Michelle Bachelet Research Articles

El proceso constituyente de Bachelet en Chile (2015-2018): razones de un fracaso (previsible)Bachelet’s constitution-making process in Chile (2015-2018): reasons for a (foreseeable) failure

Abstract This essay contributes to the increasing comparative constitutional law literature that has been examining constitution-making failure, the factors that explains it, and the possibility of obtaining valuable lessons for the design of future processes. For this purpose, it examines the Chilean constitution-making process of 2015-2018, led by former President Michelle Bachelet. The article shows that the most relevant factors that explains this failure relates to a dynamic political and social context, the institutional design of the process, and the exclusion of political parties of the process and the lack of consensus among the political elite. However, this failure cannot be considered definitive and total. To the contrary, it was only temporary and partial, considering the influence that the process had over the next two constitution-making process that followed on the next years (2019-2022, and 2023).

A failed but useful constitution-making process: How Bachelet’s process contributed to constitution-making in Chile

AbstractThis article shows how failed constitutional proposals may contribute to future constitution-making processes by exploring the relationship between the recently failed Chilean constitution-making process (2019–22) and the previous unsuccessful one led by former President Michelle Bachelet (2015–17). Comparative constitutional scholars are yet to fully understand how constitutional failures of this kind can take place, and Bachelet’s process has not received the attention it should. This article fills that gap by showing how both processes were driven by shared principles initially set by Bachelet. It also shows how those principles may serve as a blueprint for future constitutional changes in Chile. Bachelet had campaigned on the basis that any constitutional replacement attempt should be participatory, institutional and democratic – all ideas that have remained popular in Chile’s political landscape. Those ideas have served the purpose of both reducing transaction costs among constitutional negotiators and securing large compromises in polarized political scenarios.

Challenges of the leftist current in Brazil during the era of President (DaSilva)

There have been sharp fluctuations in the political regimes that Latin America has experienced in recent years. And the developments in several Latin American countries over the past years have revealed the dominance of leftist parties on the political scene. This dominance began to recede after the right-wing parties advanced in large countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Paraguay. These developments came as a result of the decline of the democratic approach of the left-wing parties, or as a result of the prosecutions of corruption scandals, as happened in Brazil during the era of President (De Silva) 2003-2011, who failed to face the prosecutions, which affected the bright image of the Latin left.
 De Silva was not the first leftist to win the rule of their country in South American countries. He was preceded - during the last two years - by the presidents of Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia, whose rule (Gustavo Petro) won as its first left-wing president. This was not the only round won by the symbols of the left by ruling the countries of the southern continent, but they also won in a previous round in the first decade of this century, such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Jose Mojica in Uruguay, and Evo Morales. in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.

ЖІНОЧЕ ЛІДЕРСТВО ЯК ІНДИКАТОР ЗМІН ПОЛІТИКО-ГЕОГРАФІЧНОГО СЕРЕДОВИЩА У КРАЇНАХ ЛАТИНСЬКОЇ АМЕРИКИ

In this article we address the phenomenon of the spreading female leadership in Latin American politics. Stressing the overall importance of gender studies in geography, we pay special attention to theories and methodological approaches in regional and country studies with the focus on gender issues. Based on the data from international organizations, including the World Bank we discuss the general trends in gender balance in Latin America against the average background of the world and other macro-regions, and then we analyze differences among individual Latin American countries. We compare women’s representation in national parliaments, specifically focusing on the women’s proportion growth rate. Then we discuss individual biography and political course cases of the female presidents of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Costa-Rica as those countries can shed more light onto the overall social and political context, in which women take the highest political positions in Latin American region. Those cases demonstrate that women in all four countries have opportunities to develop a full-fledged political career and their ascendance to power is not accidental. The cases of Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Laura Chinchilla in Costa-Rica contradict patrimonial stereotypes common for Latin America’s countries in regard to women in politics being protégés of powerful male politicians. We come to the conclusion that growing women’s representation in national level legislative bodies and presidential posts reveal more profound changes in social structure and values in Latin American societies. In particular, we believe that the culture of “machismo” or masculinity gives way to the changes caused by modernization and shifts in social and economic development of Latin American countries, shifting towards semi-periphery of the world-system.

Assessing the Accuracy of Google Trends for Predicting Presidential Elections: The Case of Chile, 2006–2021

This article presents the results of reviewing the predictive capacity of Google Trends for national elections in Chile. The electoral results of the elections between Michelle Bachelet and Sebastián Piñera in 2006, Sebastián Piñera and Eduardo Frei in 2010, Michelle Bachelet and Evelyn Matthei in 2013, Sebastián Piñera and Alejandro Guillier in 2017, and Gabriel Boric and José Antonio Kast in 2021 were reviewed. The time series analyzed were organized on the basis of relative searches between the candidacies, assisted by R software, mainly with the gtrendsR and forecast libraries. With the series constructed, forecasts were made using the Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) technique to check the weight of one presidential option over the other. The ARIMA analyses were performed on 3 ways of organizing the data: the linear series, the series transformed by moving average, and the series transformed by Hodrick–Prescott. The results indicate that the method offers the optimal predictive ability.

