Patricio Valdivieso

Congreso Nacional y política exterior chilena. Estado actual y algunas propuestas

Este trabajo pretende ser un aporte a la busqueda de caminos orientados a fortalecer la participacion del Congreso Nacional en la politica exterior chilena. Sistematiza literatura reciente en relacion con las funciones y caracteristicas de los poderes legislativos, sintetiza observaciones sobre el Congreso chileno y sus metodos de trabajo, sus formas de intervencion en la politica exterior, sus fortalezas y debilidades. Presenta un modelo concreto a fin de considerarlo en la discusion y expone dos propuestas para fortalecer la intervencion parlamentaria. El trabajo actualiza el debate con bibliografia internacional, consulta directa con profesionales especializados (entrevistas y encuesta) y observacion en terreno.

Opening the Black Box of Social Capital Formation

This paper introduces a rational choice model for multiple kinds of participation to empirically investigate several theoretical determinants of social capital (SC) formation. The framework is rich enough to investigate the importance of individual variables, social/peer effects, endogenous trust, political-institutional, and inequality factors as sources of participation. We show that the aforementioned contextual factors explain SC formation for Chile, but their relative importance varies for each kind of participation. Our second application compares individual-level determinants of SC formation among the largest democracies in the Americas. Gender, age, education, and race show heterogeneous effects across countries. Overall, negative interpersonal trust shocks generate participation increments, and possibly motivate engagement in trustworthy networks. Idiosyncratic factors behind participation and trust are positively correlated, suggesting a common SC stem that manifests in multiple ways. Hence, our empirical approach to SC formation uncovers factors hidden by assumptions in some previous literature.

Participation in Organizations, Trust, and Social Capital Formation: Evidence from Chile

This paper introduces an ordinal rational choice model for multiple kinds of social participation intensities to empirically investigate the relevance of several theoretical determinants of formation of Social Capital (SC) introduced in the literature. The framework is rich enough to investigate the importance of demographic individual variables, social/peer effects interactions, endogenous trust, and politico-institutional factors as sources of participation. Using Chilean data, we find that politico-institutional factors are jointly important to account for SC formation, as well as social interactions. Trusting community is a highly significant factor behind political participation and non-participation in religious activities. In addition, there are clear interrelated decisions among different kinds of participation. The evidence shows that SC formation is a multidimensional complex process, as advocated by prevailing theories in the literature.

Local Politics of Environmental Disaster Risk Management: Institutional Analysis and Lessons From Chile

Why do some local governments successfully address issues related to environmental disaster risk management (EDRM), while others do not? This research contributes to a growing literature about the relationships between institutions, multilevel governance, and EDRM at the local level in developing countries. Supported by the frameworks of institutional analysis and polycentric governance, as well as an in-depth case study of three municipalities in Chile (Cauquenes, Lebu, and Panguipulli) with data from primary sources (e.g., interviews, surveys applied to representative samples of householders, and archival research), this study identifies the types of institutional responses that appear to improve governance outcomes. The analysis reveals that municipal operational rules combined with representation, municipal structures, institutional trajectories, and polycentric relationships between municipal governing councils and society are influential factors for successful EDRM.

Institutional drivers of adaptation in local government decision-making: evidence from Chile

We study how the local institutional context shapes local government decisions about responses to perceived threats of natural disasters and climatic change. We draw on institutional theories and field observations to develop hypotheses about the effects of municipal institutional arrangements, social capital, and multilevel governance. To test these ideas, we analyze a unique dataset with over-time observations for almost all local governments in Chile. Our analysis shows multiple institutional conditions supporting proactive local adaptation: municipalities with relatively robust institutional settings tend to devote more resources to environmental risk management and adaptation. We use our quantitative model to show that altering institutional settings can make a difference for increasing local government investments in this area. Although few local governments in Chile currently enjoy favorable institutional conditions for risk reduction and adaptation, our findings identify ways through which external actors may contribute to a more propitious institutional climate.

Estado e integración: Movimientos de larga duración, noción de estado y preguntas de investigación

Actualmente se reconoce la necesidad de avanzar en la comprension de las tareas de futuro quedebemos emprender en Chile, y ello sera posible a partir del entendimiento de las megatendenciasque afectan la sociedad chilena y que debieran dar la orientacion, a las posibilidades y los limitesde la accion colectiva como nacion.En este estudio se identifican y precisan tres de los movimientos de larga duracion o megatendenciasque estan afectando al pais, se exponen algunas indagaciones sobre la nocion de estado quedemanda nuestro tiempo historico, sobre principios normativos orientadores, y finalmente quedanformuladas algunas preguntas de investigacion. En calidad de apendice, se incluye una seleccionde trabajos academicos que complementan la perspectiva desarrollada en el estudio.I. MOVIMIENTOS DE LARGA DURACIONEl debate nacional en torno a los desafios del Estado chileno debe considerar las posibilidades ylimites de su accion en la etapa de transicion hacia el nuevo milenio. De los procesos o tendenciasnacionales e internacionales que nos estan afectando como sociedad en la actualidad, y que porlo tanto condicionan nuestras acciones, hay por lo menos tres que demandan nuestro reconoci-miento: la globalizacion, el pluralismo, y la democracia. Entonces, cabe partir por precisar elsentido y el alcance de estos conceptos.

A Spatial Model of Voting with Endogenous Proposals: Theory and Evidence from the Chilean Senate

Proposers strategically formulate legislative bills before voting takes place. However, spatial voting models that estimate legislator’s ideological preferences do not explicitly consider this fact. In our model, proposers determine the ideology and valence of legislative bills to maximize their objective functions. Approaching to the median legislator ideology and increasing costly valence increases the passing probability, but usually decreases the proposer’s payoff. Using quantile utility proposer preferences, the model becomes tractable and estimable. In this way, we deal with the bill sample selection problem to estimate legislator’s preferences and also, the ideology of proposers, the proposed valence change, and the ideological stance of the statu quo in a common scale. Using Chilean Senate 2009 - 2011 roll call data, our results suggests that (1) political party affiliation significantly affects Senators’ ideology, (2) popular, young and male Senators are more extremist, and (3) proposers during Bachelet and Pinera’s terms have similar ideologies. Key words:

Zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen, Strafjustiz und politische Bildung in Chile

Zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen (ZGO) sind in Lateinamerika zu einem wichtigen Trager der Entwicklung geworden. Sie vertreten Interessen und Uberzeugungen unterschiedlicher gesellschaftlicher Sektoren, die in den staatlichen Strukturen und institutionalisierten Kanalen anders nicht reprasentiert werden. Durch diese Aktivitaten vermogen sie auch die Weltpolitik zu beeinflussen.

Educación ciudadana, participación y democracia: ciudadania, derechos e justicia – perspectiva chilena

El estudio, basado en resultados de investigacion en Chile, sintetiza diagnosticos sobre la participacion y la democracia en America Latina, y fundamenta tareas para la educacion ciudadana. Asimismo, relaciona lo anterior con el gran desafio de fortalecer las condiciones y competencias al servicio de la ciudadania para la canalizacion de sus inquietudes hacia las instituciones publicas; todo lo anterior se ejemplifica con las areas de justicia penal y seguridad publica. Propositivamente, el autor sugiere un conjunto de iniciativas, pasos y actividades concretas que podrian dar lugar a una mayor sintonia entre inquietudes ciudadanas y la accion de las instituciones, por una parte, y la educacion ciudadana para la democracia, por otra. Palabras clave: democracia, participacion, educacion ciudadana, ciudadania.