Correlation of forces and political resources in the first Bachelet government and the impasses to possible democratic innovations in Chile

Abstract

This article aims to analyze if the government of Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) managed to deepen the Chilean democracy from democratic innovations. To do so, government analysis will focus on two dimensions: a) the correlation of political and economic forces (with partisan opposition, economic, media and church sectors); b) the asymmetry of political resources (from the institutional legacies, the political system, the pacts and the social support base). From this analysis, we observe that Bachelet's government in the face of the correlation of forces, as well as the presence of the institutional legacies of the dictatorship - such as the presence of a restrictive constitution, the binomial electoral system and rigid rules for reforms - to maintain a "government of continuities", not promoting, therefore, institutional changes to the point of expanding the democratic space.