Governance of Defense and Policymaking in Chile

As Latin American countries work toward leaving military regimes well behind, the current governing of defense in the hands of civilians unveils a series of challenges for democratically elected leaders. This article analyzes the case study of Chile's contemporary defense sector and its policymaking after three decades of evolving civil–military relations. The research focuses particularly on the Estrategia Nacional de Seguridad y Defensa (ENSYD), a government-led policy program launched in 2013 that failed to achieve its goals and faced extensive opposition, for example, in its human security approach to understanding security threats. The article explores and builds on civil–military relations literature and suggests the governance of defense as a concept to study further the constant governing processes by which institutions assume different beliefs and interests in relation to how policies are planned and executed.