Youth Political Participation in Neoliberal Chile: Disenchantment, Hopelessness, or Politicization?

Abstract

At present, there is no consensus in the specialized literature as to whether the political participation of youth undergoes a process of re-politicization, or if, amid disenchantment and hopelessness, isolated expressions of malaise that fail to crystallize broad and durable processes of political activation arise. This article presents the results of an empirical investigation that explores the youth's vision of the current democratic institutions and youth political participation in Chile, where neoliberalism has generated alarming levels of inequality and social discontent that have caused numerous protests and a social outbreak. The method used corresponds to a mixed approach, with a sequential exploratory design, in which an understanding of the phenomenon was initially sought, through the analysis of qualitative components, to which quantitative techniques were integrated to give greater robustness to the analysis. In the qualitative phase, 36 interviews and 2 focus groups were conducted and analyzed with the constant comparative method. Subsequently, in the quantitative phase, 357 questionnaires were applied and processed with descriptive statistics. The findings reveal a critical view of democracy among young people, corroborated quantitatively, as only 20% express satisfaction with the current political system. It is concluded that there is a group of young people that is politicized and criticizes the political system, looking for alternative participation strategies, but that coexists with another conglomerate that reacts with discomfort sporadically, through actions that at times become massive, although they mostly assume individual and short duration actions.