National Politics and Local Conflicts. Landowners from the Province of Llanquihue and Rural Mobilization in the Chilean Agrarian Reform

Abstract

This article analyzes the response of agricultural landowners from the Southern Province of Llanquihue towards rural workers' unprecedented mobilization during Chile's Agrarian Reform, between 1970 and the period right after Salvador Allende's election (1970-1971). It states that landowners developed flexible and complex strategies in which they combined both, their own benefits due to their social position in the local society and, the advantages offered by the national political context. In turn, it was observed that local politics reached such a level of conflict that specific responses from the recently elected government emerged in order to minimize the possible political consequences of the rural workers' movement. This is the reason why it was necessary for the government to subtly and temporally ally with local elites to achieve a successful negotiation.