Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia: Coalición política, partidos y sistema electoral en Chile, 1987-2010

The Chilean transition to democracy in the late 20th century is considered one of the most successful to have ever taken place in the world. During this process the obstacles set in place by the military government and the dangers of radicalization on the part of the opposition were adroitly overcome. This work develops the thesis that the formation and evolution of the Concertación governmental coalition since the mid-1980s has been of crucial importance for the spread and consolidation of the democratic process and for the development of the country or, in other words, for the change from an authoritarian to a democratically elected government, followed by a democratic and institutionally consolidated government. To do so, drawing from a vast corpus of studies in the Chilean political evolution in recent decades, it offers a conceptualization and characterization of the emergence of a coalitional paradigm that has facilitated democratic governance and the national development.