International reorientation: the Chilean foreign policy of the military regime and the Concertación

Abstract

This article seeks to identify the degree of change in Chilean foreign policy between the military regime, which lasted from 1973 to 1990, and the governments of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, which ruled Chile between 1990 and 2010. In order to do that, it uses the foreign policy analysis model introduced by Charles Hermann (1990), which classifies changes into four levels and points out their possible determinants. The study uses the comparative method and is based on the analysis of documents, articles, books and data on presidential trips, bilateral treaties and foreign trade. Furthermore, the investigation is complemented by an interview with the former Chilean ambassador Carlos Portales Cifuentes. Based on the analysis, it is concluded that, from the redemocratization, Chile undergoes an international reorientation. The guiding principles of its foreign policy and the style of its diplomacy change, and there is a transition from a condition of political-diplomatic isolation and from a defensive posture to external pressure to a multiple and diversified insertion.