The long road to civilian supremacy over the military: Chile 1990-1998

This article analyzes civil-military relations in Chile, focusing on the period between 1990 and 1998. It analyzes military interests and civil-military channels. The four main cases examined in this article are situations when civilians sought to make decisions the military opposed that affected core military interests. They shed light on the degree to which formal institutions were able to function effectively in very tense situations. The cases are the military movements of 1990 and 1993, the 1995 imprisonment of Manuel Contreras, and the 1998 constitutional accusation against Augusto Pinochet. The ability of the Chilean military to pursue its interests successfully by circumventing formal channels in the face of opposition from civilian policymakers demonstrates that the road to civilian supremacy is long and the end is not clearly in sight.