Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

Taking into Chiles's last failed constitutional process, which started with the social outburst of 2019, I aim to contribute to bringing insights into discourse dynamics, organisational power, and political engagement for structural changes and contest the rise of extreme rights politics.

Paper long abstract:

The second decade of the 21st century saw global social unrest, mirroring the crisis of capitalist hegemony. In October 2019, hundreds of thousands of Chileans protested living conditions, culminating in a plebiscite for a new constitution, and a constitutional process. Parliamentary actors regarded this process on the right and the progressive left as the answer to the people's demands in the street.

Lassalle contends that a constitution must be the legal expression of a society's material power relations. Drawing from interviews with the working class during Chilean fieldwork, I argue that the protests constituted a collective catharsis and not a revolutionary moment. While Chile has some strong organised social movements, such as the student and the feminist movement, workers have limited organisational power. The absence of a process for developing a new common sense representing the working class's interests, coupled with detachment from the constitutional convention, further alienated the people.

This, together with a worsening in economic conditions and a feeling of crime insecurity has created space for the rise of extreme right ideas rather than advance towards structural changes. This paper explores the dynamics of discourse, organisational power, and political engagement during social unrest and constitutional processes.