This is an interesting and knowledgeable volume about Chilean electoral politics before the 1973 coup. The author is a Chilean geographer who is currently teaching at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan. The book is clearly influenced by Cruz Coke’s landmark book, Geografìa electoral de Chile (1952), and hardly touches on policy matters (a descriptive observation rather than a criticism).
The first chapter is a description of Chile’s geography—effectively utilizing census data—and a brief discussion of the pre-1973 governmental structure. The second chapter analyzes the electoral system. The next chapter, and perhaps the best in the book, is a seventy-six-page attempt to synthesize the extensive literature and research done on Chilean social classes and prominent families.
Then there is a well over one-hundred-page chapter titled “Forty Years of Democratic Life. ” It contains accounts of the election coalitionbuilding before each election from 1932 to 1973. The results of each vote (presidential, parliamentary, municipal) are viewed in terms of where the votes came from. For most of the elections there are maps showing which party won which state; many of them are not very helpful.
In the final chapter, the author rather successfully argues that there was a regionalization of democratic politics in Chile.
The study has a number of generalizations that can be debated, and the book largely ignores the economic difficulties that have always shaped Chilean politics. There are several merits to this volume, however: it is sensitive to minor political movements, it is thorough in what it does, and it is evenhanded in its judgments.
