Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Public Probity in Colonial Chile: War, Poverty, Nobility and Creole Patriotism, 1541-1810 2. Public Probity in Republican Chile: Civil Virtue under the Oligarchic Order, 1810-1920 3. Public Probity and State Modernisation under the Mesocratic Order, 1920-1973 4. Public Probity under Stress, 1973-2018 Conclusion

About the Author

Patricio Silva is Full Professor of Modern Latin American history at the Department of Latin American Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Reviews

"It is commonplace to cite Chilean exceptionalism as part of any analysis of variance in the governance of Latin America states. Patricio Silva has produced an encyclopaedic analysis of how the Chilean state was able to maintain a fairly clean administration (with some exceptions). This book provides both a historical guide and a sociological analysis explaining the trends and the exceptions, and should be required reading for students of Chile and of the state in general." -- Miguel Angel Centeno, Musgrave Professor of Sociology, Princeton University, USA"When one looks at Chile from a comparative perspective, one of the country’s main mysteries are its relatively low levels of corruption. Cases which in the rest of Latin America are considered to be small acts of naughtiness or cleverness, that can even produce admiration, in Chile they constitute real scandals which offend the idea Chileans have of themselves. Chile seems to have a culture of probity, a certain allergy towards corruption which constitutes an exception in Latin America. Where does that culture of probity come from? Patricio Silva provides an answer to that question by exploring its origins in colonial Chile and its long evolution up to the present." -- Carlos Peña, Professor and Rector of Universidad Diego Portales, Chile