Thesis title: Crisis of Hegemony in the Chilean Neoliberal ‘Laboratory’ (2019–2023). An Exercise in Historical Interpretation. 

Funded by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID).

On 18 October 2019, mass student-led protests against rising transport fares sparked the Estallido Social, an historical event that exposed a profound crisis of hegemony among Chile’s ruling classes and inaugurated a turbulent interregnum in the so-called ‘cradle of neoliberalism’. This cycle of mobilisation triggered a constituent process which, after three years of intense political conflict, culminated in the failure of two opposing constitutional proposals—one drafted in 2022 by a pluralist coalition including the radical left, indigenous peoples, and social movements; the other in 2023 by the far right. Both were rejected in national referenda.

This research addresses a twofold question: what conditions led to the outbreak of the Estallido Social, and what structural and conjunctural factors explain the inability of dominant forces to reconstruct social consensus through the constituent process? To answer it, the study adopts a dual approach: it analyses the conjunctural dynamics of the 2019–2023 crisis while also reconstructing the longue durée antagonisms that have historically shaped Chilean political economy—drawing on archival research, political and intellectual biographies, critical theory, and analyses of public opinion trends.

By confronting contemporary events with historical structures, the study identifies continuities in the forms of capitalist accumulation, elite political strategies, and subaltern mobilisation. It traverses key episodes from the colonial period and the violent birth of the Republic to ‘the long Chilean way to socialism’ and ‘the pioneering Chilean highway to neoliberalism’ to interpret the morbid symptoms of the present crisis. Ultimately, it argues that Chile’s mature neoliberal order is increasingly reproduced through a nexus of coercion, constitutional illegitimacy, and ideological domination rooted in the longue durée formation of the Chilean state.

Andrés Cabrera Sanhueza is Director of the Institute of Social Philosophy and Political Critique (IFSCP) and principal researcher and curator of the Sergio Bravo Archive, dedicated to the legacy of the Chilean architect and documentary filmmaker. Cabrera Sanhueza regularly publishes conjunctural and political analysis in El Mostrador.