Citizens’ perceptions of the Chilean social outburst: environmental collective action willingness and the role of political identification, democracy, and gender

This study examines citizens’ perceptions of the 2019 Chilean social outburst using cross-sectional survey data from a stratified probabilistic sample of 809 adults in the Valparaíso Region, Chile. We analyse how environmental collective action willingness, political identification, attitudes toward democracy, and gender are associated with evaluations of the protest movement. Descriptive analyses and a General Linear Model (ANCOVA) were estimated, controlling for age, educational level, and participation in social organisations; multiple linear regression models were additionally used as robustness checks. The results indicate that environmental collective action willingness constitute the strongest and most robust correlate of positive evaluations of the social outburst, followed by political identification, with respondents identifying with the left reporting more favourable perceptions than those identifying with the right. In contrast, attitudes toward democracy and gender do not exhibit independent effects in the fully adjusted model, while age introduces a consistent generational gradient. Overall, the findings suggest that perceptions of the Chilean social outburst are structured primarily by dispositional orientations toward collective action and, to a lesser extent, by ideological positioning, rather than by normative evaluations of democracy.