From Protests to the Constituent Process: An Analysis of the Deadlocks of Chilean Mobilizations Through the Lens of the Hegemonic Imaginary (2011-2022)

Abstract

Abstract This paper seeks to understand why the past decade in Chile witnessed successive waves of large-scale protests that ultimately encountered limits in the form of the constitutional rejection. The central hypothesis is that the protests functioned as events that reshaped the possibilities for political organization; however, their force waned due to a deficit of political organization and coordination, inherent to the dilemmas of the hegemonic imaginary in contemporary modernity. Based on a literature review and interviews with 19 members of the Frente Amplio party (FA), the study reconstructs the decade’s political process and compares two events within the same national context - the 2011 protests and the October 2019 uprising (O-19) - focusing on their political -institutional impacts on the Chilean hegemonic imaginary. The analysis is structured around three variables: the decentering of collective subjectivities; the intensity of constituent power; and frustrations and demands directed at the existing political and constitutional system. The findings suggest that the rise in protests stems from frustrations with the partial responses provided by constitutional reforms. However, while the October 2019 uprising succeeded in opening the constituent process, it also demonstrated that the increasing strength of the protests was directly proportional to the decentering of collective actors, ultimately resulting in coordination difficulties throughout the constituent process.