Discourses on politics and democracy by chilean students from different youth organizations [discursos sobre política y democracia de estudiantes universitarios chilenos de distintas organizaciones juveniles]

This research note presents the results of a research on how Chilean university students participating\nin different forms of social organization re-signify politics and democracy in their discourses\nof. A qualitative design was implemented using group discussion to yield data and\ndiscourse analysis as the main analytic approach. Participants were young political party members,\nnon-political activists, volunteers of a variety of social organizations and members of cultural-artistic\ngroups from the cities of Valparaíso, Santiago and Concepción. The results show\nthree different discourses on politics and democracy: (1) a «politicization discourse» among\nnon-political activists; an «experiential discourse on politics» among volunteers and cultural-artistic\ngroups; and (3) a «discourse of political realism» among young political party members.\nThe article concludes that the three discourses converge in rejecting institutions, although\nthey differ in their understandings of politics and democracy, according to different ways they\nrelate to power and participation.