The Rise of a New Left in Chile? (original) (raw)
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The 2011 Chilean Student Movement and the Struggle for a New Left
The Chilean student movement that began in early 2011 poses a significant challenge to Chilean neoliberalism and is beginning to reconfigure left politics within the country. Specifically, the movement's demands for free education and public control of strategic domestic industries strikes at the heart of neoliberalism in Chile. In addition, in emphasizing the importance of participatory democracy and mass participation, the movement goes beyond the boundaries of the established left and is now struggling to create a new left capable of furthering its political goals. This emerging left roughly fits within the politics of autonomism. In doing so, it displays a break from the experiences of twentieth-century left politics and is consistent with other recent movements in Latin America. However, the student movement in Chile risks co-optation by the established political class. In addition, the autonomous left remains small and lacks a coherent alternative to neoliberalism with broad appeal. Therefore, the victory of Michelle Bachelet and the Nueva Mayoría in the 2013 elections is unlikely to result in substantial changes to neoliberalism in Chile. El movimiento estudiantil chileno, que comenzó a principios de 2011, representa un desafío importante para el neoliberalismo chileno y está empezando a reconfigurar la política de izquierda en el país. En concreto, las demandas del movimiento para la edu-cación gratuita y el control público de las industrias nacionales estratégicas toca el corazón del neoliberalismo en Chile. Además, en destacar la importancia de la democracia partici-pativa y la participación de las masas, el movimiento va más allá de los límites de la izquierda establecida y ahora está luchando para crear una nueva izquierda capaz de pro-mover sus objetivos políticos. Esta izquierda emergente se encaja más o menos dentro de la política del autonomismo. Al hacerlo, muestra un quiebre con las experiencias de la política de izquierda del siglo XX, y es consistente con otros movimientos recientes en América Latina. Sin embargo, el movimiento estudiantil en Chile corre el riesgo de coop-tación por la clase política establecida. Además, la izquierda autónoma sigue siendo pequeña y carece de una alternativa coherente al neoliberalismo que tenga amplia atrac-ción. Por lo tanto, es poco probable que la victoria de Michelle Bachelet y la Nueva Mayoría en las elecciones de 2013 resulte en cambios sustanciales al neoliberalismo en Chile.
A revolution in Chile. But where is it headed?
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The following essay is an attempt to unify and contextualize much of the media coverage on Chile's protest waves throughout the end of 2019. Information was drawn from Chilean, Brazilian, and international English-speaking publications. After establishing a coherent timeline and narrative to the protests, I set out to understand the composition and dynamics of the protests. Finally, I explore possible causes and precedents to the Chilean crisis in education, healthcare, pensions, poverty and inequality.
The arrival of the populist radical right in Chile
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Despite the increasing influence of populist radical right (PRR) forces at the global level, they have been absent in Chile until very recently. Today, however, the conditions seem to be ripe for the consolidation of the PRR in the country. As we show in this contribution, José Antonio Kast and the Partido Republicano advance a programmatic agenda that emphasizes authoritarian, nativist, and populist ideas. We also demonstrate certain peculiarities of this political project, which differentiates it from its European brethren. In fact, the party has adopted very clear neoliberal positions and puts much more emphasis on outgroup distinctions within rather than outside the nation. Moreover, given that José Antonio Kast and the Partido Republicano maintain a very fluid relationship with the mainstream right, collaboration between the two seems much simpler and more feasible than in most European cases.
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In the context of profound, worldwide economic crisis, socialist forces are critically re-valuating past strategies. This process has produced analyses of gradualist strategies from Eurocommunism to the popular revolutionary models of Central America. A common reference point in these debates has been the experience of the Chilean Popular Unity (UP) government of 1970 to 1973. Not only the Chilean, but also the European and North American left, have tried to derive 'lessons' from the Chilean experience for their own struggles. The UP, an electoral coalition including the Socialist, Communist, and a number of smaller social democratic and radical left parties, assumed office on a narrow, working class base, and largely because of the disunity of the bourgeois parties. The UP government adopted a strategy of gradual structural reforms aimed at winning over the petit bourgeois (or 'middle') strata, thereby isolating monopoly capital and large landowners. The left parties were divided, however, over the pace of implementation of the programme, the appropriate role for mass organisations, and the nature of the alliance strategy itself.
Social Movements and Political Representation in Chile (1990–2013)
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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 conventional 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 participación de actores políticos convencionales los cuales solían constituir la “columna vertebral” 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 d...
Dynamics of Change in Chile: Explaining the Emergence of the 2006 Pingüino Movement
Journal of Latin American Studies, 2013
Focusing on the first large-scale protests in Chile after the reinstatement of democracy in 1990, this article examines the emergence of the 2006 Pingüino movement and shows how it succeeded in mobilising thousands of secondary school students against the neoliberal education model. It argues that several distinct but intertwined dimensions explain the movement's emergence. In 2006, secondary school student groups merged to form a single organisation and adopted a horizontal and participatory decision-making mechanism. At the same time, shortcomings in the education reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were revealed in terms of quality and equity, creating grievances that were fed into the movement's collective action frame. Finally, President Bachelet's rhetoric of a ‘government of citizens’ as an attempt to counteract the elitist nature of the Concertación's governance formula signified an opening of the structure of political opportunities that the students knew to take advantage of.
The paper examines the causes of Chile's October 2019 wave of protest and the path taken in the relationship between institutional policies and social mobilisations, and that led to the 2020 referendum for a New Constitution. It is based on a hypothesis on the transformation of society and the configuration of democracy in its cultural and political dimensions. The key question posed is: To what extent can the two main problems be solved?, to wit: (1) finding a new social-economic order to replace the model imposed during the dictatorship ("Neo-Liberalism with Chilean features")-a model that was tweaked by the Concertación and the Nueva Mayoría Centre-Left coalition governments (Garretón, 2012; Mayol, 2013; Atria; 2013); (2) coming up with new kinds of links between politics and social movements, offering scope for going beyond the classic model and for marking a radical break with the past, as in Chile's case.