Reimagining Governance: The Visionary Potential of Chile’s Rewritten Constitution

Reimagining Governance: The Visionary Potential of Chile’s Rewritten Constitution

by Varsha VijayakumarNo Comments
By Co-Editor Varsha Vijayakumar. This coming Sunday, September 4, every Chilean citizen above the age of eighteen will vote to “approve” or “reject” a brand-new national constitution.  Chile’s existing constitution was established during the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which lasted from 1973 to 1990. On September 11, 1973, the military general led a U.S.-backed coup d’etat that ousted Salvador Allende, the first Marxist in the world to have been democratically-elected to power. Today, the histories and lives of the murdered and disappeared are intentionally documented by organizations such as the Museum of Memory & Human Rights in Chile’s capital city.*  A national plebiscite is nothing new in Chile. In fact, the formal end of Pinochet’s dictatorship was brought about by a 1988 referendum in which 56% of Chileans voted “no” on the question of extending his regime. Critics have long argued that the current constitution prioritizes the neoliberal economic model that was established under Pinochet’s rule and generally enshrines the stark inequalities of...
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Institutionalizing the Revolution or Maintaining the Status Quo: The Question of Plurinationalism in Bolivia

by Winston Ardoin IINo Comments
By Co-Editor Winston Ardoin In a crucial victory for Evo Morales, Bolivia’s former leftist indigenous president, the state’s most recent constitution entered into force on February 7, 2009. The document reorganized the state around the concept of plurinationalism, defined by political scientist Michael Keating as “the coexistence within a political order of more than one national identity, with all the normative claims and implications that this entails.” Proponents of the new constitution saw the codification of plurinationalism as the institutionalization of their revolutionary struggle against the legacy of colonialism and long-standing inequality in Bolivia. Opponents, including some indigenous leaders, disagree, arguing that plurinationalism dilutes sovereign aims and maintains the unjust status quo. Understanding Plurinationalism in the Bolivian Context A uniquely Latin American idea developed in the 2000s, revolutionary Andean political leaders with indigenist convictions developed the concept of plurinationalism, defined by former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa as “the coexistence of several different nationalities within a larger state where different peoples, cultures and worldviews...
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