Catastrophes as critical junctures

Political analysis has sometimes been downplayed in disaster studies, in the belief that disasters should be apolitical and rationally managed (Pelling and Dill Reference Pelling and Dill2010). ^{Footnote 6} However, cases show the opposite is true: catastrophes are deeply political. In Latin America, cases where disasters have become an arena for contestation abound. For example, Walker (Reference Walker2008) shows that the 1746 earthquake-tsunami in colonial Lima affected the stability of the Spanish Crown, as the lower classes were desperate, and the upper class saw a chance to press for independence. McCook (Reference McCook, Buchenau and Lyman2009) studied an earthquake in revolutionary Venezuela that generated so much social anxiety that royalists managed to win power back from creole separatists. And Healey (Reference Healey2011) has presented the case of the 1944 San Juan earthquake, which launched Juan Domingo Perón onto the national political scene in Argentina. As disaster scholars have repeatedly shown, disasters are “all-encompassing occurrences” that sweep every aspect of human life: biological, social, economic, and cultural (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman Reference Oliver-Smith and Hoffman1999). Catastrophes can put institutions and social arrangements to the test, generating different types of social or political “aftershocks” (see also Martland Reference Martland2007; Gawronski and Olson Reference Gawronski and Stuart Olson2013; Zulawski Reference Zulawski2018; Gil and Atria Reference Gil and Atria2021; Piazza and Schneider Reference Piazza and Schneider2021).

It can be useful to frame the analysis of disasters as critical junctures, especially when the focus is to understand their impact on institutions such as the state (Gawronski and Olson Reference Gawronski and Stuart Olson2013). I understand a critical juncture to be a brief phase of institutional fluidity where there is a substantially heightened probability that agents’ choices will affect outcomes (Capoccia and Kelemen Reference Capoccia and Daniel Kelemen2007). In other words, it is a relatively short moment in time during which change is not only possible but actually contemplated. Mahoney (Reference Mahoney2001, 7) uses this approach when he defines critical junctures as a “choice point when a particular option is adopted among two or more alternatives.” This means that the possibilities of what could have happened are not endless; they are determined by the conditions of the critical juncture. Even then, critical junctures are moments of contestation when people “can shape outcomes in a more voluntaristic fashion than normal circumstances would permit” (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2001, 7); decisions are potentially much more momentous, and new institutional trajectories can be set. However, this does not mean that junctures happen completely because of human agency. On the contrary, junctures open because “an event or a series of events, typically exogenous to the institution of interest, lead to a phase of political uncertainty in which different options for radical institutional change are viable” (Capoccia Reference Capoccia, Mahoney and Thelen2015, 6).

The situation in Chile before the earthquake

The 1939 earthquake happened at a moment in Chilean history when emerging middle and working classes were starting to push for social justice and a growing, more active state (Meller Reference Meller1996; Collier and Sater Reference Collier and Sater2004; Pavilack Reference Pavilack2011; Henríquez Vásquez Reference Henríquez Vásquez2014). After decades of extreme laissez-faire economic policies, the 1920s saw the development of social laws that attended to some of the most crucial needs of the people: housing, health, and education (Larrañaga Reference Larrañaga2010; Henríquez Vásquez Reference Henríquez Vásquez2014; Serrano et al. Reference Serrano, Ponce de León, Rengifo and Mayorga2018). Some of these initiatives had their origins even earlier (Yáñez Reference Yáñez2008; Mac-Clure Reference Mac-Clure2012), but by 1930 the situation was still “dramatic” (Serrano et al. Reference Serrano, Ponce de León, Rengifo and Mayorga2018) and the absence of the state was prominent in most sectors (Larrañaga Reference Larrañaga2010).

