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The 2019 uprising in Chile was the outcome of an erosion of political arrangements and the politicization of popular unrest that developed over three decades. Two explanations for it—the political mobilization of the groups that emerged from the neoliberal reforms (the "new people" approach) and the mismatch between institutions and society (the "decoupling" approach)—can be reconciled by emphasizing the connections between elite and popular politics. Analyzing the long-standing relationship between power, legitimacy, and political institutions provides a framework for understanding this and other events of massive unrest. El levantamiento de 2019 en Chile resultó de una erosión de los acuerdos políticos y la politización del malestar popular desarrollado a lo largo de tres décadas. Podemos reconciliar dos de las explicaciones al respecto—la movilización política de los grupos surgidos de las reformas neoliberales (el enfoque de la "gente nueva") y el desajuste entre las instituciones y la sociedad (el enfoque de "desacoplamiento")—si enfatizamos las conexiones entre la élite y la política popular. El análisis de la relación de larga data entre el poder, la legitimidad y las instituciones políticas nos proporciona un marco posible para entender este y otros eventos de disturbios masivos.

Este ensayo tiene por objetivo principal ofrecer algunas reflexiones críticas para el estudio de lo que los estudiosos en la materia usualmente llamamos movimientos estudiantiles. El ensayo se compone de dos secciones. En la primera, reflexiono sobre las implicaciones que se derivan de usar el concepto "movimientos estudiantiles" para definir el campo de estudios, e invito a considerar el concepto alternativo de "política estudiantil". En esa línea, sugiero considerar las dimensiones de representación, movilización y reproducción del actor estudiantil. En la segunda sección, me refiero a dos grandes áreas de investigación que pudieran ser abordadas para avanzar el conocimiento sobre el tema: las conexiones entre estado, capitalismo y universidad; y el acoplamiento (o desacoplamiento) del actor estudiantil, en tres planos: su conformación interna, con otros actores sociales y con el sistema de partidos. Las principales contribuciones de este ensayo consisten en la propuesta de una agenda de estudio sobre el tema, la que puede orientar futuras investigaciones, y en un balance crítico (aunque no exhaustivo) de la literatura, con un foco particular en Chile y algunas referencias a América Latina.

This essay reviews the following works:Neoliberalismo corregido y progresismo limitado: Los gobiernos de la Concertación en Chile, 1990–2010. By Manuel Antonio Garretón. Santiago: Editorial ARCIS, CLACSO, 2013. ISBN: 9789568114961.Radiografía crítica al "modelo chileno": Balance y propuestas. Edited by Gonzalo Martner and Eugenio Rivera. Santiago: Lom, USACH, 2013. ISBN: 9789560004420.Economía política del fracaso: La falsa modernización del modelo neoliberal. By Alberto Mayol and José Miguel Ahumada. Santiago: El Desconcierto, 2015. ISBN: 9789569370151.Los chilenos bajo el neoliberalismo: Clases y conflicto social. By Carlos Ruiz and Giorgio Boccardo. Santiago: El Desconcierto, 2015. ISBN: 9789569370106.Chile and the Neoliberal Trap: The Post-Pinochet Era. By Andrés Solimano. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781107003545. (Reprinted in Spanish as Capitalismo a la chilena. Y la prosperidad de las élites. Santiago: Catalonia, 2012. ISBN: 9789563241426.)

AbstractThe expansion of social pensions in Latin America was part of a larger process aimed at extending protections to informal workers and other individuals not covered by social insurance. These reforms were enacted by governments of different colours, and varied considerably with regard to the scope of the new programmes. While previous comparative studies have privileged economic factors and electoral dynamics to explain these differences, this article extends these frameworks to incorporate the interplay between contentious and institutional politics. It uses a two-step qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the long-term effect of protests on reforms extending the coverage of social pensions under different constellations of political, economic and institutional conditions in 18 Latin American countries (2000-2011). The results show that protest was present in almost all configurations of expansion, but that its effect was contingent on the ideology of governments, the levels of political competition and the strength of unions.

