MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Young Chileans growing apathy towards politics

A recent study conducted by Vanderbilt University's Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) found that Chileans have a mixed take on their government: the government has been successful at protecting human rights and promoting democracy, but has not been as effective in dealing with crime and unemployment.

The LAPOP study - entitled Popular Democratic Culture in Chile, 2006 â€" found Chileans opposed to overthrowing a democratically elected government and to leaders who neglect civil liberties and checks and balances in government. But the poll also found that a growing number of young Chileans choose not to vote. These non-voters also tend to participate in strike activity. "One of the most significant challenges facing Chile today is the need to re-captivate the youth segment of our society," said Juan Pablo Luna, the report's author and a professor at Catholic University. The report also found that although Chile's political party system is considered to be among the most strong in Latin America, the vast majority of Chileans do not identify with any political party, with nearly half the population considering them irrelevant to a democracy. The study is based on a poll carried out among 1,517 adults in July and August of 2006. It is part of a series of surveys by LAPOP's AmericasBarometer, an effort to measure democratic values and behaviors in the Americas using national probability samples of voting-age adults. This new round of surveys covers 22 countries in the Western Hemisphere and is supported by the United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations Development Program and the Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt University. Concerns about personal safety seem to affect negatively the perception of total government efficiency in Chile. Currently, public safety is among the problems that concern Chileans the most. Results of the crime victimization index show Chile is among Latin American countries with high levels of reported crime. Chileans also lack confidence in their judicial system. Surprisingly, half of the respondents were willing to tolerate circumvention of the rule of law to control crime. By contrast, the indexes on perception and victimization show that Chile enjoys one of the lowest incidences of corruption in Latin America. For more information, see: www.vanderbilt.edu/americas. The Santiago Times