Abstract

This paper aims to study the political debate with regard to a number of reforms of the Chilean public administration promoted by Chilean President Jose Manuel Balmaceda between 1886 and 1889. Based on a review of both Congressional records and news articles of the mentioned period, the paper analyzes the political discourse of the opposition with reference to the type of institutional relationship that the President of the Republic should have with the public administration. The article concludes that, due to the rejection of the President's ability to direct the administrative apparatus and use it as a political resource to control society as a whole, the opposition promoted an alternative vision in order to constrain the state's coercive capacity.