Chile’s Struggles for International Status and Domestic Legitimacy: Standing at the Liberal Order’s Edge

This detailed study of Chile’s upward trajectory from the 1973 military coup to its accession to the OECD in 2010 shows how foreign policy elites utilise international status to build legitimacy, consolidate power, and shape collective agency in the world. It moves beyond treatments of status as a concern reserved for greater powers, introducing the concept of international status management to explain how small states navigate global and regional hierarchies while advancing domestic political aims. Blending International Relations theory and foreign policy analysis with a historical approach, the author analyses how elites interpret and mobilise their country’s place in the world through status narratives. This research contributes to the growing literature on status by revealing its domestic functions and theorising the strategic uses of international recognition in moments of political transition and contestation.

This book appeals to scholars and students of International Relations, foreign policy, Latin American politics and diplomacy, and democratic transitions. It also offers valuable insights for policymakers and analysts concerned with small state agency, the liberal international order and its crisis, and the shifting politics of international status.

Cristóbal Bywaters is Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Studies, University of Chile. He previously served as Special Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile and is currently a member of the institution’s Foreign Policy Council. His research focuses on International Relations theory and Latin American foreign policies. He co-edited the book Nuevas voces de política exterior [New Foreign Policy Voices] (2021).