It takes two to tango: students, political parties and protest in Chile (2005-2013)

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the interaction between social movements and political actors in a democratic context, with an emphasis on the relationship with political parties. Based on the case study of the Chilean student movement, it discusses how this movement has shown resilience and strong mobilization capacity, but at the same time faces great obstacles in reaching the broad impacts it seeks. In order to understand this paradox, we argue that it is important to consider the contradictory and ambiguous but progressive distancing between the student movement and traditional political parties. This process of distancing is traced back to the years 2005–2006, during a previous mobilization of high school students. In thinking about the strategies of the movement, the ideology of the governing coalition (right- or left-wing) matters less than for previous generations of activists, as does the political affiliation of representatives in Congress.