In the case of industry, the government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (1927–1931) had created a Ministry of Development (Ministerio de Fomento) and implemented some “promotion policies” (credit and protectionist tariffs) that were intensified by Arturo Alessandri-Palma (1932–1938). However, by the 1930s, industrialization was still very low, even compared with other Latin American countries (Lederman Reference Lederman2005; Gómez-Galvarriato and Williamson Reference Gómez-Galvarriato and Williamson2009): barely 13 percent of Chilean GDP was produced by industry, with a growth rate of 3.5 percent for the 1908–1930 period (Meller Reference Meller1996, 51). Also, the country had recently gone through two major economic crises due to a decline in the nitrate trade during World War I and the impact of the Great Depression. This had led to a long discussion about the need for economic diversification and expanded industrialization (Correa et al. Reference Correa, Consuelo Figueroa, Rolle and Vicuña2001; Silva Reference Silva2009; Vergara Reference Vergara, Drinot, Knight and Pérez-Sáez2016).

In this context, the Chilean Popular Front—a leftist coalition of the Radical, Democratic, Communist, Socialist, and Radical-Socialist Parties founded in 1937—represented the hopes and dreams of the emerging middle and working classes, which pushed for change (Meller Reference Meller1996; Collier and Sater Reference Collier and Sater2004). The Front’s first aim was to improve the living conditions of the masses by proposing several reforms, such as the expansion of education, protection for rural workers, and a state-led industrialization program (Stevenson [1942] 1970; Super Reference Super1975; Rosemblatt Reference Rosemblatt2000; Barr-Melej Reference Barr-Melej2001; Pavilack Reference Pavilack2011). The second aim was modernization (Rosemblatt Reference Rosemblatt2000; Silva Reference Silva2009), understood as a form of manifest destiny “in which the aims of economic independence, industrial growth and social justice became integrated in a coherent discourse” (Silva Reference Silva2009, 86).

The Popular Front achieved power in 1938 with the election of Pedro Aguirre Cerda as president of Chile (Reference Aguirre Cerda1933, 101). He had been a middle-class schoolteacher before becoming a successful politician. As a key political figure of the Radical Party, he had served as deputy, senator, and minister and was the first Chilean president to be elected distinctively with the votes of middle-class men and blue-collar workers. For Aguirre Cerda, the improvement of living conditions in the country was intimately tied to industrialization; therefore, he thought that this goal should be a primary responsibility of the state. In his work El problema industrial (Reference Aguirre Cerda1933, 101), he claimed that “rulers today are not like old rulers, quiet onlookers of industrial and commercial development, but managers and administrators of a great enterprise, looking for the common good of the national community.” Consequently, his presidential program granted a prominent place for economic planning at the state level. ^{Footnote 7}

The overall agreement on the need to augment production, together with the fact that Aguirre Cerda was openly in favor of ISI policies, has led several authors to consider the creation of CORFO as the expected “institutionalization” of these ideas and to assume that there was no disagreement regarding the need for a new corporation (Loveman Reference Loveman1979; Ibáñez Reference Ibáñez1983; Lederman Reference Lederman2005; Henríquez Vásquez Reference Henríquez Vásquez2014; Bravo-Ortega and Eterovic Reference Bravo-Ortega and Eterovic2015; Nazer Reference Nazer2016). However, this is only partially correct. The consensus about the need to expand industrialization was limited by disagreements about the role of the state in this process (Super Reference Super1975; Meller Reference Meller1996; Correa et al. Reference Correa, Consuelo Figueroa, Rolle and Vicuña2001; Collier and Sater Reference Collier and Sater2004). Even the Popular Front lacked a common plan, amid the tension between those who argued for a reformist-capitalist state and the more radical factions who questioned whether industrialization policies actually improved the lives of the poor (Rosemblatt Reference Rosemblatt2000). In addition, Aguirre Cerda’s hard-won election (50.45 percent) was being contested by the opposition, which controlled both chambers of Congress (the Senate and the House of Deputies). Overall, the president was not in a good position to make his ideas prevail when the earthquake happened, a month after his start in office.

