The criminalization of social movements: a discursive analysis of the rhetoric that builds the "anti-hooded" law in Chile

This article analyses how is justified the changes that strengthens the public order in Chile by a project of law sent from the Executive to the Congress in 2011. To do this, a discourse analysis that draws on the prospect on pragmatic and rhetoric develop by the group of Loughborough (Iniguez, 2006; Potter and Wetherell, 1988; Potter 1998) is conducted. The results shows two argumentative axes that emerges in the corpus: The undermining of the social movements and the police as an indispensable device to the maintenance of the common well. In relation to these analytical axes is discussed about the discourses that criminalize social protest. Finally we reflect about that while this project of law was rejected in 2013, this type of legislative initiatives and ways of conceptualizing social protest and social movements are still reproduced in Chile.