Policy Translation of Social Movements Demands: The Case of Free-Tuition in Higher Education in Chile

Chile experienced massive student protests against market-based education in 2011. In 2013, center-left President Michelle Bachelet proposed tuition-free higher education for Chile’s bottom 70%, fueling controversy due to the uncertainty and unexpected medium and long-term consequences. This study analyzes how the free-tuition policy was developed, the actors involved, the political discourse deployed during its implementation, and the strategy used to make this policy a reality. Using semi-structured interviews with key actors, such as policymakers and scholars, and a review of newspaper columns, we wanted to explore how politicians and bureaucrats translated the students’ demands into the free-tuition policy. Our findings suggest that the policy translation process involved former student leaders, free-tuition policy prioritization, and a quick, straightforward implementation process that enabled the government to fulfill its promise.

‘Supertanker is a Hero, the Government a Villain’: Politicization of Chile’s 2017 Forest Fires in the Media

This article analyses the politicization of natural disasters in the media and the narratives of crisis that contribute to these dynamics. In particular, it studies media coverage of the 2017 mega-fires in Chile and the way in which this coverage was framed by pre-existing political disputes over the performance of Michelle Bachelet’s government (2014–2018). It examines the print press coverage of the mega-fires, and the framing contests used to interpret the fire crisis. It pays special attention to the controversies that erupted over the foreign planes that were sent to help fight the fires: the American Supertanker and the Russian Ilyushin. We argue that press coverage of the mega-fires transformed a natural-social phenomenon into an emotionally charged political drama in which the Supertanker airplane was signified as the hero, and the Chilean government the villain. The Supertanker played a condensation symbol role. It was cast in the media as an external hero promising to control the fires that had overwhelmed local capabilities, and to overcome a government that was portrayed as inefficient and late to respond. The media functioned as an echo chamber for the cultural battle between the government and opposition. This article contributes to a cultural sociology of disasters, paying special attention to the role played by the symbolic representation of nature and socio-technical artefacts in political disputes.

THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND RUSSIA'S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE CONTEXT OF THREATS TO GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY

Currently, threats to food security reach a global scale. To a large extent, this is caused by the full-scale invasion of Russia on the territory of Ukraine and the losses that occurred as a result of the war. In general, before the war, Ukraine supplied 10% of world exports of wheat, more than 15–20% of barley, and more than 50% of sunflower oil. After the Russian invasion, Ukraine restricted the export of some grains. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, due to Ukraine's war with Russia, the number of people with a lack of food will increase by 47 million during the year and will be almost 323 million by the end of the year. First of all, the term food security refers to the availability of food for people without any scarcity, and it is considered that food security is effectively achieved when a person is not afraid of or susceptible to hunger, and is used as a criterion to prevent food shortages or disruptions in the future in a few factors Such factors are considered dangerous, including drought and wars and other problems, if they threaten food security. Absolute food security is defined as the production of food in one country at a level equal to or even exceeding domestic demand and can sometimes be considered to achieve the concept of complete self-sufficiency. Indicators of relative food security relate to the state's ability to produce and supply what the population needs in the form of food in whole or in part. From this we conclude that the concept of food security refers to the need to provide the population with the necessary food products, which may depend on cooperation with other countries or only on self-sufficiency. The Covid-15 pandemic and the war have broken many chains of the global food security system, and as a result, there have been significant disruptions in the uninterrupted supply of food to consumers at reasonable prices. The methodology is based on the analysis of scientific problems according to the nature of the research object, based on such methods of scientific knowledge as direct (empirical) analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, historical method. The results of the study relate to the presentation of the concept of food security and the degree of influence on it by natural disasters and geopolitical conflicts, in particular the war between Russia and Ukraine, the study of individual indicators of Ukrainian exports that affect the food security of some Arab and African countries, as well as the volumes of production and exports in different periods . Such indicators show a brief overview of the importance of Ukraine as a "food-nurse" for some countries and the consequences that will occur if the supply of agricultural products from Ukraine is stopped from both large and small businesses.

