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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2023
The literature on political participation has consistently found that protest positively and significantly correlates with voting. However, Chile can be considered a deviant case to this pattern. During the last decade, Chileans who participated in street demonstrations were unlikely to participate in elections. What explains this anomaly? We argue that this rupture between participation in protest and in elections results from an effective distancing between social-movement organisations (SMOs) and institutional politics. However, this distancing of SMOs from party politics has not been homogeneous. To examine this heterogeneity, we conduct a comparative design of two cases: the labour and student movements. Based on a mixed-methods study that combines interviews with movement leaders and surveys of protest participants in marches, we seek to highlight the mediating role of SMOs in the promotion of different forms of political participation.
La literatura sobre participación política ha encontrado persistentemente que la protesta se relaciona clara y significativamente con la participación electoral. Sin embargo, Chile puede considerarse un caso diferente a este patrón. En la última década, era poco probable que los chilenos que participaban en manifestaciones callejeras participaran también en las elecciones. ¿Cómo se explica esta anomalía? Argumentamos que dicha ruptura entre la protesta y las elecciones es el resultado de un distanciamiento efectivo entre las organizaciones del movimiento social (OMS) y la política institucional. Sin embargo, este distanciamiento de las OMS en relación con la política partidaria no ha sido homogéneo. Para examinar esta heterogeneidad, realizamos un diseño comparativo de dos casos: el movimiento obrero y el estudiantil. A partir de un estudio con metodología mixta, que combina entrevistas con líderes de movimientos y encuestas a participantes de las protestas callejeras, buscamos resaltar el papel mediador de las OMS en la promoción de diferentes formas de participación política.
A literatura sobre participação política tem apontado consistentemente que o protesto se correlaciona positiva e significativamente com o voto. No entanto, o Chile pode ser considerado um caso desviante desse padrão. Durante a última década, era pouco provável que os chilenos que participaram nas manifestações de rua também participassem nas eleições. O que explica esta anomalia? Argumentamos que essa ruptura entre a participação em protestos e nas eleições resulta de um distanciamento efetivo entre as organizações de movimentos sociais (OMS) e a política institucional. No entanto, este distanciamento das OMS em relação à política partidária não tem sido homogêneo. Para examinar essa heterogeneidade, realizamos um desenho comparativo de dois casos: os movimentos trabalhista e estudantil. Com base em um estudo de métodos mistos que combina entrevistas com lideranças de movimentos e pesquisas com participantes de protestos em passeatas, buscamos destacar o papel mediador das OMS na promoção de diferentes formas de participação política.
1 See, for example, Schussman, Alan and Soule, Sarah A., ‘Process and Protest: Accounting for Individual Protest Participation’, Social Forces, 84: 2 (2005), pp. 1083–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barnes, Samuel H. and Kaase, Max, Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE, 1979)Google Scholar; Bean, Clive, ‘Participation and Political Protest: A Model with Australian Evidence’, Political Behavior, 13: 3 (1991), pp. 253–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saunders, Clare, ‘Anti-Politics in Action? Measurement Dilemmas in the Study of Unconventional Political Participation’, Political Research Quarterly, 67: 3 (2014), pp. 574–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Katerina Vrablikova and Lukas Linek, ‘Explaining the Composition of an Individual's Political Repertoire: Voting and Protesting’, paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) Conference, 2015, pp. 1–21.
2 Galais, Carol, ‘Don't Vote for Them: The Effects of the Spanish Indignant Movement on Attitudes about Voting’, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 24: 3 (2014), pp. 334–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saunders, ‘Anti-Politics in Action?’
3 See, for example, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (United Nations Development Programme, PNUD), Informe sobre desarrollo humano en Chile 2015: Los tiempos de la politización (Santiago: PNUD, 2015); Alfredo Joignant et al., Informe anual: Observatorio de Conflictos 2020 (Santiago: COES, 2020); Somma, Nicolás M. and Medel, Rodrigo M., ‘Shifting Relationships between Social Movements and Institutional Politics’, in Donoso, Sofia and von Bülow, Marisa (eds.), Social Movements in Chile: Organization, Trajectories, and Political Consequences (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 29–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 This trend has been well documented in Rodrigo Medel Sierralta, ‘Participación política fragmentada: La compleja relación entre participación electoral y no electoral en países democráticos’, doctoral dissertation, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2019, available at https://doi.org/10.7764/tesisUC/CIP/48428, last access 30 June 2023.
