Date:
9:30 Hora de Chile
This event is part of the Academic Forum for the New Constitution in Chile. For a recording of this event in English, click here. For a recording in Spanish, click here.
Introduction: Steven Levitsky, Director, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; Professor of Government, Harvard University
International Panelist: Manuel Jose Cepeda, Former President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia
Local Panelists: María Cristina Escudero, Professor at the Faculty of Government, Universidad de Chile; Gabriel Negretto, Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Universidad Católica; Julieta Suárez-Cao, Deputy Director and Head of Undergraduate Program at the Institute of Political Science, Universidad Católica
Moderated by: Verónica Figueroa Huencho, Professor of the Faculty of Government, Universidad de Chile, Former Undersecretary of Higher Education 2022-2023, DRCLAS Luksic Visiting Scholar, 2019-2020
In September 2022, the first attempt to draft a new Constitution – drafted by a Constitutional Assembly heavily skewed to the left – was rejected by 62% of Chilean voters. Thus, a new Constitutional effort was launched, and a committee of experts started drafting in March this year. Then on May 7, 2023, a new election delivered 50 Members in parity for the Constitutional Council, with results that couldn’t have been more different to the ones obtained in the previous Constitutional election: this time, 23 counselors from the Republican party and 11 from the Chile Vamos coalition (both right-wing) leaves a Council heavily favoring the right, with only 17 representatives from the left, including one seat for indigenous communities. The Republican far-right representation ruled out creating a single bench with center-right’s Chile Vamos - which eventually would comprise the two-thirds majority needed to pass proposals - but they will seek coordination.
The challenge is yet again negotiating with those who think differently to finalize a reasonable Constitutional Agreement, crafted by the Admissibility Technical Committee, that will introduce reforms that respond to Chilean citizens' significant needs. The exit Plebiscite will take place on December 17, 2023; responding yes or no to the following question: Are you in favor or against the text of the New Constitution?
Bios
Manuel Jose Cepeda is a Colombian jurist. He was a magistrate of the Constitutional Court of Colombia (2001-2009) and the president of the Court from 2005 to 2006. During the design of the Columbian Constitution, he was a presidential advisor to two Presidents of the Republic for the creation of the Constituent Assembly, the New Constitution, and later, the development of the 1991 Constitution on issues such as the statute of the Constitutional Court and the regulation of the guardianship action. Since 2006, he has participated in the seminar on Global Constitutionalism at Yale University, among other activities in the international arena. He is also a fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg.
María Cristina Escudero Illanes is a Professor of Government and editor of the Political Magazine at the University of Chile. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University in the United States and is a lawyer from the University of Chile. Among her latest publications are Constituent Assemblies in Latin America: Aspirations for Equality, Participation, and Freedom published by LOM in 2021 and the article “Making a Constituent Assembly Possible in Chile: The Shifting Costs of Opposing Change in the Bulletin of Latin American Research” in the same year. In the public sphere, she was a member of the Systematization Committee during the participatory stage of the constituent process promoted by the Government of Chile in 2016 and during the constituent process in 2020, she participated in the Technical Committee of the Congress. She is currently a counselor of the Electoral Service of Chile.
Steven Levitsky is the Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and Professor of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on democratization, authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions. He is the author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018), a New York Times Best-Seller that has been published in 25 languages, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge, 2010), and Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, 2003), and co-editor of Informal Institutions and Democracy in Latin America (with Gretchen Helmke) and The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (with Kenneth Roberts). He has written frequently for the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Vox, The New Republic, The Monkey Cage, La República (Peru), and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil). He is currently writing a book (with Lucan Way) on the durability of revolutionary regimes. Levitsky received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
Gabriel Negretto is Full Professor of Political Science and Director of the Doctoral Program at the Institute of Political Science of the Catholic University of Santiago de Chile, and Affiliate Professor at the Division of Political Studies of the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) of Mexico City. His research focuses on comparative constitutional politics, electoral and constitutional change, comparative institutional design, and democratization. He is currently working on a project on constitutional change and democratization around the world, which is the basis of one his latest articles, co-authored with Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer, «Constitutional Origins and Liberal Democracy: A Global Analysis, 1900-2015» (American Political Science Review 2021 115 (2): 522-536). His most recent books are Redrafting Constitutions in Democratic Regimes: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Constitution Building Processes in Latin America (IDEA, 2018), and Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties, and Institutional Choice in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Professor Negretto has been consultant to the United Nations Organization, IDEA International, Inter-American Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and various national public institutions in Latin America on institutional design and constitutional and electoral reforms. He has also held visiting appointments at several universities, including the University of Notre Dame, Columbia University, Princeton University, The New School for Social Research, Universidade de Sao Pablo, Universidad Carlos III, and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
Julieta Suárez-Cao is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University, specializing in subnational politics, women's representation, and political parties. She is a coordinator of the Red de Politólogas #NoSinMujeres and participated in designing the electoral system that ensured gender parity in the Chilean constitutional process. She has been a consultant for UNDP, UN Women, and the National Institute of Human Rights. Her latest publications include: “Blessing in Disguise? How the Gendered Division of Labor in Political Science Helped Achieve Gender Parity in the Chilean Constitutional Assembly,” in Politics & Gender (2022), and “Reconstructing Legitimacy After Crisis: The Chilean Path to a New Constitution,” in Hague Journal on the Rule of Law (2021). She is currently the Deputy Director and Head of Undergraduate Studies at the UC Political Science Institute.
Verónica Figueroa Huencho is an Associate Professor of Government and Public Administrator at the University of Chile. She has a Doctor of Management Science from ESADE in Barcelona, did her postdoctoral from the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University and is a Visiting Scholar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
She has been a teaching assistant, international consultant, and researcher with more than 20 years of experience. She is the author of important publications about the challenges of public policy processes in the context of diversity, particularly those associated with indigenous communities in catalogued magazines, books, and book chapters. She has also led research projects for the ANID and European Union among others. At the University of Chile, she has served two terms as vice president of the University Senate, making her the first woman and first Mapuche person to assume that responsibility. Recently, she has served as Subsecretary of Higher Education in the government of the current President Boric Font for the 2022-2023 term.
Presented in collaboration with:
Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad de Chile
Instituto Milenio Fundamentos de los Datos
Laboratorio Constitucional, Universidad Diego Portales
Facultad de Derecho, Pontificia Universidad Católica
Instituto de Ciencia Política, Facultad de Historia, Geografía y Ciencia Política, Pontificia Universidad Católica
Harvard Association of Chilean Students
Escuela de Gobierno, Pontificia Universidad Católica