SOCIAL POLICY AGENDAS AND CONSTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY IN THE CHILEAN TRANSITION PROCESS

Abstract

Socifal policies have been the greatest field of innovation in Chilean state action since 1990. These policies were conceived as a key factor to ensure governance in the political transition to democracy, to strengthen the economic model and to re-establish a link between State and society. This article examines some governmental political initiatives in different areas of social policy. It is important to know how these social programs and policies have shaped the relationship between the new State, which emerged from the negotiations in the late 1980s, and the Chilean society. For this purpose, the general approaches which underlie this policy are reviewed, and then the orientations within them are differentiated. There are five different patterns or tendencies in Chilean social policy, according to their orientation, institutional management and type of relationship with the social organizations. Two of them arose as a result of the implementation of innovative approaches during the 1990s, which also led to the creation of new agencies. A third one is related with the reorientation of policies in traditional areas. The last two of the analyzed trends refer to the interfaces between the social policy and civil society at the local sphere (decentralized entities and externalization - or outsourcing - of the relationship)