Abstract

FUENTES, Claudio. Constitutional Debate in Chile: Replacement through Amendment?. Polít. gob [online]. 2018, vol.25, n.2, pp.469-483. ISSN 1665-2037.

This article is a response toward George Tsebelis’ argument (2018) concerning the incentives for constitutional replacement in Chile. It suggests that Tsebelis’ model may work better to explain dynamic of constitutional reforms than dynamic of replacement. As some authors have addressed, this article suggests that there are some crucial exogenous conditions of the constitutional-institutional realm that may influence the possibility of replacing a given constitution and such conditions are not present in the case of Chile. Therefore, Tsebelis’ model may help us to analytically explain the space of decision of actors who may have predefined incentives in a context of a “normal” institutional setting. To respond to the question of why some actors are willing to change the statu quo in a context of pre-fixed incentives, this articles suggest three of them: actors’ perception of the future costs of maintaining the statu quo, the game of power between the Executive and the Legislative, and changes in the balance of power triggering the need for change of crucial aspects of the Constitution.

Keywords : constitutional change; 1980 Constitution; Chile; political system; constitutional theory.

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