Since Chile’s democratic transition in 1990, it has been one of Latin America’s most successful countries. However, since the mid-2000s, social protest and malaise have increased, reaching a peak in October 2019 when Chile experienced a wave of nationwide protests. In an effort to bring protests to an end, political leaders agreed a process of constitutional change. However, after two unsuccessful attempts, constitutional change has not occurred. Why has successful Chile experienced this deep political crisis and a failure of constitutional reform?
Rossana Castiglioni holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame. She is Professor of Political Science and Dean of Social Sciences and History at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile. Her research focuses on the comparative social policy of Latin America and the dilemmas of democratic representation. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Politics in Latin America. She is the author of The Politics of Social Policy Change in Chile and Uruguay and is co-author of The Political Economy of Segmented Expansion.
Part of the Kennedy Center's winter 2024 lecture series, "Authoritarianism and Its Discontents."
Photo by Natalia Reyes Escobar, Wikimedia Commons; licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.