Electoral Behaviour After a New Social Movement: Insights from the 2019 Chilean Uprising

Social movements promote, support, or reject new candidates or parties, as well as new issues, influencing electoral results. I argue that the Chilean uprising of 2019 needs to be analysed as a political event that came to challenge both constituents and political elites. By addressing the gaps in the literature about how electoral behaviour changes after a new social movement with a strong anti-establishment discourse, and about changes in electoral behaviour after the Chilean uprising for elections unconnected to the protest itself, I focus on parliamentary elections to analyse to what extent the Chilean uprising, as a form of new social movement with a strong anti-establishment discourse, initiates changes in the way people vote. This is particularly relevant as the case of Chile shows no new political parties nor new political figures as the main outcome of protests. Results show that there are some changes in electoral behaviour, but not as deep as expected. Despite the anti-establishment and anti-party spirit of the protests, higher levels of political capital remain as the main predictor of electoral success. Furthermore, independent candidates are not the main alternative for constituents to express the anti-establishment spirit and feelings of frustration shown during the uprising, although partisan candidates lost part of their electoral advantage. In terms of political ideology, left-wing candidates become a stronger option but considering that they were part of the opposition during the uprising, the observed changes point more to an anti-establishment discourse as rejecting the political force in power, instead of supporting a specific type of candidate more connected to the grassroots of the movement. For elections that are common and usual for constituents, instead of the exception that the elections for the constitutional process represent, the uprising does not have a strong influence. When new parties or new candidates are not the main outcome of a new social movement, changes in electoral behaviour are not strongly attached to a new political cleavage that wins its space in the decision-making process. That, combined with the negative public opinion regarding the functioning of the Constitutional Convention, show how the effect of the uprising over voting is diluted and it is not absorbed by any political force in particular.