Chile’s 2011 student protests won concessions but not structural change

Evidence

In 2015, both Gabriel Boric and Camila Vallejo served in Congress. Boric had turned heads upon taking office when he showed up with messy emo-rock hair, a trench coat, and no tie. This caused some degree of outrage, and the twenty-eight-year-old said he didn’t care—indicating clearly he was from a new generation and a new culture. But he quickly threw himself into doing the actual day-to-day work of a congressman, taking pride in always showing up for legislative sessions, and he grew in popularity among Chileans. Vallejo, firmly ensconced in an organized Communist Party, was a part of Michelle Bachelet’s ruling coalition. As has been common for Marxist-Leninist parties in Latin America, she remained committed to socialist ideals in the long term and concrete governance in the short term. Boric was independent and officially “Autonomist.” — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 624 (#expands, via linked claim)

Habermas, more cautiously, saw such solidarity as restoring an element of the political public sphere: The student protests, I contend, have a compensatory function, since the control mechanisms that are built into democracy are either not working at all here, or not working properly.' As an example, he cited Vietnam: I well remember the fact that it was the campaign by students, in this case those in Berlin, against false definitions of a war that is a struggle for social liberation, that first made a breach in the official world-picture of our nation and let information from the other side gradually trickle in.’ He reinforced the demand for official encouragement of the critical discussion of political problems within the universities by referring to his conviction that the self-reflection of science, which is the means of scientific progress, is allied to the rational discussion of practical questions and political decisions by the fact that they share a common form of criticism.' — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2614</cite> (#complicates`, via linked claim)

But we also know that the people who rushed into the streets in 1989–1991 were not, as a rule, clamoring for the arrival of capitalism. Even in East Germany, many of them believed a reformed and improved socialism would be on the way. It is only partially true that this popular surge of energy contributed to the collapse of the system. And it is entirely wrong to claim that the citizens of post-communist countries got the freedom and democracy that was promised to them. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 107 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution remained the structural barrier to student demands — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 277; Chile’s 2011 student leaders took opposite paths into institutional politics — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 624; Student protest compensated for failing democratic control mechanisms. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2614 (+1 more)

Related

• Chile’s 2011 student leaders took opposite paths into institutional politics (similarity 0.88)
• Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution remained the structural barrier to student demands (similarity 0.83)
• Student protest compensated for failing democratic control mechanisms. (similarity 0.80)
• 1989-91 street protesters mostly did not demand capitalism (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Chile’s 2011 student leaders took opposite paths into institutional politics #expands (0.85) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 624
• Student protest compensated for failing democratic control mechanisms. #complicates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2614
• 1989-91 street protesters mostly did not demand capitalism #corroborates (0.72) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 107