Populism and (Anti-establishment) Political Identities in Contemporary Chile

Chile is one of the few Latin American countries, in which populist leaders and parties have not been electorally successful in the last decades. This is particularly striking as empirical evidence shows that voters increasingly do not identify with existing political parties and have little confidence on the political class. Moreover, the country has been shaken recently by corruption scandals that involve almost the whole political establishment. Nevertheless, populist leaders are virtually absent and the few who have emerged have obtained a very limited amount of votes. We explain this by empirically showing the resilience of the two major political coalitions, which have been structuring the electoral game since the transition to democracy in 1989. In fact, we demonstrate that only a reduced section of the electorate has an anti-establishment political identity, i.e. it rejects both major political coalitions, and in consequence, is not willing to vote for any of their candidates for any popular election. This empirical finding is highly relevant for at least two reasons. On the one hand, by considering original survey data (a nationally representative sample), we can show that although Chilean democracy is increasingly under stress, there are no reasons to claim that the country is at the brink of experiencing a major crisis that could lead to the collapse of its party system. On the other hand, by considering the role of (negative) political identities (individuals that systematically reject the existing political coalitions), we develop a novel theory that better explains the electoral success and failure of populist forces. Our theory maintains that populism can become the major political force in a country only when an important part of the population has developed an anti-establishment political identity.