Neoliberal Policies, Logging Companies, and Mapuche Struggle for Autonomy in Chile

Abstract

The conflict between logging companies and Mapuche communities serves as a lens to comprehend the political consequences of neoliberalism in Chile. Three factors limit the scope for political participation and agenda setting: (1) authoritarian political institutions that restrict popular representation and oversight; (2) the current ideological consensus concerning modernity and development shared by the principal political parties; and (3) neoliberalism's narrow definition of the proper scope of politics and rights. These factors create obstacles to the mobilization of claims through party programs, truncating political contestation and participation. Mapuche communities and organizations have responded by raising new demands for collective rights and inventing new autonomist strategies of political mobilization. Mapuche demands challenge the profits of dominant economic sectors, traditional notions of nation, and a political consensus on development policy. Chile's democratic government has countered these demands with limited socio-economic assistance to rural indigenous communities and repressed militant organizations that raise ethnonational demands, creating a political stalemate but not inhibiting protest.