ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explore the case of Chile by viewing how two ideologically different governments—Allende's and Pinochet's—advanced the decentralization of Chiles education system to further their divergent political agendas affecting the entire educational system, including higher education. They focus on decentralization and its uses by the Allende government and the military junta of Pinochet to advance their opposing political agendas. Administrative efficiency is the logic that justifies decentralizing for the purposes of control and making the decision-making process more efficient. These different logics can be related to two paradigms that interpret educational phenomena: the liberal-economic paradigm and the critical paradigm. The authors provide a cultural-political overview in which they include a discussion of what has been called the "centralist tradition" of Latin America, as well as of the roles played by its most prominent social actors in maintaining that tradition.
