Pinochet’s 1980 constitution embedded human-rights language to legitimize a repressive market order

Evidence

The junta’s blend of conservative Catholicism and neoliberalism found its definitive expression in the country’s 1980 constitution, which combined a Catholic stress on dignity, freedom of conscience, the protected status of the Church and the centrality of the family as ‘the basic core of society’, with commitments to private enterprise, ‘choice’, market competition and human rights. Incongruously for a constitution introduced by a torturous dictatorship, its first article was: ‘Men are born free and equal, in dignity and rights.’ … Approved in a plebiscite that was officially described as ‘free, secret and informed’, but which was held in a climate of intense repression in which no electoral rolls existed and a blank vote was counted as ‘yes’, the constitution provided the blueprint for the junta’s ‘protected democracy’. … Americas Watch – formed as an off-shoot of what became Human Rights Watch to head off claims that the organisation was a US Cold War front – concluded it was ‘not in a position to determine’ what the result would have been under fair voting procedures. Even ‘Pinochet’s critics’, it suggested, ‘have acknowledged that in 1980 the government had an unusually high degree of support in part because the economy was doing very well’. Americas Watch recounted that many had pointed to ‘the trauma of the 1970–73 period as having helped General Pinochet secure approval for the constitution’. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 366

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Chapter 3’s discussion and to the broader literature on Chile’s ‘protected democracy’ (e.g., Klein’s Shock Doctrine). Also echoes how economic success and Allende-era trauma generated plebiscite support. — connects to: Pinochet’s junta permitted human rights groups while exterminating the left — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 307; Pinochet’s jurist legitimized suspending rights to defend the market order — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 359; Pinochet’s regime co-opted depoliticized human rights language into its own constitution — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 371 (+5 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly was the electoral arithmetic in the 1980 plebiscite, and how did the ‘blank vote counts as yes’ rule shape the result?

Broader Connections

• Pinochet’s regime co-opted depoliticized human rights language into its own constitution #corroborates (0.98) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 371
• Chile’s 1980 constitution embedded Hayekian free-market ideals within a repressive state structure. #expands (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1591
• Constitutional social rights in Pinochet’s Chile empowered private enterprise over state provision. #expands (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 369
• Chile’s constitution fused Hayekian economics with patriarchal authoritarian concepts #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1593
• Neoliberals weaponized human rights language to protect private property and market order #expands (0.82) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 76