Vulnerable individuals and institutions: the double territorial burden of COVID-19 in Chile

Abstract

In fragile territories, the COVID-19 pandemic has often worsened pre-existing forms of vulnerability, especially socio-economic and institutional ones Chile, a structurally vulnerable country in many respects, is unfortunately a good example: its communities are exposed to natural disasters and the effects of climate change, as well as to social imbalances The latter is a result of high economic inequality emerging from the country's market-driven policies implemented under Pinochet's dictatorship, which remains mostly unaltered since the return of democracy in 1990 In an environmentally and socially fragile context that has given way to the strong protests that have paralysed Chile's public life since Oct 2019, Chilean institutions show additional elements of vulnerability The centralist tradition of the Chilean state gives a central role to national institutions, which nonetheless citizens do not trust, while municipalities are closer to local communities However, municipalities have to manage a contradictory situation: past administrative reforms put municipalities in charge of providing basic public services such as schools and healthcare, necessary for citizens who cannot access private services, but local bodies are fiscally autonomous and receive a minor contribution from a national Municipal Common Fund