Chile’s Fight for a New Constitution
The Republic of Chile is currently the site of one of the most exciting political experiments in recent memory. Since a popular uprising brought the government to its knees in 2019, the country has embarked on an ongoing process of drafting and adopting a new constitution to replace itsdeeply neoliberal predecessor bequeathed by Chile’s long-time military dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1980. Presented on 4 July of this year and set to be decided upon in a referendum on 4 September, the new constitution marks an important step towards overcoming the institutional legacy of Chile’s troubled past.
Yet beyond breaking with Pinochet’s legacy, the constitution also enshrines a number of collective social, environmental, and human rights into Chile’s legal framework, making it one of the most progressive legal documents on the planet. In this dossier published in collaboration with Jacobin América Latina, Chilean political thinkers, activists, and people directly involved in drafting the new constitution take a closer look at its development, highlight the advances made vis-à-vis the status quo, and explore its significance for deepening democracy in Chile, Latin America, and around the world.
