Chilean social movements and party politics in comparative perspective: Conceptualizing Latin America’s "third generation" of anti-neoliberal protest

Abstract

This chapter argues that Chile’s contemporary protest cycle-a paradigmatic case of Polanyian resistance to market insecurities and inequalities-is the lead edge of a "third wave" of anti-neoliberal social protest in Latin America. Whereas the first two waves were primarily defensive responses by social actors to economic crises, austerity measures, and structural adjustment policies, third-wave protests pressed claims for expanded social citizenship rights in contexts of advanced liberalization. In so doing, they took aim at the social pillars of the neoliberal model, such as the education system. These waves of protest are heavily conditioned by party system alignments around the process of market liberalization, which largely determine whether established parties are capable of channeling societal dissent from market orthodoxy.