Decentralization and regionalization in Chile 1974-2020: from authoritarian deconcentration to a decentralized unitary state with greater regional empowerment

Abstract

In Chile, the change of regional administration model, it’s observed in its constitutional reforms. The Constitution (1980), proposes a territorially decentralized unitary State model. However, its design was organized on the basis of the centralist regional model, created in the early 1970s, centered in the regional intendant. The 1991 reform, created a new model, based in the normative, whose axis, is the regional government. The reforms of the years 2009 and 2017 eliminate the hierarchical relationship between the regional government and the central level. joined with its democratization.