From Protest to Pessimism: Youth Voices in Chile’s 2023 Constitutional Process
The inclusion of youth perspectives in policymaking is necessary both to realise young people’s rights and to advance and sustain global democracy.[i] Not only does excluding young people from political processes destabilise democracies by generating mistrust in institutions, but the young also bring unique perspectives and can offer creative and inclusive policy solutions.[ii] When engaged at the institutional level, young people can therefore bolster socioeconomic development and political stability.[iii] However, political, economic, and civic barriers often prevent youth voices from being heard.[iv]
Globally, this alienation from traditional channels of participation has prompted young people to engage more through informal channels, such as social media or protests, as opposed to voting in elections.[v] This shift is perhaps most acutely felt in Latin America, where disengagement with traditional politics contrasts with high levels of activism in alternative political spaces.[vi] According to the public-opinion survey Latinobarómetro, only 45% of the continent’s young people are satisfied with the functioning of their democracy, with 40% saying they do not trust their government.[vii]
The Chilean movement Estallido Social (Social Uprising) was part of a regional trend of youth-led movements that rely mainly on protest to denounce unrepresentative political models.[viii] In October 2019, secondary-school students began to jump the barriers in the Santiago metro in response to increased fares. Within days, mass protests erupted across Chile, with demands for a fairer economic model and the end of neoliberalism as a system of government, which has been prevalent since the dictatorship of 1973–90 and is enshrined in the country’s current constitution.[ix] For Chile’s Indigenous population, the uprising had an anticolonial dimension, in which the right to self-determination, economic marginalisation, and violent repression by the military were key mobilising factors.[x]
The role of young people as catalysts and leaders in the uprising shows that they are not politically disengaged but instead feel excluded from traditional politics and modes of participation.[xi] The protests ended when the Chilean congress agreed to hold a referendum in 2020 to allow Chileans to decide whether they wanted a new constitution.[xii] The following three years would ultimately see two failed processes, despite extensive public consultations on the content of the drafts.
This research seeks to understand how and to what extent youth voices were included in the second process, which ran from March to December 2023. Interviews with young Chileans reveal that while there was an appetite for a new constitution, the inclusion of youth voices was limited by a lack of willingness from the drafters to take up proposals on issues important to young people. The design of the participatory process also restricted fuller engagement with young people on their proposed articles.
Most significantly, the politicisation of the process meant that young people’s desire for an inclusive new constitution was negated by the fact that the final draft maintained the status quo and largely reflected the politics of Chile’s right-wing Republican Party. At the same time, the diversity of youth voices meant that certain aspects of the draft found support among some of those interviewed.
Even when opportunities for participation are available and progress has been made on deepening democracy, changing embedded structures remains a challenge. As such, this chapter looks outside the debate on whether or not young people engage in politics by recognising the limitations to inclusion beyond participation in processes and institutions.
Ellie Catherall is a London-based policy researcher at Wilton Park, they focus on global health, development, human rights and democracy, with research interests in Latin American politics, political economy, and right-wing populism.
Methodology
This case study is based on 12 in-depth online interviews with young people aged 18 to 31, conducted over the course of two weeks. The age range was selected to capture different perspectives from the various cohorts within the 18–31 age range, and because these participants would have been aged 15–28 during the second constitutional process, matching Chile’s official definition of “youth”.[xiii]
Participants were selected using snowball sampling and through an online survey that was shared with students from the University of Chile and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile who took part in the country’s citizen participation process. Overseen by an elected constitutional council with support from an expert commission, this process allowed participants to propose changes and provide feedback on an initial draft. The final sample of interviewees included five men and seven women from the Santiago Metropolitan, Araucanía, and Aysén regions.
Interviews were conducted remotely in Spanish, then transcribed and translated into English. Participants provided verbal consent for the inclusion of their first name, age, and region, with the option to be completely anonymised. Content analysis was used to identify common topics or ideas in the responses.
The ability to generalise from this study is limited by its small sample size, geographic concentration, and potential selection bias. However, the findings are intended not to give a comprehensive account of youth opinion on the draft constitution but to offer insights into perspectives that may be elaborated on in future research.
Youth demands in the Social Uprising
All interviewees had participated in at least one march during the 2019 Social Uprising and believed that doing so was important to amplify the collective voice of those demanding change. They had similar hopes when they took part, with the most common demands centring on equal access to good-quality and free education, fair provision of healthcare, and a change in the pension system.[xiv] Other common demands were increased opportunities, both in work and more broadly, and higher salaries.