5 Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), Voter Turnout Database, available at www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-turnout, last access 30 June 2023.
6 Somma, Nicolás M. et al., ‘No Water in the Oasis: The Chilean Spring of 2019–2020’, Social Movement Studies, 20: 4 (2021), pp. 495–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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8 Cassel, Carol A., ‘Voluntary Associations, Churches, and Social Participation Theories of Turnout’, Social Science Quarterly, 80: 3 (1999), pp. 504–17Google Scholar.
9 Rodrigo M. Medel, ‘When Do Active Citizens Abstain from the Polls? Civic Associations, Non-Electoral Participation, and Voting in 21st-Century Democracies’, Acta Politica, 2023 [online], available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00290-x, last access 22 July 2023.
10 Colombina Schaeffer, ‘Democratizing the Flows of Democracy: Patagonia sin Represas in the Awakening of Chile's Civil Society’, in Donoso and von Bülow (eds.), Social Movements in Chile, pp. 131–60.
11 Rozas, Joaquín and Maillet, Antoine, ‘Entre marchas, plebiscitos e iniciativas de ley: Innovación en el repertorio de estrategias del movimiento No Más AFP en Chile (2014–2018)’, Izquierdas, 48 (Nov. 2019), pp. 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Reyes-Housholder, Catherine and Roque, Beatriz, ‘Chile 2018: Desafíos al poder de género desde la calle hasta La Moneda’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 39: 2 (2019), pp. 191–216Google Scholar.
13 Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), AmericasBarometer 2021: Pulse of Democracy, available at www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/ab2021/2021_LAPOP_AmericasBarometer_2021_Pulse_of_Democracy.pdf, last access 30 June 2023.
14 Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), Reporte de la democracia 2023: Resistencia frente a la autocratización, p. 13, available at https://v-dem.net/documents/35/V-dem_democracyreport2023_espanol_med.pdf, last access 30 June 2023.
15 Ibid., p. 23.
16 Juan Pablo Luna et al., Diminished Parties: Democratic Representation in Contemporary Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
17 Ryan E. Carlin, ‘The Decline of Citizen Participation in Electoral Politics in Post-Authoritarian Chile’, Democratization, 13: 4 (2006), pp. 632–51; Gonzalo Delamaza, Enhancing Democracy: Public Policies and Citizen Participation in Chile (Oxford and New York: Berghahn, 2014).
18 Peter M. Siavelis, The President and Congress in Post-Authoritarian Chile: Legislative and Electoral Constraints to Democratic Consolidation (Pennsylvania, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000).
19 Manuel Antonio Garretón, Incomplete Democracy: Political Democratisation in Chile and Latin America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
20 Cathy Schneider, Shantytown Protest in Pinochet's Chile (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995); Peter Winn, Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973–2002 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).
21 Philip Oxhorn, ‘Where Did All the Protesters Go? Popular Mobilisation and the Transition to Democracy in Chile’, Latin American Perspectives, 21: 3 (1994), pp. 49–68; Kenneth M. Roberts, ‘(Re)Politicizing Inequalities: Movements, Parties, and Social Citizenship in Chile’, Journal of Politics in Latin America, 8: 3 (2016), pp. 125–54.
22 Manuel Antonio Garretón, ‘De la transición a los problemas de calidad en la democracia chilena’, Política, 42 (Dec. 2004), pp. 179–206; Margot Olavarría, ‘Protected Neoliberalism: Perverse Institutionalisation and the Crisis of Representation in Postdictatorship Chile’, Latin American Perspectives, 30: 6 (2003), pp. 10–38; Patricio Silva, ‘Doing Politics in a Depoliticised Society: Social Change and Political Deactivation in Chile’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 23: 1 (2004), pp. 63–78.
