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Lavín’s Idea Factory in New York: The Unknown American Advisors of the Former Presidential Candidate
January 38, 2000

by Victor Herrero

The Manhattan Institute, a neo-conservative think tank in the United States, has had a decisive influence on the political agenda of the former Chilean Presidential candidate, becoming a great source of inspiration on topics such as public safety, education, housing and the so-called “cosista” style.

While Joaquín Lavín was traveling the length and breadth of Chile during the presidential campaign, a group of experts in the United States was closely following his steps. The former candidate is considered a protege of the Manhattan Institute, a think tank which during the last four years has exercised a decisive influence—although largely unknown in Chile—on the political agenda of the former mayor.

Although the Manhattan Institute (MI) did not participate directly in the campaign of the former standard-bearer of the Alianza por Chile (Alliance for Chile), its philosophy left an imprint on a major part of the Lavín government plan. “They inspired ideas which are part of the Lavín plan,” acknowledges Cristian Larroulet, Executive Director of the Institute for Liberty and Development, an organization that has sponsored several MI conferences in Chile.

Some of the innovative ideas which Lavín applied in Las Condes originated in the simple offices of the Manhattan Institute, located in the center of Manhattan in New York. “Our strategies for controlling crime, the idea of transparency and government decentralization, new solutions for education, these are ideas which Joaquín found here,” states Carlos Medina, Director of the Institute’s Latin America Initiative.

The relationship between MI and Lavín is strong. The New Yorkers have advised him on school reform plans, public safety and put him in close contact with men like William Bratton, former commissioner of the New York City police, who successfully implemented its “Zero Tolerance” policy.

Lavín has sent his technical advisors several times to New York to study concrete plans with MI and get a close look at various projects that the Institute has inspired in Manhattan. On at least one occasion, in May 1997, the then-mayor went to New York to hold meetings with the MI. The MI, in its turn has sent various experts to Chile to advise Lavín on some of his community initiatives.

In a short conversation they had in November in Santiago, Lavín told Carlos Medina, “If I win, I want to work with you.” In October, the candidate sent some of his staff to New York to get fresh ideas from MI about public housing. In addition, he was very interested in the Americans’ latest initiative called “The Jeremiah Project.” This deals with the role that religion and the clergy, together with the police, can play to control gangs in marginal areas. Although Lavín did not win, they will continue to be key advisors in the future, “If he asks us, we will certainly go on encouraging his ideas,” said Medina.

An Unexpected Call

In the middle of 1996, the Manhattan Institute gave a conference in Chile on the importance of economic change. “In the evening, in the hotel bar in Santiago, we realized that we had been speaking to the converted,” remembers Lawrence Mone, President of the MI. However, some subjects the Americans presented attracted the attention of a group of participants, particularly Cristian Larroulet, Director of the Institute for Liberty and Development. The strategies to control crime being applied in New York, and developed at the MI, looked interesting. The success of the “Zero Tolerance” policy was largely unknown at that time.

Larroulet, who introduced himself as an advisor to Joaquín Lavín, made the first contacts with the MI. He asked for more details about the Americans’ philosophy and plans and outlined a possible visit by the mayor of Las Condes to New York. Weeks went by, and then one day Carlos Medina’s secretary told him that “there’s someone on the line who says he’s a mayor in Chile.”

Their conversation finished with a decision that Lavín would come in person to Manhattan to find out about the Institute’s work.

In May 1997, Lavín spent a week in New York together with a group of six advisors to the Las Condes mayor, including Antonio Sancho and María Inés Montoya. Between meals at several Manhattan restaurants, the Chilean mayor absorbed the ideas of the MI. “He was very interested in our ideas. He was intrigued and wanted to see things for himself,” stated Lawrence Mone.

During his visit, Lavín was able to meet men like Stephen Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis, famous for the successful urban re-engineering of his city and a current Senior Fellow of MI. Although he could not get a meeting with Rudolph Giuliani, he was introduced to his former chief of police, William Bratton, who managed to lower the city’s crime rates to historic levels. Since then, Lavín and Bratton have developed close ties, to the point that the former New York policeman’s visit to Santiago last April was arranged by Lavín himself. Bratton was also in Buenos Aires advising the former mayor and current Argentine President Fernando de la Rúa.

The idea of setting up a community police force, which Lavín put into practice at the end of 1998 with the red “bugs” driving around his former city, was borrowed from Bratton and the MI. In addition, Lavín was given books by MI experts who have influenced Giuliani’s policies—policies based on the ideas of MI, according to the New York Times.

“Fixing Broken Windows” by George Kelling and Catherine Coles, was one of those books that Lavín was most interested in. Another book which, according to the people at the MI, was a true manual for him, was “The Entrepreneurial City.” This is a practical guide for innovative mayors and contains successful re-inventing government experiments in the United States. “Joaquín had them all, and these books definitely influenced his thinking,” explains Medina.

Marketing Ideas in Las Condes

Ronald Tabano, director of the Wildcat Academy, still remembers well when Joaquín Lavín came to visit his institution in 1997. “He spent many hours here, he went everywhere, spoke with the students, was very interested.” Located a few blocks from Wall Street and the Twin Towers, this secondary school started by the MI’s Center for Educational Innovation has been one of the educational sensations of New York. Financed with public funds, like 90 percent of the high schools in the United States, but administered by a not-for-profit organization, the Wildcat students have all been previously expelled or rejected by other schools in New York. A history of bad behavior and even criminal sentences appear on the students’ records, who are, for the most part, African American or Hispanic.

With only 150 students, compared with an average of about 1,000 in normal high schools, Wildcat was founded to rehabilitate these young outsiders. By applying concepts conceived at the MI, these students’ days are extremely rigorous, with classes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. “We are keeping them off the street, keeping them busy studying,” explains Tabano. The schedule is for the youngsters to alternate one week in the classroom with a week of work, with internships in prestigious law offices and brokerage houses.

Rudy Asher, a former student who is currently attending Kent State University in Ohio, has only great memories of Wildcat. “This is a school for kids with problems, but who need a second chance. It’s wonderful. It really has a family atmosphere,” he says. The fact that he is a college student does not make Rudy particularly unusual. According to the director, 70 percent of the school’s graduates go on to college.

When Lavín learned about this school, he wanted to imitate it straight away. “This man really does what he says,” remembers Carlos Medina, because a few weeks later he took his flight back to Santiago and set up a school like Wildcat in Las Condes. Together with a group of MI experts, Medina not only oversaw the creation of “La Puerta” [the Door] school, but was also in charge of selling the idea to the town councilmen. “We really marketed the idea for Joaquín,” says Medina. “Then we designed the school and trained the teachers. It was the beginning of a long and good relationship with Joaquín.”

©2000 La Tercera