Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between the Chilean Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and its international allies in Europe and the U.S. during the years of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. It departs from an understanding of the key role that international networks played in enabling a negotiated transition in Chile, as well as consolidating the PDC’s hegemonic position in this process. Drawing on Chilean, US, German and Italian sources, it suggests a three-phase periodization. First, after the 1973 coup, the PDC’s international situation was characterized by the loss of US assistance and by tensions with some European Christian Democratic parties. However, in its second phase, the party’s shift to the opposition during the mid-70s helped it to progressively recover these networks as well as establish contacts with European social democracy. Finally, from the mid-1980s, the party positioned itself as the key actor in a negotiated transition strategy –mainly supported by the US and the German CDU- that led to the 1988 Chilean plebiscite.