23 Luis Thielemann, ‘Hijos de Recabarren, hijos de la transición: Sobre las JJCC y la anomalía estudiantil de los ’90’, in Rolando Álvarez and Manuel Loyola (eds.), Un trébol de cuatro hojas: Las juventudes comunistas de Chile en el siglo XX (Santiago: Ariadna Ediciones), pp. 218–50.
24 José Ignacio Ponce and Rolando Álvarez Vallejos, ‘¿Comunismo después del fin del comunismo? La política sindical del Partido Comunista de Chile en la postdictadura chilena (1990–2010)’, Nuestra Historia: Revista de Historia de la FIM, 1: 1 (2016), pp. 100–15.
25 Juan Pablo Luna and Rodrigo Mardones, ‘Chile: Are the Parties Over?’, Journal of Democracy, 21: 3 (2010), pp. 107–21.
26 PNUD, Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano en Chile 2015.
27 See, for example, Matías Bargsted, Nicolás M. Somma and Benjamín Muñoz, ‘Participación electoral en Chile: Una aproximación de edad, período y cohorte’, Revista de Ciencia Política (Santiago), 39: 1 (2019), pp. 75–98; Gonzalo Contreras and Patricio Navia, ‘Diferencias generacionales en la participación electoral en Chile, 1988–2010’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 33: 2 (2013), pp. 419–41; Alejandro Corvalán and Paulo Cox, ‘Class-Biased Electoral Participation: The Youth Vote in Chile’, Latin American Politics and Society, 55: 3 (2013), pp. 47–68.
28 PNUD, Informe sobre desarrollo humano en Chile 2015; Somma and Medel, ‘Shifting Relationships between Social Movements and Institutional Politics’.
29 Sofía Donoso, ‘Dynamics of Change in Chile: Explaining the Emergence of the 2006 Pingüino Movement’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 45: 1 (2013), pp. 1–29.
30 Octavio Avendaño, ‘Fracturas y representación política en el movimiento estudiantil’, Última Década, 41: 1 (2014), pp. 41–68.
31 Bugueño and Maillet, ‘Entre marchas, plebiscitos e iniciativas de ley’.
32 Antonio Aravena and Daniel Nuñez, El renacer de la huelga obrera en Chile: El movimiento sindical en la primera década del siglo XXI (Santiago: Instituto de Ciencias Alejandro Lipschutz (ICAL), 2009).
33 Reyes-Housholder and Roque, ‘Chile 2018’.
34 IDEA, Voter Turnout Database.
35 Gonzalo Contreras, Alfredo Joignant and Mauricio Morales, ‘The Return of Censitary Suffrage? The Effects of Automatic Voter Registration and Voluntary Voting in Chile’, Democratization, 23: 3 (2016), pp. 520–44; Mauricio Morales Quiroga and Bastián Reveco Cabello, ‘El efecto de las generaciones políticas sobre la participación electoral: El caso de Chile, 1999–2013’, Perfiles Latinoamericanos, 26: 52 (2018), pp. 198–224. However, the plebiscite in Sept. 2022 for approving or rejecting a new constitution may be a turning point in this trend. Under mandatory voting, among other peculiar circumstances, about 85 per cent of the electorate voted.
36 Sebastián Dote, ‘Voto obligatorio en Chile: Qué es, cuándo se repuso y cómo funciona’, El País, 12 May 2023, available at https://elpais.com/chile/2023-05-12/voto-obligatorio-en-chile-que-es-cuando-se-repuso-y-como-funciona.html, last access 30 June 2023.
37 See, for example, Barnes and Kaase, Political Action; Bean, ‘Participation and Political Protest’; Saunders, ‘Anti-Politics in Action?’; Schussman and Soule, ‘Process and Protest’; Vrablikova and Linek, ‘Explaining the Composition of an Individual's Political Repertoire’.
