Testing Democracy’s Promise: Indigenous Mobilization and the Chilean State

In the late 1980s, following decades of authoritarianism and political violence, Latin America experienced a wave of transitions to democratic rule and social peace. Indigenous groups were prominent among the social sectors taking advan- tage of new spaces for political expression and dissent. By 1992, on the 500-year anniversary of the European conquest, indigenous organizations across the Ameri- cas had mobilized to demand the basic human and civil rights that their peoples have been denied for centuries. Striving to fulfil liberal-democratic ideals, reform- oriented governments in Latin America responded to indigenous protests with a variety of initiatives to grant constitutional recognition, improve the quality of citi- zenship, create opportunities for self-determination, and increase local control over land and natural resources. These reforms have created new opportunities for in- digenous peoples, but have also exposed contradictory agendas and sharpened con- flicts in many places, including southern Chile, ancestral home of the Mapuche Indians who are the focus of this study. 1 Chile's restored democratic government sought to create laws and institutions in the early 1990s that would improve on a history of troubled relations between the state and indigenous peoples. State officials reached out to historically margin- alized indigenous populations, promising to incorporate their demands into the formal policy realm. While some Mapuche leaders remained suspicious, others took leading roles in this process, hoping that indigenous rights, recognition, and self-determination might also yield resolution to longstanding land and natural re- source claims. This paper chronicles the dilution of that promise, revealing the ruling coali- tion's attempts to instead implant its own policy priorities within a newly-created state institution, the CONADI (National Corporation for Indigenous Development). In practice, Mapuche demands for land and resource rights clashed with regional development schemes and the powerful financial interests behind them. When calls for indigenous recognition generated political opposition, the governing coalition seized control of the agenda, aggressively undercutting CONADI as an arena for dialogue. Policymakers employed wedge politics in Mapuche communities, pro- moting an entrepreneurship agenda among cooperative leaders, while forcefully criminalizing the militant actions of others. This approach widened the cleavages between the state and the Mapuche, exacerbated tensions between the Mapuche and private businesses, and worsened existing divisions among Mapuche commu- nities. Still, Mapuche leaders continue to seek opportunities for true reform, chal- lenging and engaging the state and its institutions. This evolving relationship be- tween the Mapuche and the Chilean state presents a vital test of the quality of con- temporary Latin American democratic consolidation.