Higher Education Reform And The Limits Of Neoliberal State. The Student Movement In Mexico (1999) And Chile (2011)

Higher Education Reform and the Limits of Neoliberal State. The student movement in Mexico (1999) and Chile (2011)
Alejandro González Ledesma (Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane) alejandro.gonzalez@sumitalia.it
(very) Draft version. Please do not cite or quote without permission

I. - Chile and Mexico: neoliberalization processes and the evolution of social movements 1.1. – Models ofneoliberalization According to Tickell and Kell (2005:166), the neoliberalization is a process that consists in "the mobilization of the state power in the sense of an extension and reproduction of market rules." According to Standing (2002) and Harvey (2007), the main points of neoliberalization are those derived from the so-called, Washington Consensus: 1.- Trade liberalization; 2.- Financial Marketliberalization; 3.- Privatization of production; 4.- "Deregulation"; 5.- Foreign Capital Liberalization, 6.- Secure property rights; 7.- Unified and competitive exchange rates; 8.- Diminished public spending (fiscal discipline); 9.- Public expenditure switching (to health, schooling, and infrastructure); 10.- Tax reform (Broadening the tax base, cutting marginal tax rates, less progressive tax); 11.-A 'social safety net' (narrowly targeted, selective transfers for the needy), 12.- Flexible Labour Markets. Tickell and Kell consider that between 1979 and 2000, the neoliberalization process comprises at least three key moments: a) proto-neoliberalism (1979-1980), from the first experiments of the free market in Chile, to the appearance of Margaret Thatcher in England and Ronald Reagan in theUnited States, b) roll-back neoliberalism (1980-1990)¸ starts with the first free market reforms of Reagan and Thatcher and the debt crisis in Latin America, and c) roll-out neoliberalism (19902000), the organized national building process based on the guidelines of the Washington Consensus. According with the aims of this paper, we will use the scheme of Kell and Tickell to outline the differencesbetween models of neoliberalization in Chile and Mexico. It is important to note that Chile is already an exception, because the social discipline possible under the dictatorship allowed the early implementation of the guidelines mentioned above. The process in Mexico, on the other hand, is similar to the rest of the Latin American countries that were forced to implement the structural adjustmentspolicy, in response to the debt crisis that hit the region in the early eighties. In Chile, the proto-neoliberalism begins with the coup that overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende, and ends with the economic reforms of 1980.This stage is divided into two parts, the first one, from 1973 to 1975, is the peak of state terrorism and the dismantling of the social reforms implementedfor Allende's government and his predecessors from the Christian Democrats („Democracia Cristiana‟). The second one runs from 1975 to 1980, and is marked by the imposition of a policy aimed at resolving the high inflation as well as long-term measures to alleviate the crisis

in the balance of payments through a shock treatment (Jinkings and Sader, 2006: 294 and Klein, 2007). The roll-backneoliberalism stage begins with the announcement of the "seven strategic modernizations”as a preamble to the adoption of the Constitution of 1980. Through this measures, Pinochet sought the institutionalization of the economic and political reforms of the dictatorship, laying the groundwork for a future transition to democracy. Through the Constitution, endorsed by a fake referendum, Pinochet removedcivilian control over the military, cancelled the possibility of the involvement of the left in the political life of the country and created a Senate where most of its members were not elected, but appointed by him. In 1979, General Pinochet presented his seven modernizations, which had as main objective the liberalization of the economy: 1.- labor reform; 2.- privatization of the pension...