Social License to Operate as a Structural Condition for Mining Viability: A Territorial–Relational Approach Based on Socio-Environmental Conflict in Chile

The Social License to Operate (SLO) has become a key component of mining sustainability. However, the literature continues to address its main dimensions through fragmented approaches, limiting the understanding of social legitimacy as a dynamic and territorially situated process. In response to this gap, this study develops a territorial–relational analytical framework to integrate the main dimensions involved in the construction, strengthening, and loss of the SLO. Based on qualitative research involving a literature review, document analysis, and comparative case analysis, four interrelated strategic dimensions were identified: social perception and territorial management, territorial governance and citizen participation, territorial distribution of benefits and shared value creation, and institutional trust and relational coherence. The study also proposes a five-stage territorial–relational sequence that represents the dynamic, cumulative, and potentially reversible nature of the SLO throughout the life cycle of mining projects. The interpretive application of the framework to the Dominga Project shows how the interaction among these dimensions helps explain trajectories of strengthening, deterioration, and loss of social legitimacy. Overall, the study reorganizes previously scattered evidence into an integrated conceptual structure that broadens the understanding of the SLO and provides a foundation for future research aimed at its empirical validation and application in the governance of extractive projects.