Despite Chile’s recent failed attempts at constitutional reform, Indigenous land rights are (still) governed by the much-contested Indigenous Law of 1993 (Law No. 19,253). The land restitution program foreseen in this law is extremely slow and controversial, and the establishment of Indigenous territories (by ordinary law) appears far from reality. At the same time, there are a few recognized Indigenous territories in Chile, and they are constantly faced with a high density of hydro-electric plants, extractivist activities, disproportionate forest and logging exploitation, salmon farming and a growing tourism industry. Over the years, Indigenous Peoples have reacted in different ways to dispossession and encroachment. Driven by frustration, some have assertively occupied their ancestral lands. Others have filed lawsuits and found a more equitable venue to claim their rights in the national courts. Against this background, this chapter analyzes the processes of dispossession faced by Indigenous Peoples in relation to their traditional lands in the north and south of Chile over recent decades, how they contested the titles to ownership and possession of such territories, and the outcomes of their litigation strategies. After the public rejections of constitutional reforms in 2022 and 2023, it remains uncertain how Indigenous land rights will be governed in the coming years or how they will be treated in any potential reforms to Pinochet’s Constitution of 1980. Despite the unfavorable legislative framework, this chapter argues that Indigenous strategic litigation can best advance and support land rights in Chile.

This chapter explores the intersection of antifascism and South American women’s activism in the context of the Spanish Civil War. The analysis focuses on Mi guerra de España (My Spanish War, 1976) by Argentine Mika Etchebéhère, an account of her experiences as a captain of a Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM) militia, and the feminist political magazines Vida Femenina (Buenos Aires, 1933–42) and Acción Femenina (Santiago, 1922–39). From different genres such as the memoir, the essay, or the journal article, and from varied platforms including political and non-political associations and publications, women expressed their will to contribute to the global discussion and struggle against fascism.

Chapter 5 shows how the development of strong parties and professional militaries contributed to the emergence of enduring democracies in Chile and Uruguay. Both countries developed strong parties during the late nineteenth century thanks in part to the geographic concentration of the population and the existence of relatively balanced cleavages. During the nineteenth century, these parties at times sought power via armed revolts, but once the military professionalized, the opposition began to focus exclusively on the electoral route to power. This occurred in the late nineteenth century in Chile, but not until the early twentieth century in Uruguay. In both countries, opposition parties pushed for democratic reforms to enfranchise their supporters and level the electoral playing field. It was not until the ruling party split, however, that the opposition managed to enact major reforms, which occurred in Chile in 1890 and Uruguay in 1917. In both countries, strong opposition parties played a central role not only in the enactment of the reforms but also in their enforcement.

This chapter explores how the Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (SADE, established in 1928) and the Sociedad de Escritores de Chile (SECh, established in 1931) became actively involved with antifascism in relation to national and international processes connected to the rise of fascism, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War. Each association’s trajectory was specifically shaped by each country’s context. In Argentina, SADE’s politicization unfolded under military regimes, conservative fraudulently elected governments, and Juan Perón’s regime (1946–55). In Chile, SECh’s politicization developed in the context of the governments of the Popular Front (1938–52) and the relative strength of leftist parties. This comparative analysis reveals convergences and differences and highlights the networks that connected writers at multiple levels, providing a new angle on the local and transnational frameworks for the antifascist struggle in the 1930s and 1940s and its transition to Cold War-era divisions.

Trade policy in Chile has always enjoyed a high degree of consensus among the various social actors. The low level of debate in the media and civil society has always been highlighted, especially with regard to the strategy of signing preferential trade agreements (PTAs), except for some sectoral debates. However, this low level of politicization has been reversed since the social outbursts of 2019, when this questioning was installed. The CPTPP has generated a broad debate among different actors. To determine the extent to which perceptions of PTAs have actually changed, the chapter develops a mixed qualitative methodology based on stakeholder surveys, expert interviews, and media analysis. We try to find out why Chile appears to have turned its back on PTAs, given the potential economic benefits they have brought to the country. The first section reviews the literature on perceptions, particularly in relation to trade agreements. The second section describes the evolution of Chile’s trade policy in order to understand the key moments when turning points in general perceptions have occurred. The third section presents and discusses the results of the surveys, media analysis, and interviews.

