Participación Política Juvenil en el Chile Neoliberal: ¿Desencanto, Desesperanza, o Politización?

Abstract

The article is product of an empirical investigation carried out in the Ñuble region of Chile, and the youth view of political participation, in the context of a country in which neoliberalism has created the conditions for accelerated growth of a small part of the population, while at the same time it has generated alarming levels of fragmentation and social discontent, which have led to the emergence of social movements that have expressed in numerous waves of protests and a strong social outbreak occurred in October 2019. There is no consensus in the specialized literature whether the political participation of Chilean youth, who have gone through periods of greater or lesser prominence on the national political scene, is due to a process of politicization to face the consequences of neoliberalism, or a expression of discomfort that fail to crystallize in processes of political activation in broad sectors of society. The results of this research show that both premises coexist, that is to say, there are those who are politicized and criticize the political system and seek alternative participation strategies, as well as there is a group that reacts sporadically through massive actions, but that mostly assuming individual and actions of low-level impact.