Browsing by Author "Alcatruz, Daniel"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Delayed and Approved: A Quantitative Study of Conflicts and the Environmental Impact Assessments of Energy Projects in Chile 2012-2017
    (MDPI, 2021) Huneeus, Sebastian; Toro, Sergio; Luna, Juan Pablo; Sazo, Diego; Cruz, Andres; Alcatruz, Daniel; Castillo, Bryan; Bertranou, Camila; Cisterna, Javier
    The Sistema de Evaluacion de Impacto Ambiental (Environmental Impact Assessment System-SEIA) evaluates all projects potentially harmful to human health and the environment in Chile. Since its establishment, many projects approved by the SEIA have been contested by organized communities, especially in the energy sector. The question guiding our research is whether socio-environmental conflicts affect the evaluation times and the approval rates of projects under assessment. Using a novel database comprising all energy projects assessed by the SEIA, we analyzed 380 energy projects that entered the SEIA review process between 2012 and 2017 and matched these projects with protest events. Using linear and logit regression, we find no association between the occurrence of protests aimed at specific projects and the probability of project approval. We do, however, find that projects associated with the occurrence of protest events experience significantly longer review times. To assess the robustness of this finding, we compare two run-of-river plants proposed in Mapuche territory in Chile's La Araucania region. We discuss the broader implications of these findings for sustainable environmental decision making.
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    Local Government, Social Media and Management of COVID-19: The Case of Chilean Mayoral Communication
    (2023) Luna, Juan Pablo; Alcatruz, Daniel; Pérez Muñoz, Cristian; Rosenblatt, Fernando; Toro Maureira, Sergio; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
    Most research on governments’ use of social media focuses on the national or federal level. We therefore know little about the way local authorities harness social media platforms to communicate with their constituencies. This paper studies the role structural and political variables played in Chilean mayors’ political communication strategies during 2020–2021, a period of municipal elections marked by lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate whether the volume and characteristics of mayors’ social media posts are related to political factors (partisanship; alignment or not with the governing block; years in office), socioeconomic characteristics (poverty rate; age profile; health infrastructure; etc.); and the incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths at the municipal level. We found that mayors’ social media communication strategies depend on the functions that different municipalities perform in the territory, and that socioeconomic variables differentiate these activities. More specifically, we found that mayors of poorer communities made more extensive use of social media during lockdown periods than did mayors of more affluent municipalities.
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    Much Ado About Facebook? Evidence from 80 Congressional Campaigns in Chile
    (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2021) Luna, Juan Pablo; Perez, Cristian; Toro, Sergio; Rosenblatt, Fernando; Poblete, Barbara; Valenzuela, Sebastián; Cruz, Andres; Bro, Naim; Alcatruz, Daniel; Escobar, Andrea
    How do political candidates combine social media campaign tools with on-the-ground political campaigns to pursue segmented electoral strategies? We argue that online campaigns can reproduce and reinforce segmented electoral appeals. Furthermore, our study suggests that electoral segmentation remains a broader phenomenon that includes social media as but one of many instruments by which to appeal to voters. To test our argument, we analyze the case of the 2017 legislative elections in Chile. We combine an analysis of Facebook and online electoral campaign data from 80 congressional campaigns that competed in three districts with ethnographic sources (i.e., campaigns observed on the ground and in-depth interviews with candidates). The results of this novel study suggest that intensive online campaigning mirrors offline segmentation.