The socialist party of Chile to the people

Abstract

The article analyses the role and responsibility of the Socialist Party in Chile’sunconcluded democratisation. It identifies the decision of the party to demobilise thepopular movement against the dictatorship has a fundamental moment in the party’sre-integration into mainstream institutional politics. The author argues that this reintegrationwas possible because socialists adopted a new understanding of politicsthat privileged elite negotiations and rejected social mobilisation as a political recourse.The correspondent political practice has had the consequence of discrediting politiciansand political parties. Through extracts of interviews with socialist leaders, the authorshows how the dominant institutional and elitist conception of politics and power impedes, even the leftist sector of the party, from changing this situation and thinkingof alternatives that could put an end to Pinochet’s institutional legacy.