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impossible to assign responsibility among them. We share the opinion that the Concertación may well dissolve before Chile’s next election, but not for the reasons commonly cited. Our argument is based, instead, on the structure of Chilean political careers, which in turn is connected inextricably with Chile’s unusual electoral rules. Harbingers of the Concertación’s demisepoint out that the Chilean ESTUDIO economy has slowed somewhat since the coalition’s early years in government during the 1990s. Moreover, the coalition itself was initially galvanized around opposition to the Pinochet regime of the 1970s and 1980s, so as time passes, the compelling force of that initial motivation might naturally weaken. In addition, the Concertación, and even its component parties—most notably the Christian Democrats— are internally divided over social issues, such as the legal status of divorce and access to birth control. Finally, by the 2005 elections, the Concertación will have held the presidency and a majority in the Chamber of Deputies (the legislative house elected by popular vote) for 16 years. By the standards of multiparty EL SISTEMA DE EVALUACIÓN DE IMPACTOAMBIENTAL coalitions anywhere, much less among Latin America’s presidential ANÁLISIS DEL DISEÑO DE FISCALIZACIÓN Y SU systems, the Concertación is geriatric, bearing the scars of miscellaneous CUMPLIMIENTO EN LA REGIÓN DEL BÍO-BÍO* corruption charges against members, including the stripping of parliamentary rights from five of the coalition’s deputies in 2002, and the Jaime with holding the Chávezgeneral disillusionment that goes Lamas y Carlosreins of power for so long. One might conclude, then, that the coalition is simply ready to expire. Any of these forces, or some combination of them, could indeed undermine the Concertación, but we do not regard these factors as Este trabajo revisa el diseño del Programa de Fiscalización Ambiennecessarily devastating to the coalition’s survival for anumber of reasons. tal Regional y evalúa los resultados de cumplimiento de las ResoluIn the first place, the Chilean economy has come through the last five years ciones de Calificación Ambiental (RCA) para proyectos sometidos in far better shape thande Evaluación of its Southern Cone (SEIA). Nuestro al Sistema that of any de Impacto Ambiental neighbors, and employment and growth figures reboundedincontiene información de fichas análisis utiliza una base de datos que first months of 2003. The Concertación de fiscalizaciónin a204 visitasin 2005 to claim credit for good may well be de position de inspección desarrolladas bajo la coordinación de la Conamaof la región del surrounding the noneconomic stewardship. Next, many de the issues Bío-Bío, entre 1999 y el primer of the Pinochet Los—including the el nivel de democratic legacysemestre del año 2004. era resultados indican querenowned
cumplimiento perfecto de la RCA alcanza sólo al 50% de los proyectos inspeccionados, en tanto que la incidencia de cumplimiento

JAIME LAMAS. Magíster (c) en Economía de Recursos Naturales y del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Concepción. Profesional de la Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente, región delBío-Bío. Email: jlamas.8@conama.cl CARLOS CHÁVEZ. Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) Economía Ambiental y Recursos Naturales, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Estados Unidos. Profesor asociado, Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Concepción. Email: cchavez@udec.cl * Agradecemos a la Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente de la Región del Bío-Bío, particularmente al Programa de FiscalizaciónAmbiental Regional, por facilitar el acceso a la información de fiscalización.

Estudios Públicos, 105 (verano 2007).

impossible to assign responsibility among them. We share the opinion that the Concertación may well dissolve before Chile’s next election, but not for the reasons commonly cited. Our argument is based, instead, on the structure of Chilean political careers, which in turn is...