The destabilizing event

The 1939 earthquake happened on a Tuesday evening, rattling the city of Chillán, capital of Ñuble Province, and affecting at least eight cities and twelve towns that suffered heavily from the shock. At the capital, casualties were few and destruction was minor, but people were anxious and started to gather outdoors. The government immediately tried to figure out the epicenter of the shock when the telegraph office announced that towns south of Talca were not responding, including the city of Chillán. ^{Footnote 8} President Aguirre Cerda decided to travel to the area immediately, even though electricity was shut down, railroads were useless, and roads were damaged. He managed to arrive in Chillán the next morning, only to confirm that the city was a pile of ruins: buildings were destroyed, streets had almost disappeared, and bodies were being gathered in parks (figure 1; see also additional files). ^{Footnote 9} Authorities immediately organized rescue efforts and the arrival of provisions; the military was put in charge of public order, burying bodies, and providing the post in the main square. ^{Footnote 10} Soon, the central government suppressed local authorities and took control of the four most affected provinces: Ñuble, Concepción, Bio-Bio, and Maule.

Figure 1.

President Pedro Aguirre-Cerda in Concepción, days after the earthquake. Colección Archivo Fotográfico, Museo Histórico Nacional.

Ten days after the event, the press claimed that the country was slowly returning to normal; roads were being cleared and trains were running again. ^{Footnote 11} But that was hardly the whole story; 111,984 homes had been lost across the country, with broad destruction of basic services, communications, and infrastructure. ^{Footnote 12} The Ministry of Finance calculated the cost of reconstruction to be 1,719 million pesos, which represented approximately 10 percent of the GDP at the time. ^{Footnote 13} The task ahead was huge.

The moment of contestation

In his seminal work on path dependence in historical sociology, Mahoney (Reference Mahoney2001, 513) states that critical junctures are defined by “the adoption of a particular institutional arrangement from among two or more alternatives.” This means that critical junctures are not just episodes of important or “momentous” decisions but also a time when alternatives are discussed and different outcomes are possible. This is important, for it involves showing that CORFO, like other institutional developments in the reconstruction plan, was not the natural culmination of a growing process of state intervention in the Chilean economy but was one institutional option among others.

To start, the problems posed by the earthquake were interpreted differently by different actors. As Blyth (Reference Blyth2002) has stated, contestation in times of crisis involves discussing not only “what is to be done” but, more importantly, “what went wrong.” Offering a convincing diagnosis is crucial, because it influences the way people and institutions discuss and select possible solutions. For traditional elites, embodied in this case by the opposition, the disaster was seen as a problem of assistance to the victims and restoration of public infrastructure. They expressed their intent to immediately cooperate with the government in such a plan, offering support and arguing for a “methodical and not exaggeratedly expensive” reconstruction plan. ^{Footnote 14} The government, however, had a different interpretation of the tasks ahead. As Aguirre Cerda himself pointed out later, “the earthly cataclysm that we have suffered confirmed to the government the argument formulated before about a lack of foresight to solve fundamental problems of public interest.” ^{Footnote 15} By this, he meant that the earthquake had made it clear that electricity and transportation were lacking, while industries were insufficient to face the country’s challenges. To solve these problems, he argued, the state should have a greater role in economic development, instead of acting as a “mere moneylender.” ^{Footnote 16} This meant that reconstruction and industrialization should be analyzed as one, since “there is no other way to recover lost value and economic depression than to augment production.” ^{Footnote 17} Overall, to frame the earthquake as a problem of development will be crucial for Aguirre Cerda’s success, even if he could not do it exactly as he wanted.

The government’s plan was first presented by the president in a heartfelt speech in front of Congress on January 31, a week after the earthquake. According to Silvert (Reference Silvert1948), the bill was written hurriedly by the minister of finance, engineer Roberto Wachholtz, who was a strong supporter of state-led industrialization. It proposed a six-year plan for recovery, for which he asked Congress the authority to collect and spend 2.5 billion pesos over and above regular national revenue: 1 billion for reconstruction and relief, 1 billion for unspecified projects for industrial development, and 0.5 billion for public housing for urban workers. Part of this amount was to be obtained from new and increased taxes, part from reassignment of the national budget, and the remaining part from loans (mostly internal). ^{Footnote 18} In this first version of the bill, the money would be managed by the Ministry of Finance.

