The constitution
imposed in1980 has been maintained, except for some very partial
reforms, asa symbol, with a so-called majority bi-nominal electoral
systemthat gives practically 50 percent of the seats and an
enormous vetopower to the first minority, excluding a second
minority or a thirdforce. In addition to this, we have to add the
tutorial role of thearmed forces, stipulated by the constitution,
and the preservationof the already consolidated economic model,
which has stronglyreduced the role of the state and completely
transformed the panor-ama of social actors, reducing their
traditional political influence.The impunity for crimes committed
under the dictatorship that pre-vailed until the arrest of Pinochet
in London, and which is foundedon the amnesty law imposed by
Pinochet himself in 1979, is yieldingto a slow justice, with
advances and retreats. This, together with therecalcitrance of the
sectors involved in violations of human rightsunder the
dictatorship, makes it difficult to speak of an
effectivereconciliation. After 14 years of democratic government,
the inde-pendent press is still minimal, due to the concentration
of the media.During the entire democratic period, the right wing
has main-
tained its veto power and has been able to build a
civil-politicalblock which is the expression of those nostalgic for
the militaryregime, including the new generations of the same
origin. Undoubt-edly it has achieved a capacity for action, but
without taking the‘‘big step’’ of breaking with the legacy of
authoritarianism, whichallows us to speak of an absence of a real
democratic right wing.25
With such political-institutional ties, it is not possible to
deny theachievements of the democratic governments of
‘‘Concertación’’.Among them are: a sustainable 7 percent growth
during the firstseven years, with drastic reduction of inflation;
recovery in salariesto 1970 levels; 50 percent reduction of the
poverty level; educationaland judicial reforms; more construction
of public infrastructure thanduring the entire 20th century; and
international economic agree-ments with regional blocks. Around
1997, under the impact of theAsian economic crisis, the optimistic
atmosphere seemed to vanish,
392 Social Science Information Vol 44 – nos 2 & 3
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even though some of the effects were attenuated in comparison
withother countries in Latin America, and a distance developed
betweensocial actors, young people and ‘‘civil society’’, with
regard to the‘‘Concertación’’. The generalized illusions of
consumption, ‘‘moder-nity’’ and the positive role of the market
gave way to a certain skep-ticism and cultural critique. During the
Lagos government, the pathto growth and the insertion of Chile in
the global economyhavedee-pened, equity and poverty indicators have
improved slightly, and thearmed forces have distanced themselves
from the Pinochet legacy.Nevertheless, all of this has come about
without the necessarychanges in the political institutionalization
maintained since themilitary dictatorship.
Thus, the three biggest problems still not resolved by the
politicaldemocratization and which represent the core of the
national debateare: first, the issue of reconciliation and
violation of human rightsunder the dictatorship;26 second,
correction of the economic model,especially on issues such as the
role of the state and social inequities;and third, the absence of a
consensual and legitimized institutionalframework, especially
regarding the constitution.
Institutionalization and disciplines
The post-authoritarian period is characterized by the
expansionand differentiation of social science university
institutions underthe regulatory framework inherited from higher
education, withoutany special effort having been made by the
democratic governments(Lagos et al., 1991).
The existence of 65 universities in the country has meant
anenormous increase in enrollment, around 320,000 in the year
2000,70 percent of higher education, with a growing proportion in
privateuniversities. In the social sciences, the percentage of
enrollments ontotal undergraduate university enrollment increased
from 7.8 per-cent in 1985, to 11.8 percent in 1995, 11.7 percent in
2000, and12.5 percent in 2002 (data from the Council of Rectors).
Since1996, counting all universities, there are 5 (undergraduate)
studyprograms in anthropology; political science increased from 4
to 8in 2001; and sociology from 9 to 12. To date there are 6
officiallycertified interdisciplinary graduate programs in social
sciences:gender, cultural studies, public projects and management,
public
Garretón Social sciences in Latin America 393
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policies, Latin American studies and one Latin American
doctorate(see
http://conicyt.cl/becas/resultados/resultados-acred.html).Very few
private universities have a significant number of full-time
faculty in the social sciences; on the contrary they hire public
univer-sity teachers to give courses, taking advantage of the low
salariespaid by these universities. The proportion of scholarships
forgraduate study abroad and research grants for social
sciencescoming from CONICYT is very low compared with other fields
ofscience. All of this is accompanied by the weakening of
independentresearch centers, due to migration of senior researchers
to thegovernment and consulting and, in part, to universities, and
theshift of international funding and the lack of a state effort in
thismatter, but it can be imputed as well to some miscalculations
bythe direction of these centers concerning the academic future
oftheir organizations. In addition, there has been a reorientation
ofthese centers towards NGO-style work rather than research.
Thisalso has to do with the return of young social scientists, the
socialdemand for actors and the emergence of new topics that the
politicaldemocratization had left out.Specialized journals began to
appear with the rebirth of disciplin-
ary professions, some of which, like political sciences,
incorporateda more corporate view. If, in the first half of the
1990s, there wasa predominance of social sciences or intellectual
reviews of ageneral character (e.g. Estudios Públicos, Mapocho,
Proposiciones),the tendency in recent years has been for each
university institutionto publish its own journal.Nonetheless, in
formal and institutional terms, there are some
limits to the re-institutionalization and re-appropriation of
disci-plinary identities. In the first place, the perspectives,
topics andapproaches, as well as research techniques, go in
opposite directionsand in practice it is hard to distinguish
disciplinary specificity.Currently we find complex phenomena like
globalization, the irrup-tion of new mo