38 To measure vote, we utilised variable V226 for wave 6 and Q221 for wave 7. These variables posed the question: ‘When elections occur, do you vote never, usually, or always?’ The response categories ranged from 1 to 3, respectively. To measure protest engagement, we constructed an index using the following variables present in both waves: ‘Signing a petition’, ‘Joining in boycotts’, ‘Attending peaceful demonstrations’ and ‘Joining strikes’. In wave 6, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.8, while in wave 7, it was 0.79, indicating high internal consistency. Only responses indicating ‘Have done’ were assigned a value of 1, while the remaining categories (‘Might do’, ‘Would never do’) were assigned a value of 0. Finally, an average index was computed, ranging from 0 to 1.
39 Jason Seawright and John Gerring, ‘Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options’, Political Research Quarterly, 61: 2 (2008), pp. 294–308.
40 Mario Luis Small, ‘How to Conduct a Mixed Methods Study: Recent Trends in a Rapidly Growing Literature’, Annual Review of Sociology, 37 (Aug. 2011), pp. 57–86.
41 An exception to this trend was the role played by the youth branch of the Communist Party. See Rolando Álvarez, ‘Las Juventudes Comunistas de Chile y el movimiento estudiantil secundario: Un caso de radicalización política de masas (1983–1988)’, in Álvarez and Loyola (eds.), Un trébol de cuatro hojas, pp. 170–217.
42 Luis Thielemann, ‘Hijos de Recabarren, hijos de la transición’.
43 Fabio Moraga, ‘Crisis y recomposición del movimiento estudiantil chileno, 1990–2001’, in Renate Marsiske (ed.), Movimientos estudiantiles en la historia de América Latina (Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés, 2006), pp. 179–252.
44 Mauricio Rifo, ‘Movimiento estudiantil, sistema educativo y crisis política actual en Chile’, Polis: Revista Latinoamericana, 12: 36 (2013), pp. 223–40; Nicolás M. Somma and Sofía Donoso, ‘Chile's Student Movement: Strong, Detached, Influential – and Declining?’, in Lorenzo Cini, Donatella della Porta and César Guzmán-Concha (eds.), Student Movements in Late Neoliberalism: Social Movements and Transformation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 241–67.
45 Cathy Schneider, Shantytown Protest in Pinochet's Chile (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995); Luis Thielemann, ‘Para una periodificación del movimiento estudiantil de la transición (1987–2011)’, Revista Pretérito Imperfecto, 1: 2 (2011), pp. 1–12.
46 Rodolfo Disi, ‘Sentenced to Debt: Explaining Student Mobilization in Chile’, Latin American Research Review, 53: 3 (2018), pp. 448–65.
47 Luis Thielemann, ‘Para una periodificación del movimiento estudiantil de la transición (1987–2011)’.
48 Rifo, ‘Movimiento estudiantil, sistema educativo y crisis política actual en Chile’; Thielemann, ‘Para una periodificación del movimiento estudiantil de la transición (1987–2011)’.
49 Jennifer Abate and Carlos Pérez, ‘Las mil cabezas del movimiento estudiantil’, La Tercera, 21 March 2014; Thielemann, ‘Para una periodificación del movimiento estudiantil de la transición (1987–2011)’.
50 Avendaño, ‘Fracturas y representación política en el movimiento estudiantil’; Marcela Jiménez and Claudia Valle, ‘Los “colectivos”, la nueva forma de organización que emerge en las universidades’, La Segunda, 19 Aug. 2011.
51 Somma and Medel, ‘Shifting Relationships between Social Movements and Institutional Politics’.
52 Sofía Donoso and Nicolás Somma, ‘You Taught Us to Give an Opinion, Now Learn How to Listen: The Manifold Political Consequences of Chile's Student Movement’, in Moisés Arce and Roberta Rice (eds.), Protest and Democracy (Calgary: University of Calgary, 2019), pp. 145–72.
53 Information corroborated through personal communication with Eduardo Valenzuela, Former Dean and Full Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and Manuel Antonio Garretón, Full Professor, Department of Sociology, Universidad de Chile. In addition, a representative of the Office of Student Affairs of the Universidad de Chile was consulted, who also corroborated that the federation receives money directly from the university.
