Chile: The price of democracy

3QD friend Pablo Policzer in the New English Review:

Pinochet_1The celebrations and tears that followed Augusto Pinochet’s death obscure a little known but important fact: if Pinochet had had his way in the mid-1970s, his dictatorship would have ended only on December 10, when he died.  It ended instead in 1990 because, ironically, the very institutions that Pinochet helped create eased him from power at that time, against his will.  But in this other future – which came close to happening – Chileans would only now be contemplating democracy, after over 33 years of dictatorship.

More here.