Satisfaction with public goods provision and citizen preferences for institutional changes: Evidence from the dictatorship-era constitution in Chile

Abstract

We argue that a deficient provision of public goods may influence citizen satisfaction with the status quo, thereby encouraging demands for institutional changes. We formalize and test this relationship using prior data related to the recent constitutional process carried out in Chile to replace its dictatorship-era constitution. Individual-level data from the Chile 2016/17 AmericasBarometer survey are used to estimate ordered and multinomial probit models to study the determinants of citizen preferences for constitutional change, distinguishing between amendment and replacement. The main findings reveal that preferences for reforming the Chilean constitution can be driven by greater discontent with public goods provision. These results remain robust when estimating pseudo-panel models using cohort-level data and examining coefficient stability. Moreover, higher levels of corruption are associated with a stronger demand for constitutional replacement, suggesting a potential rupture in the shared social contract due to poor governance and lower political equality.