Changes in Chilean identity: thirty years after the military coup

ABSTRACT. The objective of this article is to explore whether events, starting with the 1973 military coup and ocurring during the seventeen‐year‐long dictatorship, have caused or influenced important changes in the Chilean national identity. After a brief theoretical discussion, an analysis is made of the upheavals that occurred in Chile during the last thirty years seeking to assess what tensions they have introduced within Chilean identity. As a consequence some changes are detected which can be seen at the level of public discourses on Chilean identity with the emergence or rekindling of military‐racial, Catholic and entrepreneurial narratives. But the most important change that Chilean identity has suffered has to do with the development of an internal fracture stemming from the division introduced by the military regime. In so far as the contents of identity are concerned, the article focuses on the decline in acknowledgement of shared symbols of the nation, the persistence of a pervasive collective anxiety, a recurrence of belief in Chilean exceptionalism, and fading respect for politicians and democracy. These aspects are oddly coupled with rising belief in voluntarism and the possibility of sustained economic growth, increased resort to the market rather than political life as the site of recognition, acceptance of malaise as the price of economic progress and a remarkable centrality of human rights issues.     

Rebuilding Indigenous nations through constitutional development: a case study of the Métis in Canada

For the Métis Nation in Canada, self‐government remains the ‘essence of the struggle’ for which their political leader, Louis Riel, sacrificed his life in 1885. As one of Canada's founding peoples, the Métis have sought to reclaim their Indigenous right to self‐government by establishing democratic governance bodies, enhancing their economic capacity and pursuing state recognition of their rights. In addition to these efforts, the Métis have been developing a national constitution, which is anticipated to form the basis of a government to government relationship between the Métis Nation and the Canadian state. Through a case study of the Métis, this article explores the role of contemporary constitution‐building in rebuilding Indigenous nations from within and reclaiming self‐government in settler societies. We conclude that the Métis Nation's pursuit of these goals through constitutionalism will depend on its ability to build legitimacy internally amongst its citizens and externally with state decision‐makers.     

From constitutional monarchy to republic: The trajectory of Yuan Shikai

In the conventional narrative of the 1911 Revolution, the reemergence of Yuan Shikai leads to a series of troubling actions. First, he bargained with the Qing court by taking advantage of the crisis at Wuchang to extract concessions for himself, and then he used the Qing military force to menace the southern revolutionaries. Eventually Yuan used the southern revolutionary threat as a pretext to force the abdication of the Qing emperor. Moreover, he traded his contribution for the position of the first president of the Republic, and thus stole the fruits of victory. This narrative is quite different from the historical facts. As one of the most important higher officials in late Qing times, Yuan played an essential role in pushing the political reforms of the late Qing. His generation of the political elite largely supported constitutional monarchy, consequently he chose to promote political reform to realize a constitutional solution after he returned to the political arena during the 1911 Revolution. Only after realizing that the goal of a constitutional monarchy had been rejected by all the political groups did Yuan follow the trend by supporting republicanism.     

Italy says no: the 2016 constitutional referendum and its consequences

On 4 December 2016, Italians went to the polls to say yes or no in a popular referendum called by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on his package of constitutional reforms. Turnout was very high: 65.5 per cent. The No vote scored an impressive victory: 59.1 per cent rejected those reforms; 40.9 per cent supported them. This article puts those reforms in the context of previous attempts to modify several articles of the Italian constitution. The authors analyze and criticize the substance of those reforms and explain their possible impact on the functioning of the Italian political system. The Yes and No alignments were somewhat diversified, while the Yes vote got a lot of support from an often curious combination of domestic and foreign bedfellows interested in the political stability of Renzi’s government more than in any specific reform. Renzi’s defeat led to his resignation. A new government was immediately formed. It is unclear when and whether other, different constitutional reforms will be formulated. The Italian political and institutional transition continues while once again attention is focused on the electoral law and on how to restructure the parties and the party system.     

A summary of epiphyseal union timings in Bosnian males

Dry bone documentation of epiphyseal union times is scarcely represented within the literature due to the difficulties in obtaining large sample sizes of known‐age, juvenile osseous material. The identified missing from the recent conflicts in the former Yugoslavia has become a source for such a sample. This study investigates the union times of 26 epiphyses, in addition to union of the sternebrae, in 256 identified Bosnian males between the ages of 14 to 30 years. Progress of union was recorded by assigning each epiphysis to one of three phases denoting open, active or complete union. Age/phase distributions are provided for each of the epiphyses, as well as a summary table documenting overall age parameters. The results of this analysis not only increase the discipline's overall understanding of the timings of developmental changes, but will also assist in the process of age estimations, specifically within the Balkans. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.