Among Uncertainty, Fear and Reluctance to Change: The Basis of the ‘Rejection’ to the New Constitution in Chile’s Big Business Before the Social Outbreak of 2019

The institutional response to the social outbreak of 18/O in Chile was the National Referendum for a new Constitution, which had an overwhelming result in favor of approving the constitutional change. However, within the minority group that voted against the change, there is part of the large Chilean business community. This article seeks to show the foundations of the main business leaders of two employers' organizations in Chile: the National Society of Agriculture and the Sociedad de Fomento Fabril, who rejected the idea of a new Constitution years before the social outbreak, as a result of the Constitutional Process promoted between 2015 and 2016 by the government of former President Michelle Bachelet. From 40 interviews with members of the business elite, it is concluded that uncertainty, fear and aversion support this conservative stance with a complex base, marked by its institutional trust and fear of the creation of a new political order. The analysis is interesting, because possibly the magnitude of the social outbreak and its consequences, managed to change the public positioning of some business leaders.

School Inclusion in the Framework of the New Legal Regulations in Chile

Today, the link between concepts of education and diversity are far away in schools in Chile, and even more so in the country's educational policies, which only interests the concept of inclusion as a more segregating than inclusive concept. Three years after it was promulgated by President Michelle Bachelet, on Tuesday, March 1 of this year, the School Inclusion Law begins to be officially applied. Doubts, criticisms and marked differences persist from different sectors towards the new regulations that in principle intends to end the profit, selection and co-payment in subsidized private education establishments and not to the integration and inclusion of students with SEN as a focus principal.

Chilean Educational Reform (2014-2018) and its Impact on Higher Education System

During the second term of the President Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), a transversal educational reform was carried out. To tertiary education its main purpose was to provide free tuition for higher education institutions (HEIs): Universities, Technical Training Centers (CFT) and Professional Institutes (IP). In that context, this paper analyzes the impact of this educational reform as it pertains to the Chilean system of higher education, with special focus on the implementation of free tuition as a new way to transfer resources from the State to HEIs.
 The methods used is the documental analysis of different legal texts, as Acts and Budget Acts. They are analyzing to identify manifestations of governmental rationality, identifying the language-in-use or its performative dimension.
 The analysis considers political variables and how they influenced the process. Its focus is to see legal and institutional changes along with public budget and the impact of HEIs enrolment. The results indicate that despite the significant transformations carried out in the sphere of higher education, the reform could not achieve a significant change in the relationship between the State and HEIs due to the political dispute that arose in the process, thus achieving mixed results.
 Chilean higher education provides an interesting case study which can serve as reference for educational debates in other countries.

Spending on primary healthcare in two government administrations in Chile since the dictatorship

Since the Declaration of Alma-Ata in 1978, primary healthcare (PHC) is considered an essential component of health systems. In the Chilean case, management of primary care was municipalized during the dictatorship and maintained by the subsequent governments, with some reforms. The aim of this article was to estimate and analyze spending in PHC in Chile, during the governments of Sebastián Piñera and Michelle Bachelet. Collection of financial data was oriented by the model of National Health Accounts (CNS), and later the amounts were deflated according to the Consumer Price Index. The principal source of information was the National System of Municipal Information (SINIM). The results show that during the period there was a permanent increase in spending in PHC; however, the average percent change was slightly higher in the first government compared to the second. The percentage of spending in PHC in relation to public spending in health was 21.4% for the eight years, with few variations. Indicators show that inequalities between administrative and health regions are increasing steadily. Therefore, although transfers to fund primary care services are increasing, they may be poorly distributed. This and other problems like the commodification of services and dismantlement of the network compromise the consolidation of PHC, especially in a health system based on contributive insurance like the Chilean system.

Digital participation in Chilean "Citizenry Dialogues" (2015)

This paper analyses the constitutional consultation developed in Chile, propelled during Michelle Bachelet's government (Citizenry Dialogues) between 2015-2018. There was a considerable interest from citizens and public opinion in this process which involved direct offline meetings and online participation throughout digital platforms. Its success was based in the application of a participative methodology that channelled the demand for constitutional change. Even more, fuelled by an initial enthusiasm, civil society organisations presented additional recommendations. Notwithstanding, the overall result is bittersweet. Even though there was a broad participation, a lack of an appropriate 'return' of the results of such inquiry to citizens caused disappointment even within the supporters of such initiative. Therefore, we conclude that methodological standards for deliberative processes require to be duly identify in order to ensure the possibility of tracing the results through the use of internet.

Digital participation in Chilean "Citizenry dialogues" (2015)

This paper analyses the constitutional consultation developed in Chile, propelled during Michelle Bachelet's government ("Citizenry Dialogues") between 2015-2018. There was a considerable interest from citizens and public opinion in this process which involved direct offline meetings and online participation throughout digital platforms. Its success was based in the application of a participative methodology that channelled the demand for constitutional change. Even more, fuelled by an initial enthusiasm, civil society organisations presented additional recommendations. Notwithstanding, the overall result is bittersweet. Even though there was a broad participation, a lack of an appropriate 'return' of the results of such inquiry to citizens caused disappointment even within the supporters of such initiative. Therefore, we conclude that methodological standards for deliberative processes require to be duly identify in order to ensure the possibility of tracing the results through the use of internet.

