The territorial structure of the state and the government

The current territorial organisation of Chile is characterised by a vertical decentralisation where most of the functions of the state —the administration of state services including civil protection— are territorialised into regional spaces, but these functions still maintain a high subordination to and dependency on national powers (Montecinos, 2013). Today, intendentes —or regional governors— and provincial governors are directly elected by the President of the Republic, whereas mayors and the Municipal Council have been democratically elected since the 1990s (Szary, 1997).

In trying to capture the centralising character of the territorial state, the political- administrative divisions of its territory could be a good example. As displayed in Figure 4.5, the division of minor administrative spatial units is concentrated in Central Chile. Since the concentration of minor administrative divisions is also the result of population density —Central Chile is inhabited by more than 80 per cent of

the total national population (INE, 2002)— infrastructures and services are also concentrated in those geographical areas. As expected, the reality for DRM and DRR is not any different. According to a study titled Analysis of Disaster Risk in Chile (UNESCO et al., 2012), regional disparities in terms of development of infrastructure for transport and communication, economic distribution and production capacities, and access to services and power reveal uneven levels of disaster risk throughout the country with those who live distant from urban centres and Central Chile being more at risk. This will be discussed in section 4.3.

Figure 4.5. Administrative division by regions, provinces and municipalities, Chile

C entr al Chile Popula tion density Nor thern Chile Southern Chile Regional

division Provincialdivision Municipaldivision

Source: elaborated by the author (2017)

To offer a finer and multi-scalar analysis of the model of the DRM and DRR in Chile in the next sections, especially of the ONEMI —a government body and the major state effort on civil protection— I further explore the territorial structure of the state by explaining the organisation of the government at different territorial levels.

Administratively speaking, the government of Chile is organised, in reference to Figure 4.5, by institutions whose jurisdiction is limited by the political-administrative spatial boundaries: regional government, provincial government, and communal government or municipality. Financially speaking, only municipalities are entitled to generate revenues through a special municipal tax system which includes real estate tax, vehicle registration and road taxes, as well as street cleaning and maintenance taxes (SII, 2016). Financial and spending patterns in DRM and DRR in Chile are briefly addressed at the end of section 4.4.3.

Regional government and the Intendente

Regional governments are public bodies for the management of regions, tasked with their social, cultural and economic development. Currently, there are 15 regional governments in Chile. They are based in the capital city of the region and composed of two bodies: the Intendente, who is directly appointed by the President of the Republic and remains in office as long as he or she has the confidence of the President; and the Regional Council, a group of councillors that since 2014 have been elected by popular vote, being in office for four years (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2013a).

Nonetheless, according to the Decree with Force of Law (DFL) Nº19175 of 2005 (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2005), the governmental power of each region rests solely with the Intendente as a natural and immediate representative of the executive power, and the regional councils merely serve as consultative bodies. So, on the one hand, regional councils have limited power to decide actions in respect of key state functions such as civil protection, and in relation to DRM functions and DRR actions, and on the other hand, intendentes depend on the executive power to decide and take actions in respect of civil protection. Furthermore, the legal functions of regional governments regarding civil protection interweave with those of national authorities competent in those areas, such as the ONEMI. The territorial planning instrument recently created in 2011, named

‘Regional Plan for Territorial Planning’ or PROT,13 _{aims that regional governments} implement DRM or DRR measures independently. However, like regional councils, PROTs are merely consultative instruments which give guidance for the development of the regions but are not binding plans. During the fieldwork, according to an executive of the National Subsecretariat for Regional Development and Administration (SUBDERE)14 _{interviewed in July 2013, “no region has handed its} PROT to the SUBDERE yet” (Carlos Villalobos,15 _{male, National government director,} July 2013, interview). It seems that although SUBDERE requested PROTs for each region by 2011, there is a notorious delay or lack of interest from regions in harnessing these plans to provide regions with more precise and locally pertinent DRM and DRR. I think that the potentials and opportunities of PROTs are constrained by the facts that PROTs are not binding, that the resources to prepare and implement actions need to be covered by regional funds, and that there is a lack of horizontal decentralisation in terms of decision-making over the functions of the state in DRM and DRR. I will return to PROTs when I conduct a closer analysis of key territorial planning instruments (IPTs) in section 4.4.3.

Provincial government and Governor

There are 53 provincial governments in Chile. According to the DFL Nº 19175 (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2005), provincial governments are decentralised figures of the Intendente within the regional territory, headed by a Governor. Provincial governors are responsible for public management and administration at the provincial level. Governors supervise all public services created by law. Similarly, governors may appoint delegates to exercise governor’s will and powers in one or more locations in the province. Although governors are trusted by intendentes, they are appointed and removed freely by the President of the 13 _{In Spanish, Plan Regional de Ordenamiento Territorial.}

14 _{In Spanish, Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Regional y Administrativo.}

15 _{Fictitious name. As introduced in Chapter Two, for ethical reasons (confidentiality and anonymity), I}

decided that all interviewees’ names would be replaced by fictitious ones, whilst gender, institutional affiliation, position and date of interaction is provided.

