ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the problematique characterizing the Chilean military regime since 1981, when it experienced a collapse in the foundational dimension and moved toward becoming a regime of crisis management. The triumphant image dissolved, the regime’s capacity to transform society shrank, sectoral interests became fragmented and antagonistic, the political debate over the foundational model sharpened, and repression intensified. The crisis in the economic model was affecting large sectors of the middle classes, in some cases multiplying their debts, in others diminishing their bank deposits and savings. The Civil Assembly attempted to overcome the exclusion of sectors of the Left imposed by rightist groups opposed to the regime, particularly the Christian Democrats, and to organize an extensive plan for mobilizations. The military regimes entrance into a phase of crisis management has been characterized by a crisis in the regime’s foundational dimension, as defined initially in 1975 and subsequently by the process of social institutionalization.
