Religious parties in Chile: the Christian Democratic Party and the Independent Democratic Union

Abstract

This article analyses the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) of Chile, both of which could be considered religiously oriented parties. On the basis of the typology introduced in this special issue, we conclude that the PDC has oscillated between the “progressive” and “conservative” types. Meanwhile, the UDI represents an uncontested example of the conservative type. However, both parties share a number of traits. First, they both emerged as youth movements in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where a sizable portion of the country's elite are educated. Second, they both represented movements that sought to break with established political forces, by occupying a specific (and untapped) ideological niche, and by engaging in innovative mobilization strategies. Third, a short time after their creation, both parties witnessed rapid electoral growth, which they consolidated over time. Both parties remain electorally successful today, even in the wake of increasing levels of secularization in Chilean society. Our comparative analysis of both parties describes their historical trajectory in the party system, as well as their contemporary organizational and ideological characteristics. We also analyse each party's doctrinaire influences and their relation to the Chilean and global Catholic Church.

Keywords:

• UDI
• Christian Democratic Party
• Chile
• religiously oriented political parties

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from FONDECYT Project # 1110565 and the Millennium Nucleus for the Study of Stateness and Democracy in Latin America (NS 100014). We thank Dania Straughan, Francesco Cavatorta, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The errors remaining are our sole responsibility.

Notes

Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.”

Middlebrook, “Introduction: Conservative Parties.”

Loveman, “Transformation of the Chilean Countryside”; Valenzuela, Political Brokers in Chile; Scully, Rethinking the Center.

The term became popular after 1931, when the Catholic Church published the encyclical Quadragesimo anno.

Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.”

Mainwaring and Scully, “Diversity of Christian Democracy,” 35.

Scully, Rethinking the Center.

Ibid.

Walker, “Future of Chilean Christian Democracy,” 164.

Ibid., 166.

Scully, Rethinking the Center, 117.

Ibid., 125.

For a thorough description of this context see Valenzuela, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes; Scully, Rethinking the Center.

Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.”

Both groups were significantly influenced by liberation theology. Such doctrine contributed to the radicalization of some sectors within the party, eventually contributing to the emergence of party splitters. Yet, there is no evidence that the party's core was significantly influenced by liberation theology. In that regard, the influence of the Catholic Church social doctrine and the Second Vatican Council has been much more important. Fernández, La “iglesia” que resistió a Pinochet; Walker, El Futuro de la Democracia Cristiana.

Valenzuela and Valenzuela “Party Oppositions”; Valenzuela, “Chile: Origins and Consolidation.”

Valenzuela, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes; Scully, Rethinking the Center.

The military regime's relations with the Chilean Catholic Church were extremely troubled from the outset. Moreover, during the authoritarian regime, the Catholic Church acted as an umbrella organization in which movements opposing the authoritarian regime had the opportunity to operate. Different organizations that coexisted under the protection of the Catholic Church also worked to improve the situation of those most harmed by the harsh economic crisis that the country endured in the early 1980s. Fernández, La “iglesia” que resistió a Pinochet.

Garretón, The Chilean Political Process.

Roberts, Deepening Democracy?

See Tironi and Agüero, “¿Sobrevivirá El Nuevo Paisaje?”; Torcal and Mainwaring, “Recrafting of Social Bases.”

Hagopian, “Social Justice.” This pivot was particularly traumatic for Latin America. The policy cycle initiated by the Second Vatican Council and the church's “preferential option for the poor” spawned multiple hybrids of Christianity and Marxism. In countries like Chile and Brazil, this process naturally evolved into the confrontation between the authoritarian bureaucratic regimes and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

Funk, “¿Un destape chileno?”

Valenzuela (The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes) and Scully (Rethinking the Center) analysed the role of pragmatic centrist parties across Chilean political history. They argue that PDC emerged as an ideological centrist party occupying the place historically played by the Liberals and, later, the Radical Party. They showed the initial benefits and incremental costs that center pragmatic parties experienced from the system.

Walker, El Futuro de la Democracia Cristiana.

Luna and Mardones, “Chile: Are the Parties Over?”

Cristi, El pensamiento político de Jaime Guzmán.

Joignant and Navia, “De la política de individuos.”

Hagopian, “Social Justice.”

Fontaine, “Chile's Elections”; Huneeus, “La derecha en el Chile”; Luna, “Segmented Party-Voter Linkages.”

Cristi, El pensamiento político de Jaime Guzmán, 23–44.

Londregan, Legislative Institutions.

See Luna, “Segmented Party-Voter Linkages.”

Ibid.

Huneeus, “La derecha en el Chile”; Klein, “The Union Democrata Independiente.”

See Luna, “Segmented Party-Voter Linkages.”

Interviewed by Fernando Rosenblatt, 2011.

Luna and Rosenblatt, “¿Notas para una autopsia?”

Interviewed by Fernando Rosenblatt, 2011.

Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.”

Interviewed by Fernando Rosenblatt, 2011

Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.”

This is also highlighted by PDC leaders.

Interviewed by Fernando Rosenblatt, 2011.

Ibid.

Ibid.

See Funk “¿Un destape chileno?”; LAPOP, Chile 2006; LAPOP, Chile 2010.

Gorgi, “Ahab and the White Whale.”

Luna, Divide and Rule.

Ibid.

See also Roberts, Deepening Democracy?; Torcal and Mainwaring, “Political Recrafting of Social Bases.”

LAPOP, Chile 2010; Luna, Divide and Rule.

Luna, Divide and Rule.

Luna, “Partidos políticos y sociedad en Chile”; Luna, Divide and Rule.

Ozzano, “The Many Faces of the Political God.”

LAPOP, Chile 2010.

Hagopian, “Social Justice.”

Toro, “La inscripción electoral de los jóvenes.”

Luna and Rosenblatt, “¿Notas para una autopsia?”

Luna, “Segmented Party-Voter Linkages.”

LAPOP, Chile 2010; CEP, Encuesta CEP.

Kitschelt et al., Latin American Party Systems; Moreno, Political Cleavages.

Mainwaring and Scully, “Diversity of Christian Democracy.”