Latin America witnessed a resurgence of protests during the 1990s and early 2000s. Citizens took to the streets to protest against the liberalization of public services and rising levels of inequalities and poverty. This situation partly changed in the decade of the 2000s when the region experienced a period of sustained social policy expansion intended to extend protections to formerly excluded groups. Did popular mobilization have an influence on the turn toward universalism in Latin American social policy? This paper explores this question by looking at the relationship between protest, the strength of the Left and the adoption of expansive reforms in healthcare, conditional cash transfers and noncontributory pensions. The findings bring support to the idea that protest is a relevant aspect of the politics of social policy reform, although its effects are both sensitive to other characteristics of the political environment and the particular policy dimension considered. ; América Latina presenció un resurgimiento de las protestas durante los 1990s y principios de la décadasiguiente. Las personas salieron a las calles para oponerse a la liberalización de los servicios públicos y a niveles crecientes de desigualdad y pobreza. Esta situación parcialmente cambió en la década de 2000, cuando la región experimentó un período de expansión de las políticas sociales que extendió protecciones a grupos antes excluidos. ¿Qué rol tuvo la movilización popular en el giro al universalismo en las políticas sociales latinoamericanas? Este artículo explora este tema observando la relación entre la protesta, la fuerza electoral de la izquierda, y la adopción de reformas expansivas en salud, transferencias condicionadas, y pensiones no contributivas. El análisis ofrece evidencia de que la protesta es un aspecto relevante de las reformas de las políticas sociales, aunque sus efectos son sensibles a otras características del contexto político, y a la dimensión específica de la política considerada.

This article analyses the material and ideological implications of a highly commodified mass higher education system on the 2011 students' mobilisations in Chile. Drawing upon quantitative and qualitative data, we show that the grievances denounced by the movement emerged from the differences in the process of socialisation/reproduction of intellectual labour among universities, which in turn correspond to forms of class exploitation. Moreover, we demonstrate that students' engagement in/with the movement varies across universities in accordance with the differentiation of these institutions along class and political cleavages. The article offers insights to understand why a sectoral conflict became the most significant challenge to the neoliberal consensus that has prevailed since the late‐1980s.

1. Student movements in late neoliberalism. Forms of organizing, alliances, and outcomes (Lorenzo Cini, Donatella della Porta, and César Guzmán-Concha) -- 2. What moves students? Ritual versus reactive student demonstrations in Mexico City (María Inclán) -- 3. Contentious institutionalized movements: the case of the student movement in Quebec (Luc Chicoine and Marcos Ancelovici) -- 4. Structuring the "structureless" and leading the "leaderless": power and organization in the student movement at the University of California (Sarah L. Augusto) -- 5. Tweeting #FeesMustFall: The online life and offline protests of a networked student movement (Thierry M Luescher, Nkululeko Makhubu, Thelma Oppelt, Seipati Mokhema and Memory Zodwa Radasi) -- 6. Movement leadership in an era of connective action: a study of Hong Kong's student-led Umbrella Movement (Chi-shun Fong and Samson Yuen) -- 7. From the classrooms to the roofs: the 2010 university researchers' movement in Italy (Gianni Piazza) -- 8. Worker-student unity against outsourcing at the University of Johannesburg: disrupting the neoliberal paradigm through direct action and alternative relations (Francesco Pontarelli) -- 9. From revolt to reform: student protests and the higher education agenda in England 2009-2019 (Hector Rios-Jara) -- 10. Chile's student movement: strong, detached, influential … and declining? (Nicolás M. Somma and Sofía Donoso) -- 11. Ever failed? Fail again, fail better: tuition protests in Germany, Turkey, and the United States (Didem Türkoğlu). .

This close investigation of student protests in the UK, Canada, Chile and Italy represents the first comparative review of the subject. Setting the wave of demonstrations within the contexts of student activism, social issues and political movements, it casts new light on their impact on higher education and on the broader society