54 Cristian Cabalin Quijada, ‘Estudiantes conectados y movilizados: El uso de Facebook en las protestas estudiantiles en Chile’, Comunicar: Revista Científica Iberoamericana de Comunicación y Educación, 43 (July 2014), pp. 25–33; Sebastián Valenzuela, Arturo Arriagada and Andrés Scherman, ‘The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behavior: The Case of Chile’, Journal of Communication, 62: 2 (2012), pp. 299–314.
55 Somma and Medel, ‘Shifting Relationships between Social Movements and Institutional Politics’, p. 40.
56 Emmanuelle Barozet, ‘Entre la urna, las redes y la calle: Las relaciones entre movimientos sociales y partidos políticos en el Chile democrático’, in Manuel Antonio Garretón (ed.), La Gran Ruptura: Institucionalidad política y actores sociales en el Chile del siglo XXI (Santiago: LOM, 2016), pp. 21–58.
57 Irene Rojas Miño, ‘Las reformas laborales al modelo normativo de negociación colectiva del Plan Laboral’, Ius et Praxis, 13: 2 (2007), pp. 195–221.
58 Winn, Victims of the Chilean Miracle.
59 For a history of the re-foundation of the CUT, see Sebastián Osorio, ‘De la estrategia concertacionista al sindicalismo de contención: Un balance de 25 años de trayectoria de la CUT’, in Julio Pinto and Ignacio Ponce, Conflictividad laboral, acción sindical y mundo del trabajo bajo el neoliberalismo en Chile (Valparaíso: América en Movimiento, 2017), pp. 127–53.
60 Rafael Durán, ‘Movilización y desmovilización chilena a la democracia’, América Latina Hoy, 16 (Jan. 1997), pp. 109–24; Osorio, ‘De la estrategia concertacionista al sindicalismo de contención’.
61 Winn, Victims of the Chilean Miracle.
62 Osorio, ‘De la estrategia concertacionista al sindicalismo de contención’.
63 Ponce and Álvarez Vallejos, ‘¿Comunismo después del fin del comunismo?’
64 For an extended analysis of this phenomenon, see Medel, Rodrigo M., ‘La CUT y los clivajes sindicales en Chile: Entre la pretensión transformadora y la estrategia defensiva’, CUHSO (Temuco), 31: 1 (2021), pp. 176–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Osorio, Sebastián and Campusano, Karim, ‘El impacto de la huelga en los procesos de politización sindical en Chile’, Política y Sociedad, 57: 3 (2020), pp. 843–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 Ibid.
66 Observatorio de Huelgas Laborales, Informe de huelgas laborales en Chile 2019 (Santiago: Universidad Alberto Hurtado (UAH) – COES, 2020).
67 Francisca Quiroga, Néstor Guerrero and Sofía Schuster, ‘Discurso público e institucionalización del conflicto político en Chile: El caso del reajuste salarial del sector público (1990–2014)’, Gestión y Política Pública, 25: 1 (2016), pp. 119–63.
68 Ibid.
69 Somma, Nicolás M., Rossi, Federico M. and Donoso, Sofía, ‘The Attachment of Demonstrators to Institutional Politics: Comparing LGBTIQ Pride Marches in Argentina and Chile’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 39: 3 (2020), pp. 380–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
70 Bustamante, Gilberto Aranda, ‘Human Rights, Economic Liberalism and Social Affairs in Post-Pinochet Chile’, Contexto Internacional, 38: 1 (2016), pp. 133–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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74 Medel, ‘When Do Active Citizens Abstain from the Polls?’
75 Somma, Rossi and Donoso, ‘The Attachment of Demonstrators to Institutional Politics’.
76 Somma, Nicolás M. and Donoso, Sofía, ‘Renovando la arena política: Estallido social, cambio constitucional y nuevo Gobierno en Chile’, Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior, 122 (April 2022), pp. 147–61Google Scholar.
77 Bargsted, Somma and Muñoz, ‘Participación electoral en Chile’, pp. 75–98.
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