The opposition was perplexed. Not only was the government asking for an extravagant sum for reconstruction—one billion pesos, equivalent to the whole public budget for a year—but Aguirre Cerda was also proposing a fundamental change in political economy. Immediately, opposition parties declared their complete hostility to the bill, publishing a “manifesto” against it, vowing to deny the president such powers and accusing him of playing with the future of the country. ^{Footnote 19} Their argument was that the project exceeded the immediate problem of reconstruction, and that by requesting funds for yet unspecified projects the president was asking Congress to give up its constitutional right to supervise government spending. ^{Footnote 20} Minister Wachholtz tried to convince the opposition, arguing that “we cannot conceive of asking for loans if we are not creating the means to pay them later.” ^{Footnote 21} However, the opposition had the majority in the Finance Committee of the House of Deputies, and the bill was rejected. ^{Footnote 22}

Aguirre Cerda’s plan shows us his economic ideas; what followed shows us his charismatic political style. To promote the bill, he urged popular support on national broadcast radio as he organized a second tour of the earthquake-torn provinces. “I have promised not only to bury your dead,” he claimed, “not only to help those wounded and homeless, but also to immediately face the reconstruction of devastated cities, to recover daily life and jobs, to save agriculture and industry.” ^{Footnote 23} In this context, the administration started a large campaign to portray the opposition as responsible for the delay in disaster relief (see figure 2). “Of all the countries in the world, Chile is the only one that has not helped the victims of the Chillán earthquake,” claimed the political magazine Topaze (see additional files). ^{Footnote 24} The narrative also evoked patriotism and solidarity, especially to justify the tax reform (Gil and Atria Reference Gil and Atria2021). As several authors have suggested, the Front actively encouraged sentiments of nationalism among their middle-class voters (Barr-Melej Reference Barr-Melej2001; Rosemblatt Reference Rosemblatt2000), and the disaster proved to be a great occasion to do so.

Figure 2.

“Derechas,” Revista Topaze, February 17, 1939.

A second part of the strategy was to publish a list of projects that were part of the future development program. Most of these programs had been prepared in the previous decades by different technocratic groups of Chilean engineers. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, engineers had emerged as an important stakeholder for the Chilean state: a so-called independent group of experts that challenged the state with new ventures, but also helped neutralize and legitimize several modernization projects (Ibáñez Reference Ibáñez1983; Silva Reference Silva2009; Nazer Reference Nazer2016; Harvey Reference Harvey2020). They were important economic and political actors because their expertise allowed them to mediate between industrialists and politicians (Ibáñez Reference Ibáñez1983; Harvey Reference Harvey2020). The first Latin American Conference of Engineering occurred in Santiago a week before the earthquake; the issue of electricity was prominent and a national plan for state-led electrification was presented at the conference (Humeres Reference Humeres2020). This plan was included in the development program, with the largest budget (500 million pesos), and was amply discussed in the press to provide confidence in CORFO.

What other plans were contemplated? By February 20 there were seven different reconstruction bills under discussion in Congress, including two from the conservative-liberal coalition and a second one from socialist and communist deputies, who presented alternative measures to collect funds. ^{Footnote 25} For them, the taxes of the Aguirre-Wachholtz bill were misplaced; they opposed the increase on sales tax, instead proposing higher taxes on industrialists and landowners and the termination of payments on Chile’s external debt. However, the most fundamental critique came from the opposition, whose bills focused only on reconstruction, leaving aside the discussion about economic development. ^{Footnote 26} The most comprehensive of these plans proposed the creation of a reconstruction corporation on top of emergency funds, a project that cost a third of the money required by the government’s proposal. Some of these concerns were incorporated in a new government bill, apparently presented by Wachholtz without consulting the rest of the cabinet. The request for 2.5 billion pesos was maintained, but the government made concessions in several points related to funds—internal loans and taxation were significantly scaled down—and proposed the creation of not one but two state organizations: the Reconstruction and Assistantship Corporation (CRA), to act in the most affected areas for up to six years, and the Production Development Corporation (CORFO), to address recovery at the national level. ^{Footnote 27} The opposition, however, refused this bill as well, while the Finance Committee of the House passed a favorable report on their project. ^{Footnote 28}

Overall, the critical juncture triggered by the earthquake resulted in seven plans but two main options in terms of institutional trajectories: on one side, to address aid and reconstruction, leaving production to be discussed later; and on the other side, to include a state-led program for industrial development as part of reconstruction and recovery. At this point in the discussion, this meant creating either one or two new corporations.

