Citizenship ‘from Above’? The Case of Chile, 1964-2010

Abstract

During the last fifty years, citizenship in Chile has been re-interpreted and reformulated in different ways. By combining top-down and bottom-up approaches towards citizenship, this article argues that the reformulation of citizenship in Chile has been brought about through both state-initiated projects and civil society responses, which have interacted over time. State projects have been based on ideological doctrines in order to resolve problems emanating from 'below', while civil society re sponses have come in reaction to the ways in which the state has sought to implement its projects. Even though this historical process has produced periods of rapid expansion and radical restriction of citizen ship, in the end it has produced a stable but asymmetric model of citizenship in Chile.