Why Is It So Difficult to Reform Collective Labour Law? Associational Power and Policy Continuity in Chile in Comparative Perspective

AbstractSince Chile returned to democracy in 1990, centre-left governments have tried to reform the provisions on collective bargaining, strikes and unions established by the Pinochet dictatorship. Between 2015 and 2016 President Michelle Bachelet made the latest attempt to reform them. Despite favourable conditions, the changes were modest. This article explains why this is so. Drawing upon the notion of ‘associational power’ and through comparisons with labour reforms in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, this article suggests that the imbalance between workers’ and employers’ collective power is key for explaining why pro-labour reforms fail.

Institutional Change in Constrained Circumstances: Gender, Resistance, and Critical Actors in the Chilean Executive

ABSTRACTBecause gender equality actors rarely have sufficient power to create new institutions, this article asks how they can achieve positive gender change in constrained circumstances when the creation of new rules is not possible. Building on a feminist institutionalist approach to analyzing gendered institutional dynamics, power, and resistance, we open the “black box” of one executive: Michelle Bachelet’s first presidency in Chile (2006–10). Using theory-guided process tracing and primarily qualitative data, we examine key reforms in three policy areas—health, pensions, and childcare—that were central to Bachelet’s first program. By analyzing how efforts to incorporate positive gender change fared differently in each area, this study shows how far utilizing, subverting, or converting existing rules—more “hidden” forms of change, often away from legislatures—can be effective, if limited, strategies when gender equality advocates face resistance.

I Don’t Want You to Be My President! Incivility and Media Bias During the Presidential Election in Chile

This study observes two relevant issues in today’s media ecosystem: incivility in online news comments and media bias during election periods. By analyzing 84 stories and 4670 comments published during the 2017 presidential election in Chile, we observed the extent to which news commenters addressed political figures using uncivil discourse, and the extent to which incivility and media bias were related in comments discussing the election. Results indicate incivility in comment sections of Chilean news outlets is higher than that found in the Global North, and the levels of uncivil speech are even higher when the conversation mentions female politicians, especially former president Michelle Bachelet. We also found a relationship between media bias and user bias—stories positively biased toward current president Sebastián Piñera were associated with more positive comments about him. Implications and future research are discussed.

Inclusió N School In The Regulations Under New Legal In Chile

Nowadays, the link between concepts of education and diversity is very far in the schools of Chile, and even more so in the educational policies of the country, which only interests the concept of inclusion as a more segregating than inclusive concept.
 Three years after it was promulgated by President Michelle Bachelet, on Tuesday, March 1 of this year, the School Inclusion Law begins to be officially applied.
 Doubts, criticisms and marked differences persist from different sectors towards the new regulations that in principle intend to end profit, selection and co-payment in subsidized private education establishments and not to the integration and inclusion of students with SEN as the focus principal.

What makes a health movement successful? Health inequalities and the insulin pump in Chile

ABSTRACT During the last two decades, there has been a significant reappearance of social movements as a response to social injustice, inequalities and diverse forms of discrimination. In the public health context, these movements constitute a democratic option to dampen the negative impact of health inequities on people’s lives, by placing their real health needs in the public agenda. We explore the rise of the #bombadeinsulinaalAUGE movement in Chile, which was led by patients with type 1 diabetes. In 2015, these patients demanded that Michelle Bachelet’s government incorporate the insulin pump into the universal health cover plan for diabetes. Through a qualitative approach, we analyse the repertoire of strategies undertaken by this movement to achieve its goal. We argue that the causes underlying the success of #bombadeinsulinaalAUGE stem from its ability to accommodate said repertoire in response to the political and institutional context, while creating collaborative interactions with the state. This study contributes to the understanding of the political consequences of social movements, providing insights from the Chilean context, where health movements are an emerging phenomenon. This topic is of interest to public health as social movements have the potential to transform health systems, improving the well-being of the general population.

Peacemakers or Iron Ladies? A Cross-National Study of Gender and International Conflict

Conventional wisdom suggests that when women attain high political office they are more likely to act as peacemakers than their male counterparts. In contrast, this article argues that women political leaders may be more likely to initiate conflict than their male colleagues. The theory draws on insights from feminist theory, particularly the notion that gender is performative, to argue that the effects of a leader’s gender on foreign policy decision making vary with social and institutional context. To gain and maintain status in elite policy in-groups, female leaders are incentivized to perform gender by signaling their toughness and competence through initiating conflict. Statistical tests and qualitative case studies of the tenures of Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller and Chilean president Michelle Bachelet provide evidence that female heads of government in democracies are more likely to initiate conflict than their male counterparts and that this effect is conditioned both by domestic political constraints and overall levels of women’s political empowerment.