This is the first book in English to present a comprehensive analysis of the October 2019 social outbreak in Chile and its consequences for the country’s political system. For almost 30 years (1990-2019), Chile was recognized as a model of political and economic stability in Latin America, but the 2019 protests put into question the whole structure of representation based on programmatic political parties. This contributed volume analyzes the causes of the social outbreak by examining the interaction between political parties and social movements in Chile since 2000, establishing bridges between the sociology of social movements and the political science of parties and forms of traditional political representation. The book is organized in three parts. The first part analyzes the collapse of the political party system in Chile. The second part shows how social movements introduced innovative forms of political mobilization that challenged the traditional forms of political representation. Finally, the third part presents case studies focusing on specific social movements and their contributions to the renewal of political representation in Chile. The Social Outburst and Political Representation in Chile will be a valuable resource for sociologists, political scientists and other social scientists interested in understanding the challenges posed to political parties and institutions by social movements formed by citizens who no longer see themselves represented by the traditional forms political participation.

"Beginning in October 2019, Chile was convulsed by protests and political upheaval, as what began as civil disobedience transformed into a vast resistance movement. Throughout, one of the most striking aspects of the protests was the murals, graffiti, and other political graphics that became ubiquitous in Chilean cities. In this fascinating, beautifully illustrated book, Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov-who were in Santiago to witness and document the protests from their very beginnings -offer a vivid catalog of Chilean wall art in all its vitality, subtlety, and inventiveness, along with reflections on its artistic antecedents, the context of global protest movements, and the long shadow cast by Chile's authoritarian past"--

This book investigates why Chile suddenly confronted a violent social revolt in October 2019, after almost thirty years of political stability, during which time the country was broadly regarded as Latin America’s most successful nation. Since democratic restoration in 1990, Chile’s relatively high levels of political stability, increasing prosperity and social modernisation have stood out in a region shaken by political convulsion and economic malaise. In early October 2019, President Sebastián Piñera confidently claimed that Chile represented a true ‘oasis’ of political stability and economic vitality in Latin America. However, just weeks later, the announcement of a small increase in the price of Santiago’s underground transport system unleashed an unprecedented wave of violent anti-government protests in the country, with protestors ultimately demanding Piñera’s resignation and the end of neoliberalism and the 1980 Constitution, among many other demands. This book analyses the causes of Chile’s socio-political upheaval, arguing that the fast social and economic modernisation produced by the neoliberal system led to a series of destabilising socio-political processes in the country. At a time when much analysis of the October uprising tends to be superficial or polarised on ideological grounds, this book provides a much-needed sociological and institutional analysis of the crisis. It will be an important read for scholars of Latin American politics and development, as well as those with a broader interest in state legitimacy, social movements and political contestation against neoliberalism.

A study of Chile's shantytown resistance testifies to the power of popular struggles.

"This will be an important book, and a powerful exemplar for the growing numbers of anthropologists who seek to place such things as democracy, citizenship, and neoliberalism under an ethnographic lens."—James Ferguson, author of Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambin Copperbelt "In joining activism and fine ethnography, Paley enables us to appreciate the profound complexity of the links between civil society and public institutions. Chakrabarty's assessment of "the undemocratic foundations of 'democracy'" becomes a fine analytic tool as it is refracted in the words of the women of Población La Bandera."—Charles Briggs, author of Learning How to Ask "Paley has produced an insightful and fascinating exploration of the shifting meanings of democracy for the Chilean state and for shantytown activists across the Pinochet dictatorship and through the contradictory democratic politics of the 1990s. The marketing of democracy is a highly relevant issue for societies and states throughout the world."—Kay Warren, author of Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Maya Activism in Guatemala "An important challenge to Polyanna conventional wisdoms about democratic transitions and neo-liberal miracles in Chile and its neighbors."—Peter Winn, author of Weavers of Revolution "This is anthropology as the observation of and involvement in, the new, participatory politics of the previously excluded."—Sally Falk Moore, author of Law as Process

Through a comparative analysis of the political Left and social movements in Chile and Peru, this book explores the structural and institutional forces which have limited the scope and quality of democracy in contemporary Latin America.

A compelling history of the antiregime coalition forged by liberation-theology Catholics and Marxist-Left militants in Chile's urban shantytowns, with groundbreaking contributions to scholarship on human rights, mass social movements, popular protest, and democratization.