Domestic Politics, Prestige, and War: The Emergence of Chile’s Democratic Status Narrative

Abstract

The domestic politics of international status unfolds beyond its foreign policy implications. Sometimes actors engage in status politics to pursue their domestic political aims. Looking at the opposition to Pinochet in Chile, I introduce the notion of the democratic status narrative, which emerged as a means of contesting authoritarianism. The narrative first entered the public sphere during the 1978 Beagle Channel crisis in the pages of opposition magazines, rarely consulted by scholars of international affairs. As it grew more prevalent, it became a central element in the formation of the Concertación coalition’s influential foreign policy elite, shaping post-authoritarian foreign policy.