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This book address the challenges inherent in protecting consensus and political stability while also seeking solutions to the political, social, and economic problems that have yet to be resolved in the post-authoritarian era. The text examines the dilemmas Chilean president Michele Bachelet faces, while also acknowledging the progress she has made. In many ways, given the country's political and economic stability, the Chilean model—even during Bachelet's tenure—has been very successful. Nonetheless, important challenges continue to bedevil the Concertaciόn in a number of different policy areas, though in fact as Bachelet's term comes to a close, her personal popularity has once again risen. The different chapters in this book provide an assessment of the administration's performance and focus on two interrelated sets of issues: the limits of the political system and the nature of socioeconomic policies.

This chapter argues that much of what made Bachelet a very appealing candidate has contributed to making her an ineffective president. Siavelis argues that by the end of the Lagos administration the Concertaciόn was suffering from political decay and as such needed a fresh face to lead the coalition in the 2005 elections. Bachelet was undoubtedly the fresh face that the Concertaciόn needed, but what was an asset during the campaign—her lack of traditional party ties; her consensual, inclusive style; and even the fact that she was a female in a male-dominated political system—became the source of many of the problems since faced by her administration. This chapter also analyzes the root causes of the difficulties the Bachelet government has faced, arguing that much of what made Bachelet an attractive and electable candidate has actually stymied her efforts to construct a stable and effective governing coalition and coherent policy platform.

This chapter provides a follow-up to the themes outlined by Siavelis and goes deeper into the analysis of the Bachelet administration's unfulfilled political promises, such as gender parity, the gobierno ciudadano, and the “no second helpings” policy which excluded from her government those who had held positions of power in previous Concertaciόn administrations. Furthermore, Funk argues that Bachelet's difficulties are the result of a confluence of factors, including the nature of the political system, the nature of the institutions within the system, and the president's approach to politics. For Funk, each of the previous Concertaciόn administrations had been able to develop a narrative that sustained the coalition and the regime. It seems that the problem here is that what constituted the campaign's narrative had to be quickly abandoned, thus depriving the administration of a foundational logic.

This chapter looks into a seminal event in the history of the Bachelet administration. In education, much as in the pension and labor areas, the Concertaciόn consensus was organized around the maintenance of market policies designed by the Pinochet administration. As Kubal argues, the broad outlines of Chile's educational system were established in the market-oriented educational reform of the 1980s which emphasized a subsidiary role for the state; the establishment of privately subsidized schools; municipal administration; and the notion of school choice. The government role was limited to controlling the curriculum and overseeing and evaluating the system. Pinochet ensured the permanence of the system by institutionalizing it in a Constitutional Organic Law, which requires a supermajority in Congress to be modified.

This chapter analyzes the questions of consensus and conflict around property questions, state institutional development, and issues affecting indigenous peoples and the environment. It discusses the responses of the Bachelet administration to these issues, and the horizontal connections between the indigenous and environmental movements. It also analyzes the most conflictive environmental issues. Furthermore, the chapter summarizes Concertaciόn policies toward indigenous peoples, and traces the history under the Lagos and Bachelet administrations of a growing and ever more violent conflict between the indigenous movement and government authorities. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the nature of the indigenous movement, its connection with other social groups, and the construction of horizontal linkages with environmentalist groups. Finally it provides a discussion of the violent movements of early 2008 that led to Bachelet's third cabinet reshuffle.

The chapters in this book have addressed some of the most critical problems of the Concertaciόn during the Bachelet administration and the erosion of the coalition's appeal. As the coalition approached the December 2009 presidential elections, this erosion became quite evident because the Concertaciόn candidate, former president Eduardo Frei, was challenged by the Socialist candidate, Marco Enriquez Ominami. In contrast, the rightwing Alianza coalition was unified behind former presidential candidate and businessman Sebastian Pinera. In the December 2009 elections, Pinera obtained 44.5 percent, Frei obtained 29.6 percent, while Enriquez Ominami got 20.13 percent of the votes. In the constitutionally mandated election runoff of January 2010, Sebastian Pinera won by a 51.6–48.4 percent margin against Frei, ending twenty consecutive years of Concertaciόn governments.