El santiago de ravinet. Despolitización y consolidación del proyecto dictatorial en el Chile de los Noventa

Abstract

This article examines Jaime Ravinets' first two administrations as the mayor of Santiago (from 1990-1996), searching for continuities and breaks vis-a vis the model of municipal government devised by the military regime. This article holds that the municipal reform carried out by the Concertación governments was unable to alter the neo liberal, depoliticizing logic behind the dictatorial legacy. On the contrary, it confirmed the municipality's role as the entity in charge of unfolding the subsidiary State, focalizing actions against poverty and redefining the nature of politics. In the case of the Santiago district (which encompasses the city's downtown area), the communal rescue plan and Mayor Ravinet's neo-liberal leanings favored that process's advancement, displaying a neoliberally-inspired technocratic style of leadership that reinforced pre-existing trends toward the de-politicization and loss of citizen values among the area's residents.