UPDATE: Social Policy in Latin America - Spotlight Chile
In September I highlighted the legal changes in Chile regarding
abortion and marriage equality. At the time, Chile’s recognition of legal
abortion in cases of rape, incest, etc. looked institutionally secure,
enshrined in law and approved by the high court. In contrast, legal recognition
of marriage equality was still an unrealized goal, with a bill pending for
debate and vote in Congress, subject to extreme uncertainty with elections
upcoming in November. Well, after the follow-up run-off elections yesterday, the
results are in. What are the prospects for Chile’s marriage equality bill?
Sebastián Piñera won the presidential election yesterday. He is a right wing candidate and beat his opponent Alejandro Guillier. Alejandro Guillier, a center-left candidate, represented a continuation of the economic and social policies that President Michelle Bachelet implemented during her current tenure. Meanwhile, Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire former President and businessman, represented a rejection of President Bachelet’s more communitarian economic policies. Piñera’s decisive 9-point victory in the run-off election is certainly meaningful. What exactly it represents: a vote for new economic policies, new social policies, or both, is still quite unclear.
Piñera’s opportunity to return to the Presidency presented itself because Chile’s center-left political coalition, known as the Concertación, cracked under the weight of disagreements over social policy, namely abortion, marriage equality, and labor policy. At the same time, left-leaning representatives gained ground in Congress in the initial November elections, many of whom support progressive social policies. In fact, the majority of members in the Chilean Congress now publicly support the marriage rights bill currently before Congress.
During the election campaign Piñera focused many of his attacks on President Bachelet’s economic policies. He promised to cut corporate taxes, slash red tape for mining companies, and reform labor laws. After the strong left-wing election results in November, however, Piñera moderated his economic message, promising to create a public pension fund to compete with Chile’s private pension funds and to expand free education. The focus on economic instead of social policy, suggests that Piñera did not think that emphasizing his social policy record was a winning strategy.
What about Piñera’s social policy record? His government filed a brief with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2013 arguing against a “new definition of marriage,” and maintained official opposition to marriage equality until he left office in 2014. At the same time, Piñera’s government responded to public pressure in 2012 to pass a progressive anti-discrimination bill. On balance, it seems like Piñera, a Harvard-trained economist, is keener to rest his Presidential legacy on economic reforms and performance, an area in which he has a deep background, than on leading social progress.
Piñera’s relative ambivalence towards social policy might be an opportunity for marriage equality advocates. Since a majority of Congressional representatives support the marriage equality bill and Piñera sees a need to solidify support among center-left voters, as shown by his moderation on the campaign, the passage of the marriage equality bill might represent a concession from Piñera towards social progress in exchange for support of his economic agenda. On balance, it seems like we can be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for progress on marriage equality in Chile.
Sebastián Piñera won the presidential election yesterday. He is a right wing candidate and beat his opponent Alejandro Guillier. Alejandro Guillier, a center-left candidate, represented a continuation of the economic and social policies that President Michelle Bachelet implemented during her current tenure. Meanwhile, Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire former President and businessman, represented a rejection of President Bachelet’s more communitarian economic policies. Piñera’s decisive 9-point victory in the run-off election is certainly meaningful. What exactly it represents: a vote for new economic policies, new social policies, or both, is still quite unclear.
Piñera’s opportunity to return to the Presidency presented itself because Chile’s center-left political coalition, known as the Concertación, cracked under the weight of disagreements over social policy, namely abortion, marriage equality, and labor policy. At the same time, left-leaning representatives gained ground in Congress in the initial November elections, many of whom support progressive social policies. In fact, the majority of members in the Chilean Congress now publicly support the marriage rights bill currently before Congress.
During the election campaign Piñera focused many of his attacks on President Bachelet’s economic policies. He promised to cut corporate taxes, slash red tape for mining companies, and reform labor laws. After the strong left-wing election results in November, however, Piñera moderated his economic message, promising to create a public pension fund to compete with Chile’s private pension funds and to expand free education. The focus on economic instead of social policy, suggests that Piñera did not think that emphasizing his social policy record was a winning strategy.
What about Piñera’s social policy record? His government filed a brief with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2013 arguing against a “new definition of marriage,” and maintained official opposition to marriage equality until he left office in 2014. At the same time, Piñera’s government responded to public pressure in 2012 to pass a progressive anti-discrimination bill. On balance, it seems like Piñera, a Harvard-trained economist, is keener to rest his Presidential legacy on economic reforms and performance, an area in which he has a deep background, than on leading social progress.
Piñera’s relative ambivalence towards social policy might be an opportunity for marriage equality advocates. Since a majority of Congressional representatives support the marriage equality bill and Piñera sees a need to solidify support among center-left voters, as shown by his moderation on the campaign, the passage of the marriage equality bill might represent a concession from Piñera towards social progress in exchange for support of his economic agenda. On balance, it seems like we can be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for progress on marriage equality in Chile.
This likely won't be a conversation in 10 years. We tend to default to thinking of progress as linear when in fact it most often comes in waves of improvement and regression until the conversation shifts - the conversation around healthcare in the US is an example of this - pre-obamacare the discussion was about whether healthcare is a universal right - that does seem to be a factor in the conversation we are having about Trump's healthcare bill today.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem in world politics today we are seeing an incredible backlash against the extreme social progress we've had for 10+ years now. My guess is this is a "market correction" to that rapid advancement - it won't stop marriage equality from becoming ubiquitous in the coming years but it will also insure that this advancement happens at a pace that won't leave behind those who have ties to establishments like religion that are slower to adopt this social progress.
I do think that sex equality writ large will still be a salient topic 10 years from now. Even assuming that same-sex marriage is ubiquitously recognized around the world (a proposition that I doubt), there are a host of factors that perpetuate fights for equality. Norms and expectations change. Victories on large issues expose smaller social impediments that then become points of contention. And at the same time, as you point out, there are people with honestly held and legitimate concerns about the repercussions of social change.
DeleteI hope that I did not come across as presenting progress as linear; it definitely is not. A great example of how change is context dependent and circumstantial is the history of abortion regulation and the social debate about such regulation in the United States. For most of our history it was left completely to state competence - the federal government was silent on the matter. That famously changed in the 1970s with Roe v Wade. There are plausible counterfactual histories where SCOTUS takes a more deferential approach to defining federal abortion protections, allowing civil society in progressive states to (1) adopt stronger abortion protections at home without infringing on the sensibilities of conservatives in other states while (2) developing grassroots organizing capacity that is useful to move the needle in borderline states, and the landscape of American access to abortion looks much more 'progressive', in the sense that legal access is much broader than it is today, based on a more deferential approach taken by SCOTUS all those years ago that did not rile up a national conservative backlash. That is to say, social conservatives have been very successful at limiting legal abortion in the US, providing a perfect example of how a high-profile and celebrated (by some) legal decision can be walked back by social activism and state policy.
Finally, what do you mean by extreme social progress in the past decade+ and, related, what is the backlash? I think we have seen quite a bit of change in many areas of social life and there are backlashes, in various forms, to that change. I'm just skeptical of the broad narrative of 'middle America', white conservative Trump-voter backlash to the coastal elite pluralist progressive agenda. I think we owe it to ourselves to try to be more discerning in dissecting particular issues.