When Ideology Trumps Deliberation: Evidence from Chile’s 2022 Constitutional Proposal

Existing research on Chile’s 2022 constitution-making process primarily explained the negative referendum outcome through individual-level factors. The role of political parties in responding to the product of deliberation has been widely overlooked. This article addresses that gap by examining party reactions to the draft constitution, a proposal aligned with the left-wing constitutional project of New Latin American Constitutionalism. Although the proposal embodied this project, party responses proved far more ambivalent, especially in the center-left, where party endorsement often was conditional. This ambivalence weakened the approval campaign and proved decisive in the referendum’s rejection. The analysis underscores that partisan ideology matters in deliberative constitution-making.