Republic. A Governor performs his or her duties in the capital city of their respective province, notwithstanding that he or she may exercise them temporarily from another city in its jurisdictional territory, especially in case of disaster or emergency. Provincial governors report directly to intendentes, while intendentes report directly to the President of the Republic. By ‘reporting’, I mean that such authorities are accountable and owe allegiance to a hierarchical political structure. This has important implications for DRM and DRR, because the ONEMI’s Civil Protection Committee (CPC) and Emergency Operation Centre (COE) must always be headed by their respective territorial authority: the President of the Republic heads the national COE (in case of disaster) and the Ministry of Interior the national CPC; intendentes head regional CPC and COE, governors head provincial CPC and COE, and mayors head communal CPC and COE (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2002). As an example of the vertical territorial relationship in terms of civil protection, the law that ascertains the functions of the provincial governments declares:

“Provincial governments should take all necessary measures to face emergency or disaster, according to law, and develop programmes for disaster prevention and protection, without prejudice to the powers of the competent national authorities”.

(Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2005, Chapter II, Letter F) This means that the law allows provincial governments to take DRM and DRR action yet it restricts those actions to the domains of national powers. During the fieldwork, I observed that civil protection —preparedness and prevention— in Los Lagos Region and Chaitén were mainly commanded by the ONEMI from Santiago, although executed later by regional and municipal authorities. A provincial authority interviewed in July 2013 confirmed that in terms of DRM and DRR:

“We receive instructions from Santiago [ONEMI] in terms of guidelines, procedures, and personnel [...] the programmes to be prepared, and to ensure prevention too”.

(Pablo Benavente, male, Regional government director, July 2013, interview) I also interviewed an ONEMI’s delegate working at the Provincial Government of Palena, Rosa Miranda, who confirms that provincial government is limited to receiving instructions from ONEMI’s regional and national authorities in terms of DRM and DRR. Again, as in the regional governments, I think there is a clear hierarchical, vertical, top-down relationship among the various territorial governments in terms of DRM and DRR. To some extent, this relationship is apparently defined by the law, especially the DFL No. 19175, however, it is also backed up by the historical processes that defined such relations: the retraction of decentralising forces in the past, and the vertical decentralisation (Montecinos, 2005) in recent decades. But beyond the origins of such centralisation, the subsequent question is, ‘what’ are the effects on the model of DRM and DRR in Chile? This is something I will try to address from section 4.4 onwards.

Municipalities

In Chile, municipalities are ‘autonomous public bodies’ responsible for meeting the needs of the local community and ensuring their participation in the economic progress, social and cultural development of the community (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2005). Unlike intendentes and provincial governors, municipalities are ruled by a Mayor and a Municipal Council elected directly for a period of four years. Each municipality is advised by an Economic and Social Community Council (CESCO), composed of representatives from principal economic activities in the community, NGOs and neighbouring committees. Municipalities are responsible for basic education and health services in the community. Other functions, including civil protection, are defined by the Organic Constitutional Law on Municipalities. In this law, there is only one brief mention of DRM and DRR:

“Paragraph No.2: Functions and Attributions: [...] i) The prevention of risks and delivery of relief in case of emergency or disasters”.

(Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2006, p.3) Unfortunately, there is no further explanation about how this should happen and with what resources, nor a reference to other sets of rules or laws that could give more details about the role of municipalities in managing disasters and reducing risks. I consider this to be another indication of the reduced and limited role allocated to minor territorial levels in regard to disaster prevention and risk reduction.

Within the Chilean legal system, the ‘urban’ category can be applied at the municipal or community level when a settlement of 5,000 or more inhabitants is defined (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2006). In that case, a settlement would then be bestowed along with the title ‘city’. The urban category has significant and far-reaching implications for civil protection in terms of resources allocated based on the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) carried out by the ONEMI and the territorial governments. According to an ONEMI’s official interviewed in March 2013, medium and large urban areas are of high interest for the ONEMI, as they combine critical infrastructure and density of people and assets:

“The concentration of assets such as urban infrastructure and population, parks, streets is going to influence the result of cost-benefit analysis made for DRR measures [...] mitigatory measures such as flood protection, or the river courses cleaning and maintenance are often subject to this cost-benefit analysis”.

(Rafael Montenegro, male, National government official, March 2013, interview) By means of a CBA, it is possible to estimate the best alternatives to optimise the use of resources in reducing risks and disasters at the local level, however, the allocation of resources to specific DRR strategies or projects is not in the hands of municipalities but those of regional governments and the Ministry of Interior, which in turn, depend on the President of the Republic (Ministerio del Interior y Seguridad Pública, 2002, 2006). Again, we find that although municipalities could own certain

functions and attributions in respect to DRM and DRR, in practice, decision-making is subordinate to the executive central power.

Now, we move to an often ignored aspect within the historic development of the state territorial organisation of Chile, and of relevance for the study of post-disaster Chaitén: the uneven development among regions and territories in Chile. This deserves attention because it may help to explain why there are important disparities among territories in terms of risks and vulnerabilities, as was documented by UNESCO et al. (2012) and other literature (Atienza and Aroca, 2012; Cooper and Henriquez, 2010; Olavarria-Gambi, 2003; Schurman, 1996).