Abstract
Chile modernized its social model in two stages characterized by different strategies: developmentalism (1924–73) and the Washington Consensus (1973–2008). In the first stage, the State pursued both social policies of universal coverage and land reform, while also building up the country’s economic and institutional infrastructure. After the 1973 military coup, some public services were dismantled and privatized, and the labour movement was suppressed. Since the end of the dictatorship in 1990, resistance to state regulation and an anti-labour bias have persisted, albeit to a diminishing degree due to advances in democratization and, latterly, the current world economic crisis.