Social Movements and Political Representation in Chile (1990–2013)

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Adrián Albala,Victor Tricot Salomon
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19861699
• Date: 01 July 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19861699

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 233, Vol. 47 No. 4, July 2020, 131–149

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19861699

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

131

Social Movements and Political Representation in Chile

(1990–2013)

by

Adrián Albala and Victor Tricot Salomon

Translated by

Margot Olavarria

Chile has witnessed an unprecedented emergence of social movements since the return

to democracy in 1990. These have been characterized by limited participation by the con-

ventional political actors who used to be the backbone of social demands in the country. In

the current “Chilean model” of governance, political parties have lost their connection

with their base. The existence of a difference between the needs emerging from civil society

and those advanced by politicians has opened alternative opportunities for political action.

Chile ha sido testigo de una emergencia inédita de movilizaciones sociales desde la

vuelta a la democracia en 1990. Éstas se han caracterizado por la baja presencia y partici-

pación de actores políticos convencionales los cuales solían constituir la “columna verte-

bral” de las demandas sociales en el país. En el “modelo chileno” actual de gobernanza, los

partidos, por más institucionalizados que sean, han abandonado su vinculación con su

base. La existencia de un distanciamiento entre las necesidades que emergen desde la

sociedad civil y las manifestadas por los políticos ha incidido en la aparición de espacios

alternos de acción política.

Keywords: Social movements, Political representation, Political elites, Chile

Since the beginning of the 2000s, Chilean society has seen the emergence of

myriad social movements in addition to the high-profile student movement of

2011. What stands out about these events is the profound transformation of the

parameters of political identification in the country. Political parties that used

to represent the backbone (Garretón, 1987) of social processes in Chile seem to

have lost their capacity for mobilization and to have been replaced by collective

action and social movements that are both spontaneous and more structured

and organized (Luna and Rosenblatt, 2012; Morales, 2014; Prevost, Oliva, and

Vanden, 2012). Likewise, a theoretically unforeseen situation appears to be

developing: the coexistence of an apparently very institutionalized party sys-

tem with a civil society that has a high level of distrust of parties and low elec-

toral participation (Olavarría, 2003).

Adrián Albala is an associate professor at University of Brasilia’s Instituto de Ciência Política.

Victor Tricot Salomon is academic director for SIT Study Abroad. They thank Camila Ramos

Rivera, Andrés Figueroa Jimenez, Felipe Enero Segovia, Mario Vergara, and Juan Pablo Muñoz

for their help in gathering facts for this article. Margot Olavarria is a translator located in New

York City.

861699LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19861699Latin American PerspectivesAlbala and Tricot / Social Movements And Representation in Chile

research-article2019

132 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

The objective of this article is to analyze the transformation of the parameters

of political identification after the transition to democracy, in particular the

emergence of issues around social movements and collective action in post-

transition Chile. We examine the intersection of the main political elites with

Chilean society to determine whether the priorities of the elites correspond

with the issues presented by the social movements that have emerged since the

return to democracy. We argue that there is a growing lack of alignment of

Chilean society with political parties (Luna and Mardones, 2017; Von Bülow

and Bidegain, 2015) where the literature suggests that the two have been

strongly linked (Moulian, 2002; V. Tricot and Albala, 2017). We show that this

phenomenon is the product of the combination of three conditions: limited

intervention by the state, an increasing lack of distinction between different

political options, and the uninterrupted presence in government for 20 years of

two of the main parties. The point when parties stopped being the main chan-

nels of social demands was Michelle Bachelet’s term in 2006.

The empirical approach of this article is dual, focusing on the database of the

Latin American Elites Project of the Universidad de Salamanca and on a 24-year

survey of the Chilean press.

THE POLITICAL ORDER IN POSTTRANSITION CHILE

Political parties in Chile have traditionally been central in the structuring of

political debates, the representation of both corporativist (workers’) and uni-

versal (“values,” the role of the state and its relationship with the Church) inter-

ests, and the generation of strong leadership. This configuration of the party

system as the backbone of Chilean society (Garretón, 1987) lasted until the 1973

coup. Afterward, the return of parties, with the exception of the Unión

Democrática Independiente (Independent Democratic Union—UDI),1 occurred

in a context of profound social change. One of the main consequences for the

political order was the realignment after the reconciliation of the Christian

Democrats and the Socialists. Since the return of democracy, much has been

written about the change of the social structure in post-Pinochet Chile and its

impact on the sociopolitical matrix (among others, see Garretón, 1993; Luna,

2008). Broadly speaking, we can order this change around three axes: (1) a pro-

found transformation of the socioeconomic matrix through a “capitalist revolu-

tion” (Moulian, 2002), (2) the adoption of a new constitution that established

the bases for the transition (for which the regime intended to be one of the main

actors), and (3) the legitimation of the regime and the economic and judicial

bases it established through the creation of a “legacy” party, the UDI. While the

Chilean regime shares with the Argentine case the change in the socioeconomic

matrix and with the Uruguayan case the pursuit of constitutional change, it is

the effective linking of these two aspects, strengthened by the regime’s effective

will to legitimate itself, that explains the change in the outlines of its political

demarcation. Therefore, whereas in Argentina and Uruguay the return to

democracy was similar in terms of actors and political competition to a return

of the preauthoritarian order, in Chile the presence of a relevant heir to the

dictatorship, the UDI, and its impact on the alignment of the party system led