Chileans seemed to side with Aguirre Cerda, and large crowds would gather at each train stop to hear him speak and condemn right-wing politicians for prolonging their suffering. Importantly, industrialists also supported the second Aguirre-Wachholtz bill, although with several reservations. The National Manufacturers Association (Sociedad de Fomento Fabril, SOFOFA) had argued for an industrialization program since the 1930s, as long as they had direct participation in economic planning (Ibáñez Reference Ibáñez1983; Lederman Reference Lederman2005). Hence, they were willing to concede to state-led industrialization as long as CORFO looked more like the National Economic Council they had been lobbying for. Now, they wanted to be included in both boards: CORFO and the CRA. They expressed these ideas to Minister Wachholtz, who used his constitutional authority to withdraw all projects from discussion (including his own).

While Aguirre Cerda was on tour, his allies were also working to get the votes needed. Frontist congressmen from the most-affected provinces organized meetings with their colleagues from the opposition. ^{Footnote 29} Representatives of these municipalities also visited their congressmen and the press, asking for the “end of politicking.” ^{Footnote 30} Wachholtz conferred with SOFOFA, the workers federation (Confederación de Trabajadores de Chile), the opposition, and his allies to find a “harmonic solution.” ^{Footnote 31} On March 1, he submitted a new bill that increased concessions to these groups but maintained the spirit of the project: 2.5 million, two corporations, and a fiscal reform. ^{Footnote 32} Under the new dispositions the state did not have total control over any of the new agencies; instead, they would be created as public but quasi-governmental corporations, with a board that included the heads of industrial organizations, professional unions, and labor leaders. Still, they would be state-led, and the state would hold 100 percent of the shares. Also, some proposed tax increases were scaled down; specifically, a 10 percent tax on homemade manufactured goods was cut out of the project, and certain taxes that applied to national companies were extended to large-scale foreign mining companies. Simultaneously, Wachholtz managed to assuage socialists’ concerns about the sales tax. ^{Footnote 33}

The support of industrialists was crucial for this new bill to succeed. However, most of the opposition parties remained unconvinced and were determined to obstruct the creation of CORFO. In the words of a conservative senator, “We may have lost the election, but we will win the earthquake.” ^{Footnote 34} This time the bill was approved by the Finance Committee of the House (probably to avoid Wachholtz withdrawing all projects again). What followed was a massive, sometimes violent fight between supporters of the Popular Front and the opposition at the House. More than once, the discussion grew so heated that representatives had to be pulled apart before a brawl broke out. As a deputy of the opposition put it: “the tragedy has put to the test not only our economic capacity but also our aptitudes for democratic life.” ^{Footnote 35} Finally, the bill was approved in the House thanks to the vote of the liberal deputy Armando Martín, who represented the district of Chillán. ^{Footnote 36}

For the Senate, the government used the same strategy. The Front organized massive rallies in Santiago, and Aguirre Cerda addressed the multitudes repeating a similar speech: economic expansion was vital for the reconstruction program and any hope of economic self-sufficiency. ^{Footnote 37} However, the opposition did not relent. The Finance Committee of the Senate also criticized the “mixing” of the reconstruction and development corporations in the same bill, calling it a “vice.” ^{Footnote 38} The project suffered several more changes, which meant that it had to go back and forth to the House several times. Aguirre Cerda fought hard for vetoing the motion to subject the development plans to Congressional approval and, in the end, the opposition´s biggest triumph was to deny the president his four special appointees on CORFO’s board of directors. ^{Footnote 39}

