Chile’s soft misplaced regional identity

Abstract

This article analyses Chile’s foreign policy, utilizing a multilayered identity model, one that covers the country’s most stable identity layer as a sovereign state, an intermediate layer in which processes of identification between Chile and its peers unfold, as well as the most superficial layer in which key entrepreneurs advance new identities. Chile’s identity is examined through the lens of role theory, in order to unpack this country’s sense of being a misplaced state in South America. Chile’s role behaviour as a soft case of misplacement is triggered at the most superficial layer and partly permeates the intermediate layer of identity, despite the country’s historical experiences which have given rise to a sense of uniqueness in South America. Thus, this article shows how Chile’s role-play has tended to increase and/or offset its sense of misplacedness in South America in the period starting from 1990 and continuing into the new century.