In South America, investment chapters have been used by some governments, notably in Chile, Colombia and Peru, to replace outdated bilateral investment treaties and extend countries’ investment protection commitments. In other countries, such as Brazil, investment chapters are a means to rethink the governance of foreign investment altogether. This chapter traces the evolution of South America’s PTA investment chapters from 2001 to 2022, focusing on the types of reforms adopted and the domestic factors that shape the reforms governments are willing to accept. It finds that PTA investment chapters exhibit an increasing diversity of reforms over time, although the vast majority of agreements are designed to maintain traditional investment protection standards. This variation is partly driven by the legitimacy crisis of international investment law. Arguably, this crisis has created more political space for South American preferences in investment treaty lawmaking. However, who dominates reform debates is just as important for countries’ reform preferences as their experience with investor-state arbitration. Regardless of reform preferences, the main outcome of PTA investment chapters has been further fragmentation in an already complex and incomplete area of international economic law. This fragmentation, if allowed to continue, may exacerbate the very challenges that governments are seeking to address through their reform efforts in order to promote sustainable and inclusive development.

Chile has begun to play a new leadership role on loss and damage in the international negotiations. Historically, Chile engaged little with loss and damage discussions in negotiations, but this changed with its presidency of the twenty-fifth Conference of Parties in 2019. Drawing on a review of the domestic policy landscape and institutional responses to loss and damage as well as fourteen interviews with key government, non-governmental organization, and private sector actors, this chapter suggests that while the presidency role acted as a driver for Chile taking the lead on the topic at the international level, the country’s economic identity acts as a constraint on the domestic development of adequate responses to loss and damage and on engagement with the loss and damage terminology. It also finds that Chile’s centralism and lack of ministerial coordination as well as the relatively institutionally weak position of the Ministry of the Environment limits more effective loss and damage governance. The chapter further argues that loss and damage as a concept has not permeated Chilean civil society. Finally, it demonstrates that Chile’s prioritization of economic growth and its extractivist economy undermine efforts to meaningfully address loss and damage at the national level.

Chile has built one of the largest networks of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in the world. While Chile’s initial objectives in PTAs focused on trade expansion, their scope has expanded to cover new issues and go deeper to include various behind-the-border measures. Therefore, an assessment of the impact of Chile’s PTAs beyond their effects on trade flows is imperative and may shed light on the impact of PTAs in general. Specifically, this chapter assesses the impact of trade in services provisions on women’s labor force participation, particularly in the services sector. We argue that the inclusion of services provisions in PTAs can promote the development of the services sector in the economy as a whole, which should have a positive impact on women’s employment. In addition, we find that the impact of PTAs on women’s employment should be more pronounced than on men’s, which in turn should help to reduce gender gaps in this sector. The chapter draws on new data and advanced methodologies to test our hypotheses. The results of the chapter show that the inclusion of services has a positive impact on women’s employment. The estimation results suggest that the inclusion of deep services provisions in Chilean PTAs had a positive impact on women’s employment, especially in the services sector. For men, the results show a negative or insignificant effect. Finally, the analysis of the impact of these provisions on gender gaps shows that these agreements have contributed to reducing gender gaps in the labor force.

Returning to Part II of the book, this chapter revisits the underlying metapsychology of victimhood. Exploring Freud’s account of mourning and melancholia, it considers the psychological need to mourn and the danger of melancholia. Mourning involves absorbing the loss of a loved identification and the need thereafter to return to an evolved sense of wholeness. This links it metapsychologically to guilt and the need to be at one again after violation. Melancholia is a way of internalising an external trauma and judging from it that one lacks worth. The case study is Patricio Guzmán’s film Nostalgia for the Light (2010) on the aftermath of Chile’s dictatorship (1973–90). The film focuses on women who search the Atacama Desert for remains of murdered family members or reflect on the loss of ‘disappeared’ parents. In a film that is the director’s own act of mourning, the women insist on their right to mourn and reject the state’s melancholia-inducing implication that their loss does not matter. The film’s metaphysical and aesthetic beauty places it on the victims’ side. ‘Nostalgia’ in its title reflects loving memory of the past as a means of anchoring engagement in the present rather than escaping it.

Chapter 6 investigates a setting with a narrow policy scope and low expectations. Unlike their Brazilian counterparts, Chilean mayors are not expected to implement important policies; the national government controls most public goods provision. Consistent with the book’s theory regarding settings with low expectations, mayors in Chile enjoy an incumbency advantage. The chapter also establishes that the ayors’ ability to obtain a return from holding office hinges on fiscal transfers and public goods spending. Chile also offers a natural experiment for examining theoretical expectations about the sources of personal versus partisan incumbency bias. During the most recent electoral cycle, some mayors were subject to term limits, while others were allowed to seek reelection. The chapter analyzes the impact of this institutional change using a differences-in-differences design. The results suggest that Chilean mayors’ incumbency advantage is strictly personal, as the theory predicts for settings with personalistic parties.