Status concerns are a pervasive feature of world politics, yet International Relations long neglected status as a central concept. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has reinvigorated interest in status, developing new theoretical tools and empirical applications. However, much of this literature treats status as an international-level phenomenon primarily relevant to great and rising powers, leaving its domestic dimensions and relevance for small states underexplored. This chapter reviews the main theoretical approaches to status in IR—rationalism, social identity, relationalism, and the practice approach—and identifies key limitations, particularly the tendency to treat states as unitary actors and status as divorced from domestic politics. It also engages with second-image reversed and small-state perspectives to show how international status can shape domestic legitimacy and elite cohesion. The chapter concludes by analysing how Chilean foreign policy scholarship, despite rarely theorising status explicitly, has long acknowledged its centrality. Chilean scholars have tended to conceive status in three main ways: as a foreign policy resource, a unit-level attribute rooted in domestic institutions, and a tool of internal legitimation. These understandings reveal a striking convergence with anglophone status literature, often predating it.

This chapter examines how the Chilean dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet responded to international rejection in the aftermath of the 1973 military coup and strategically mobilised status claims to consolidate domestic power. The coup constituted a status-altering event that redefined Chile’s position within the international status order, transforming its image from a democratic referent in some circles to a repressive authoritarian regime. In response, the government articulated an “authoritarian status narrative” that reframed international condemnation, particularly over human rights violations, as a politically motivated campaign led by communist adversaries. The chapter analyses how key political moments, including the 1978 National Consultation and the failed 1980 Southeast Asian tour known as the “filipinazo”, were instrumentalised to justify authoritarian rule and advance domestic institutionalisation. It further explores how Chile’s international standing was shaped by broader changes in the international status order, notably the declining influence of anti-communism, the rise of human rights as a central normative dimension, and the growing valorisation of neoliberal economic management as a marker of modernity. Finally, the chapter underscores that status can be compartmentalised across different dimensions, allowing states to enjoy high standing in one sphere while facing deep stigma in another.

This chapter analyses how Chile’s democratic opposition engaged in international status management (ISM) during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990) through articulating and mobilising a set of claims about status loss called the democratic status narrative. Depicting the regime’s international isolation due to authoritarian rule, the DSN positioned democratic restoration as the only path to recovering Chile’s lost prestige. The narrative gained traction in elite-oriented media in the late 1970s, was programmatically adapted by the opposition parties in the 1980s, and became institutionalised with the democratic transition. A new foreign policy elite (CFPE) emerged within this process, leveraging the DSN to legitimise their expertise, consolidate elite status, and shape post-authoritarian foreign policy. This development was intertwined with two broader transformations: the ideological revaluation of liberal democracy by socialist actors (socialist renewal) and the institutionalisation of IR as a pragmatic, policy-oriented discipline. The chapter also explores a separate shift: the CFPE’s growing strategic engagement with the US, which became Chile’s primary external status referent in the post-Cold War period. The chapter advances status theory and small state scholarship by showing how status narratives can emerge outside the state, enabling opposition elites to contest legitimacy and build agency from below.

This chapter examines Chile’s international status management between 1990 and 2010, arguing that Concertación governments actively sought recognition as reliable and responsible actors in international society. It shows how status was pursued both instrumentally—to consolidate democracy, secure economic credibility, and stabilise domestic politics—and ontologically, as a way of reasserting Chile’s rightful place in the world following the dual legacies of Allende’s economic mismanagement and Pinochet’s authoritarian stigma. The chapter analyses how the foreign policy elite mobilised democratic norms, free trade agreements, and memberships in status communities such as APEC and the OECD to craft a new international identity for Chile. It also examines the adoption of open regionalism as a strategic narrative device that allowed elites to reconcile shifting identifications between Latin America and extra-regional status groups, particularly the Third World, the Asia Pacific, and the liberal West. The chapter highlights how the Concertación foreign policy elite reconfigured Chile’s place in international society. The chapter contributes to broader debates on international status, status order evolution, small states, domestic legitimation, and the narrative construction of status communities in global politics.

This conclusion revisits the book’s central claims by tracing the enduring role of international status in Chilean elite politics across recent decades. It presents the book’s main theoretical and empirical contributions, assesses its potential for broader generalisation, and outlines avenues for further research. Drawing on the international status management framework (ISM), the chapter shows how status narratives were deployed to interpret, contest, and reframe Chile’s position in the world. It examines how key dimensions of the status order evolved and how Chile navigated them, from neoliberalism and Cold War anti-communism to the post-authoritarian valorisation of democracy, human rights, and free trade. While the narratives surrounding status will likely continue to be mobilised, contested, and reshaped, status will remain a currency for Chilean elites and central to our comprehension of the country at the edge of the domestic/international divide.