Manuel Antonio Garretón


Manuel Antonio Garretón is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist and essayist. He received the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences in 2007 for his lifetime contribution to the field.

Scholarly and academic career

Garretón studied Sociology in the Catholic University of Chile and graduated in 1967. He received his PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris. He directed the Catholic University of Chile's Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Nacional from 1970 until its closing in 1973. He also edited CEREN's journal Cuadernos de la Realidad Nacional during those same years. In 1973, he was the Dean of the Area of Interdisciplinary Social Studies at the Catholic University. After the 1973 military coup, Garretón coordinated emergency groups in the social sciences in Chile. Between 1975 and 1995 he was at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Chile, as Research Professor. Since 1994 Garretón has been full professor at the Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, at the University of Chile.
Garretón has served as Visiting Professor at European, North, and South American universities, and as Director and Dean of numerous academic institutions. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983, and chosen as the Simón Bolívar Professor of Latin-American Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK, for 2012-13. He has acted as advisor and consultant to government and private institutions within Chile and internationally. He has also served on the board of several academic journals and has been a jury member for the award of research scholarships and fellowships.
Garretón research and teaching has concentrated on political sociology, democratization, state and society, authoritarian regimes, social actors and social movements, political parties, university and higher education, public opinion and social demands, culture and education, development of the social sciences, political and sociological theory, reform of the state and public policies, and modernization and society in Latin America.
In 2015, the Latin American Studies Association bestowed the Kalman H. Silvert award upon Garretón for his lifetime contribution to the study of Latin America.

Political life

Garretón entered political life as a student, and served as President of the Student Federation of the Catholic University of Chile in 1963–64. As a professor, he represented the faculty in the Superior Council of the Catholic University of Chile between 1970 and 1972.

Garretón was among the founders of the Grupo por la Renovación Socialista, and was one of its leaders in 1979–1985. Garretón was an executive of the Socialist Bloc between 1983 and 1985, was elected to the Socialist Party's Central Committee from 1985 to 1995, was a member of the Technical Committee for the Concertación de Partidos por el NO, and of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia for the plebiscite of 1988. In 1993, Garretón headed the Education Program of the electoral campaign of President Eduardo Frei.

Through publications, columns, interviews, in different fora and the mass media, Garretón intervenes actively in the political, intellectual and cultural debates of Chile and Latin America: in the opposition to military dictatorships, in the democratic transition and the new democratic era, in the processes of Socialist renewal, in the debates on the quality of politics, in the debate around constituent processes and the new Constitution.

Books published