Reevaluating the Role of Ideology in Chile

Abstract

Voters’ ideological stances have long been considered one of the most important factors for understanding electoral choices in Chile. In recent years, however, the literature has begun to call this premise into question, due to several changes in the Chilean political landscape: the current crisis of representation, the high programmatic congruence between the two main coalitions, the decline in the political relevance of the dictatorship, and the rise of nonprogrammatic electoral strategies. In addition to these transformations, Chile switched to voluntary voting in 2012. This article studies whether ideology still informs electoral choices in Chile in an era of voluntary voting. It implements a conjoint survey experiment in low-to-middle-income neighborhoods in Santiago, where voters would be expected to be less ideological. It shows that candidates’ ideological labels are crucial for understanding the electoral decisions of a large part of the sample, particularly among likely voters.

Immigration and Nationalistic Attitudes: Panel Evidence from Chile

“…The coalitions then traded control of executive power until 2022. Over time, these two large political alliances have converged toward the center (Visconti, 2021), 8 which can be explained by the center-left government's decision to keep the market-based reforms introduced by Pinochet during the military dictatorship (Maillet, 2013) and the moderation of the center-right parties that have appropriated elements of social welfare policies (López and Baeza, 2011;López et al, 2013). These traditional coalitions could not adapt to a new social context and failed to include demands from relevant social groups in their platforms (Luna, 2014;Morgan and Meléndez, 2016;Rosenblatt, 2018).…”

¿Voto versus Protesta? La movilización como mecanismo de participación ciudadana

“…En cierto sentido, la abstención puede convertirse en una alternativa viable cuando la oferta partidaria es insatisfactoria dado que ninguna alternativa es suficientemente convincente para el votante (Kang, 2004). Mientras en Chile la ciudadanía que se identifica con una posición ideológica de derecha es más disciplinada para votar, quienes se ubican a la izquierda en el eje ideológico tienden a ser más apáticos en el ejercicio del voto frente a una oferta programática pro statu quo (Visconti, 2021). En este trabajo buscamos desentrañar este dilema en la sección 3.…”

When Inmigration is a New Issue: Evidence from Chile 2003 and 2017

“…Since previous studies have shown that ideology is an important predictor for electoral decisions of Chileans, even when there is discontent with democracy, political parties, and the elites (Visconti, 2021), as migration has become increasingly politicized, we would voters to express views consistent with those adopted by their likeminded parties. However, since we can also assess people's views before parties adopted policy positions, we can verify whether the party' positions were in line with those previously held by their traditional electoral base.…”