CORFO was finally approved on April 26, only a little more than three months after the quake. ^{Footnote 40} How did the government manage to secure the votes? Some have argued that Aguirre Cerda stopped a bill to organize farmers’ unionization in exchange for CORFO (Muñoz and Arriagada Reference Muñoz and María Arriagada1977; Loveman Reference Loveman1979). The rumor started in 1939, but Aguirre Cerda denies this in his letters to Gabriela Mistral, assuring the renowned poet that the discussion of the bill was paused to better study the issue. ^{Footnote 41} According to scholars who have studied countryside mobilization in Chile, Aguirre Cerda was not a great supporter of farmers’ unionization (Acevedo Reference Acevedo2015), fearing that it would hurt his plans for technologizing the countryside (see Aguirre Cerda Reference Aguirre Cerda1929). Loveman (Reference Loveman1979, 278) supports this hypothesis, adding that the earthquake had left men in the countryside “bordering on insurrection.” It is more likely that the price for CORFO can be found in the reconstruction bill itself: protectionist measures for Chilean industry, a quasi-governmental control of the CORFO board, and the termination of payments on Chile’s external debt (Correa et al. Reference Correa, Consuelo Figueroa, Rolle and Vicuña2001; Nazer Reference Nazer2016). It must also be considered that, in both the House of Deputies and the Senate, the crucial votes from the opposition parties were placed by representatives of the most affected provinces, who received strong criticism and even expulsion from their parties. ^{Footnote 42} This indicates that the earthquake was, in fact, the crucial factor in passing the bill; because Chillán politicians were conscious of how delaying the bill was hurting their constituents, they felt the pressure from voters and were probably pushed by Wachholtz himself (Loveman Reference Loveman1979, 278). Overall, evidence points to the earthquake’s greater role in allowing Aguirre Cerda to succeed with the reconstruction and development bill. The disaster increased the need for public expenditure and set a new, higher expectation for state involvement in society, providing new evidence of a “displacement effect” in moments of crisis (Peacock and Wiseman Reference Peacock and Wiseman1967; Legrenzi Reference Legrenzi2004).

In the end, CORFO meant different things for different actors. Most frontists were happy, because its creation legitimized the idea of planning and the principle that government had the duty to intervene in economy and society to improve the living conditions of the people. Socialists interpreted it as a triumph of “capitalist” views inside the Front, and this would soon lead to several problems for Aguirre Cerda (Silvert Reference Silvert1948). Industrialists, who had representatives on the board of CORFO, were mostly hopeful, as they would get easier access to credit and saw an opportunity to participate in the development projects. In fact, Ibáñez (Reference Ibáñez1994) has shown that the sectoral plans led by CORFO during its initial years were heavily influenced by industrial leaders. Even so, part of the opposition was frustrated; they feared CORFO would mean a stronger and “meddling” state, and that is exactly what happened. The impact of this law on Chile’s technocratic state and its corresponding bureaucracy was significant (Ibáñez Reference Ibáñez1994; Silva Reference Silva2009). The number of public employees in the country rose by nearly one-sixth between 1937 and 1941. By 1957 this number had doubled compared with 1930’s capacity (Hurtado Reference Hurtado1966). The reconstruction and recovery program would also transform many sectors, from public health to childhood protection services (Rojas Reference Rojas2010; Pavilack Reference Pavilack2011), but the three main institutional outcomes were CORFO, the CRA, and the tax reform. These institutions and resources became tools for the state for years to come.

Institutional legacies

Critical junctures are important because they help us to understand events themselves, and because they allow us to rethink the relationship between events and social structure. As historical sociologist William Sewell stated (Reference Sewell2005, 199), for a certain social science, “it seemed that ‘event’ and ‘structure’ could not occupy the same epistemological space.” However, events can only be interpreted within the terms of the structures in place. At the same time, the study of events shows us that they can have the power to redefine structures (Sewell Reference Sewell2005; Wagner-Pacifici Reference Wagner-Pacifici2017). Comprehending this relationship has been difficult for sociology, and critical junctures can be thought of as an analytical tool for doing so because they allow us to understand that occurrences become events when they force us to make choices. Once choices are made, alternative options are closed off and institutional paths are set (at least for a while).

