The general objective of this study is to characterize the processes of irruption, progression and outcome of the episodes of social conflict that occurred in Chile between 2015 and 2020. As units of observation we consider the mining strike in which Nelson Quichillao was murdered (2016); the Chiloé May (2016); the social outbreak (2019); and the hunger rebellion in the commune of El Bosque (2020). Content analysis of secondary sources, corresponding to academic literature and local press clippings, is used. The integrated observation of the cases indicates as main result the persistence of a low systemic capacity of the Chilean institutional framework to anticipate and react to the succession of moments of social conflict. This is expressed in the repeated implementation of a crisis management strategy based on militarization (through the enactment of the State of Emergency), media-legal criminalization of social protest and the granting of minimal (and/or partial) concessions to the mobilized sectors. As a discussion, it is proposed that such strategy, implemented during the second respective administrations of Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018) and Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022) allow codifying the emergence and strengthening of new political referents, but which today evidence to be carriers of a series of critical tendencies for the democratic stability of the Chilean social formation.