Gregory Weeks

A Preference for Deference: reforming the military's intelligence role in Argentina, Chile and Peru

Abstract In the past decade an effort to reform the militarys role in defence institutions such as intelligence services has been underway across Latin America. Utilising the cases of Argentina, Chile and Peru, this article will argue that reform has occurred, but has been limited in terms of expanding civilian authority, and will offer a means of understanding the dynamics of intelligence reform. In particular, incentives for civilians to pursue complicated reform have been absent. The militarys proven ability to operate its own intelligence agencies constitutes a disincentive. To examine the dynamics of reform, the analysis centres on three variables: the number of institutions involved in overseeing intelligence, the degree of presidential control, and whether military intelligence activities are overseen by the civilian government.

The ‘Lessons’ of Dictatorship: Political Learning and the Military in Chile

This article argues that political learning with regard to civil-military relations in Chile has proved an obstacle to democratization. In the postauthoritarian period, both the armed forces and political parties have referred to history when considering civil-military reform, especially with regard to how to avoid a repeat of the conflict of the Unidad Popular period. Meanwhile, the military also utilizes the Spanish example when resisting changes it feels are inimical to its interests. The ‘lessons’ each takes from the past directly influence political strategies and the overall result is that while civilian rule continues, democratic civil-military relations are not necessarily advanced.

Waiting for Cincinnatus: The role of Pinochet in post-authoritarian Chile

This article explains the persistent influence of General Augusto Pinochet in Chilean politics. After leaving the presidency in 1990, he managed to fuse his personal position with that not only of the institution of the army but of the armed forces as a whole, making Pinochet and the military almost indistinguishable. By doing so Pinochet sought to equate any attack on him with an attack on the institution. The military, in turn, accepted him as its spokesman and defender. He viewed his role as that of Cincinnatus, an emperor twice called to save ancient Rome. Throughout the 1990s Pinochet represented a serious obstacle to democratisation. With his intimate ties to the military institution, his influence - perhaps even after death - can never be discounted.

The Long Road to Civilian Supremacy

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.

Fighting to Close the School of the Americas: Unintended Consequences of Successful Activism

ABSTRACT This article examines the structural and institutional changes that have occurred since the controversial United States School of the Americas (SOA) closed and its successor, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), opened in 2001. Placing these changes within a constructivist framework, the article uses the school as a case study to argue that human rights norm diffusion has both increased the amount of human rights in the curriculum and put the school in a much stronger institutional position than it had been. Human rights activists had successfully prompted change, but did not achieve their goal of closing the school. This article contributes to the literature by demonstrating how ideas about human rights can have important and lasting effects, but not always in ways that are either predictable or desirable for the political activists who spark them.

Civilian inattention and democratization: the Chilean military and political transition in the 1930s

ABSTRACT The Chilean political transition that took place in 1932 is commonly viewed as positive for civil-military relations. This article argues that the very means used to restore stable civilian rule in Chile in the 1930s also contributed to the slow decay of civil-military relations, especially with the army. The conceptual lesson for the contemporary period is that civilian control entails much more than avoiding coups or rebellion in the short term. Civil-military institutions and civilian leadership matter for democracy. Although civilian strategies proved highly effective in the short term, the failure to strengthen civil-military institutions ultimately carried with it a high cost in the longer term. Compounded over years, civilian inattention can lead to estrangement, which in turn can gradually erode civilian supremacy and, by extension, democracy itself.

Impunity, Human Rights, and Democracy: Chile and Argentina, 1990–2005. By Thomas C. Wright. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. Pp. 206.

“The Republic of the Penniless” (Chapter 4) looks at how Puerto Rico became a locus for analyses that overlooked racial difference. Set in El Fanguito, Edward Rosskam’s 1964 novel The Alien is typical of the pitfalls of false class equivalencies that ignore how racial capitalism reinscribed racial difference, particularly in the Puerto Rican diaspora. Of particular interest are investigations countering prevailing nationalist narratives of racial unity. The chapter also contrasts Antonio Pedreira’s concepts of marginality in his “Insularismo” with that of sociologist Edward B. Rueter’s Race and Culture Contacts Rosskam’s portrayal of the criminalization of the Puerto Rican diaspora between 1950 and 1965 should be of particular interest for Puerto Rican scholars of the period.

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In the South, as in much of the United States, the demographic train has left the station. For over a decade the region has been attractive to migrants leaving either a Latin American country or areas of the United States with weaker economies and/or higher costs of living. Our projections going out to 2040 show continued growth under virtually all assumptions, signaling a permanent shift in what had traditionally not been a destination for Hispanics. Using U.S. Census data and other sources to develop projections, the core of our argument is that as the cohort of older (65 years and over) Latinos grows in North Carolina, there will be concomitant political shifts. Children who are citizens will eventually become eligible to vote, legislative districts will be transformed, and Hispanic adults will be taking care of a growing elderly population.

The Train Has Left the Station: Latino Aging in the New South

AlthoughArgentina and Brazil initially received more attention in that regard, Chile is a tempting new examplebecause retired General Augusto Pinochet, once a symbol of utter impunity (even entering theChilean Senate), was transformed into a rumpled octogenarian, and for the most part disappearedfrom public view (though not from public discourse). His successors in the role of army Commander-in-Chief began speaking in new terms, eschewing Pinochet’s intentionally inflammatory rhetoric,and even conceding that officers involved in human rights abuses could be brought before civiliancourts. In this vein, Paul Sigmund comes to the conclusion –based in large part on criticism of mybook on Chilean civil-military relations –that legalism has finally been restored to Chilean civil-militaryrelations (Sigmund, 2003). My own contention is that although Chilean governments have madeimportant strides, the legal foundations of military influence remained in place. I have elsewherecalled this “inching toward democracy” (Weeks, 2003). In this short response, I will address boththe criticism of my work and Professor Sigmund’s own hypothesis.I was surprised that Professor Sigmund stated that I do not define “salient interests” (Sigmund,2003: 248). I will not belabor the point, but rather refer the reader to my book where betweenpages 13 and 17, I address that very issue in detail (Weeks, 2003b: 13-17). The military is interestedin many issues, but attaches different importance to each interest, which in turn affects the waythey react to the expansion of civilian authority over those issues.Next, he claims that I “[do] not believe that the military will agree to the abolition of their appointedsenators” (Sigmund, 2003: 248). In fact, I argue that the military designated senators (not themilitary as a whole) very likely will not vote themselves out of power. The sentence Sigmund quotesfollows a discussion of the possibility of getting votes for such civil-military reform: “These votespotentially could come from members of the Concertacion who are named designated senators,but the military senators will not likely acquiesce to dismantling the system ” (Weeks, 2003: 161).The armed forces may, in the future, feel compelled to “agree to” the abolition of designatedsenators (perhaps as part of some political bargain) but as yet it has not come to pass.Professor Sigmund also quotes my book with regard to the solution of the 1993 boinazo, whichrequires elaboration. The concessions did not simply involve “an agreement on the treatment ofhuman rights cases ” (Sigmund, 2003: 247). As I point out, they also involved firing a Subsecretaryof War (Marcos Sanchez) that the army disliked, as well as compelling the Aylwin government to