Critical junctures are particularly helpful for understanding the institutional trajectories of states (Soifer Reference Soifer2016). In fact, the 1939 earthquake had a positive impact on state strength. First, it boosted the institutionalization and professionalization of bureaucracies to implement policies and deliver public goods (institutional capacities). Second, it allowed the state to increase its extractive capacity. And finally, it increased the state’s capacity to penetrate throughout the territory (state reach). ^{Footnote 43} To fully understand these outcomes, we need to analyze the long-term impact of the reconstruction bill.

Final discussion

The Chillán earthquake of 1939 happened during an important time in Chilean history, concurrently with relevant global events such as World War II. A British newspaper addressed the parallel brilliantly: “The land is fertile and rich in minerals, but unfortunately, there is a price to pay: this shelf above the Pacific deeps in the direct line of one of the greatest earthquake belts in the world. The inhabitants of Chile, therefore, expect occasional earthquakes as we in Europe have come to expect occasional wars.”Footnote ⁶²

In this article, I have explored this theoretical connection. War making was crucial to shaping state building in Western Europe (Tilly Reference Tilly, Peter Evans and Skocpol1985, Reference Tilly1990; Peacock and Wiseman Reference Peacock and Wiseman1967; Legrenzi Reference Legrenzi2004; Soifer Reference Soifer2016); this research suggests that other type of battles or threats, such as socio-natural disasters, can have a similar effect, prompting the creation of new bureaucracies and administrative bodies, along with the development of new regulations to increase state revenue to pay for these institutions, and expanding the state’s presence in the territory. In the case of earthquakes, the parallel with wars also includes the problem of debris; since both events can pose similar reconstruction challenges. Thus, broadening our understanding of what constitutes a relevant political event by including environmental shocks can be especially important for the study of state development in Latin America.

However, it is important to note that historical institutionalism has concluded that reconstruction challenges can only provide opportunity to states that have the minimal capacities to be able to capitalize on them; this helps explain why disasters in other contexts can have very different effects. In the case of the 1939 Chillán earthquake, the Chilean state was strong enough to survive the shock, and President Aguirre Cerda certainly knew how to make the most of it. So did Minister Wachholtz, who years later confessed to an American graduate student that he had known they were taking advantage of the situation, even if their argument about the need for development to ensure recovery was an honest one. ^{Footnote 63} In the same interview, the minister described Aguirre-Cerda’s immediate words to him after the final vote in Congress: “You have given me a state within a state” (quoted in Silvert Reference Silvert1948, 13). This suggests that Aguirre Cerda understood the relevance of the reconstruction-development law, as described in this article.

Aguirre Cerda could not finish his period as president of Chile due to his premature death in 1941. Today, he is remembered for his famous campaign slogan “Gobernar es educar” (to govern is to educate). However, scholars of the Front—both those who are critical and those who admire it—agree that the greatest accomplishment of his government was the reconstruction and development bill, or more specifically CORFO (Stevenson [1942] 1970; Super Reference Super1975). The years after the earthquake were difficult for the president: an attempted military coup, the fears of armed intervention afterward, the exit of the socialists from the Popular Front, a fight with his own party, the early closing of Congress in 1940, the withdrawal of the liberal and conservative candidates from the general elections of 1941, and lastly, tuberculosis. As a consequence, Aguirre Cerda mostly failed to complete his ambitious presidential program. Out of twenty-two bills he sent to Congress in the year after the reconstruction and recovery bill was approved, none reached a vote (Super Reference Super1975). This shows that no matter how popular and visionary Aguirre Cerda was, it took the earthquake to trigger a critical juncture for him to move forward with a state-led industrialization plan. CORFO was made possible by the moment of fluidity that the disaster unlocked, and it could not have happened as it did, or when it did, if not for the earthquake.

Finally, it is important to highlight that the case shows the strong potential of using the critical juncture framework for the study of disasters’ impact in the political realm. For this, it is necessary to take disasters seriously as a category, that is, to understand disasters as events that have the power to disrupt economic, social, or political equilibriums, thus forcing rearticulations. As a result, disasters can call into question implicit or explicit agreements, lead to periods of renegotiation of institutions, and give actors the opportunity to make “momentous” decisions.