Abstract

This essay contributes to the increasing comparative constitutional law literature that has been examining constitution-making failure, the factors that explains it, and the possibility of obtaining valuable lessons for the design of future processes. For this purpose, it examines the Chilean constitution-making process of 2015-2018, led by former President Michelle Bachelet. The article shows that the most relevant factors that explains this failure relates to a dynamic political and social context, the institutional design of the process, and the exclusion of political parties of the process and the lack of consensus among the political elite. However, this failure cannot be considered definitive and total. To the contrary, it was only temporary and partial, considering the influence that the process had over the next two constitutionmaking process that followed on the next years (2019-2022, and 2023).