Last elections in South America showed that political parties with neoliberal agenda are still a strong force in the region. However, it is also clear that citizens’ political behavior has started to change since the recovered democracy. The low engagement of youth in more institutional forms of political participation remains a major concern. Furthermore, the last years have been marked by important corruption cases in most countries of the region, even Chile and Uruguay that appeared to be unrelated to these problems. In this way, citizens in South America become more demanding vis-à-vis the political system. Contemporary research observes growth of a critical citizen, engaged with democratic values but very critical of the democratic performance. We can observe this distrust towards authorities and public institutions among young adults in South America. Is this also a calling into question of democracy as the political system? Surveys show that democratic values are still important in the region but there is a clear critic of democratic performance, particularly among youth. Is this a crisis of the political system? This is an issue of serious concern to the countries of South America that see authoritarianism as an important threat. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to analyze the critics that young adults with different levels of political engagement do to democracy in South America.
In doing so, one hundred and ten interviews with young adults between 18 and 29 years old have been carried out in three South American countries: Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. These countries have been characterized by an increase in the less institutional forms of political participation since the recovered democracy in the 1990 to date. The interviews were conducted by the author of this paper and were focused on three groups of people; citizens engaged in political parties, citizens engaged in social movements and social organizations, and citizens not politically engaged.
First results show that in general in the three countries youth is very critical of the performance of the political system in their country. However, some of the interviewers exhibit themselves more confident with the political system and more engaged to defend democracy. Some of them even ask for more opportunities to participate in the decision-making process. Another group of interviewers shows no interest in the political system and exhibits themselves as skeptical about any radical change in the political situation. Other interviewers were very critical of democracy performance, even considering that they do not live in a full democracy and looking for more democracy. One of the principal critics was, according to these citizens, that in a government of majorities there is not enough respect of minorities. This paper argues that there is not the only way to see democracy. The study of youth discourses let us to understand better the challenges currently faced by democratic South American countries.