Those interviewed wanted to see the recognition and protection of the rights of specific groups, such as Indigenous peoples, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and animals. Many also expressed a desire for the safeguarding of the environment. Some participants wanted a more fundamental change to Chile’s neoliberal political system and excessive private and foreign ownership, particularly of the country’s natural resources and core industries. One participant, who identified as Mapuche, said that justice for Indigenous peoples who had been subjected to violence from the military was particularly important to him and other young people in his community.
Notably, young people did not mobilise purely on behalf of youth issues. Rather, they were aware of issues that impacted society more generally and felt compelled to fight injustice on behalf of others, too.
Youth expectations for a new constitution
While most interviewees were in favour of a new constitution for Chile, this is not what they were hoping to achieve when they first joined the protests. Instead, the push for a constitutional process emerged gradually as a way to channel the multitude of demands and seemed a legitimate solution to Chile’s problems.
On the one hand, there was a consensus that the current constitution needed to be updated because it had been written during the country’s 1973–90 dictatorship and did not reflect today’s society. On the other hand, some participants believed that an updated constitution would not go far enough, and that there was a need for a more fundamental and revolutionary change in the country’s economy and society to meet the demands of the uprising. Some were even disappointed when an agreement was reached to create a new constitution, as this signalled the end of what could have been a more profound shift and the start of an institutionalised process in which the people would not be able to play a major role.
The interviews revealed that participants believed Chile’s constitution should reflect society as a whole, instead of being a political project of either the left or the right. While many held progressive views, they felt it was important for the constitution to truly represent the country, which, many admitted, is rather conservative. This point illustrates how young people perceive the role of the constitution – compared with political parties and the government – and highlights tensions between their vision of Chile’s future and that of the majority of the nation.
Youth inclusion in the citizen participation process
A significant proportion of those interviewed had taken part in Chile’s citizen participation process, especially through popular initiatives on topics they felt were important to include in the draft constitution, such as women’s rights. Some had been involved through organisations that authored and promoted their own initiatives on topics such as housing and animal rights.
For a few, participating in this way was a worthwhile experience, as they felt their proposals had been fairly considered and they had been listened to. Even though the process ultimately failed, they were glad their issues had been discussed and provided a foundation for future work. For others, however, there was a sense that their proposals were not given sufficient consideration because of the high number of Republican Party constituents in the constitutional council who did not want to include progressive proposals. One participant said not only that they felt ignored but also that they received a hostile reception when they presented their proposal to the council.
Those involved in the popular initiatives, either through voting or through their work with civil society groups, said they would have preferred greater follow-up and engagement. This would have allowed them to know the outcomes of the debates in which their proposals were discussed and give further input on their initiatives once they had been submitted. The initiatives were also limited by the fact that they could only amend existing articles of the original draft constitution written by the expert commission. By contrast, in the first constitutional process, it had been possible to submit new proposals.
Beyond the design of the citizen participation process, a key barrier was a lack of trust in politicians and a belief that participants’ views would not be listened to. In general, most young people felt that citizen engagement was much more limited than it had been in the first process.
Youth voices in the draft constitution
As for the content of the draft constitution, opinion was divided between those who believed it did not reflect youth voices at all and those who felt their voices were partly reflected. The elements of the draft that received approval were the right to decent work, the right to equality before the law and the prohibition of discrimination, the equal treatment of men and women, and the rights of animals. However, there were significant gaps: interviewees often referred to the text’s failure to deal sufficiently with LGBTQ+ rights and environmental conservation.
Indeed, some Chilean LGBTQ+ groups claimed the draft was potentially dangerous because it protected conscientious objection on religious grounds, which might override the right to nondiscrimination. Article 12 of the draft gave priority to parents or guardians in deciding what is in the “best interests of their children”, which could conflict with more progressive interpretations of children’s rights.
Meanwhile, article 3 framed international human rights treaties as complementary to Chilean national law, as opposed to giving them a constitutional rank. By leaving the obligation to protect and promote human rights to the “organs of the state”, the draft proposed a step back from current practice, whereby Chile’s courts already treat international treaties as having authority equivalent to the constitution.[xv]
While the draft proposed that the state should have a duty to protect the environment, some participants said they were concerned by the draft’s separation of environmental protection and economic development, and the tension that would arise from its attempt to reconcile the two. Although article 21 guaranteed the “right to live in a healthy environment, free of pollution, that allows sustainability and development”,[xvi] legal experts believed the inclusion of the word “development” throughout the text – as opposed to “sustainable development” – would “open the door to the possibility of relaxing environmental regulations in the name of economic development”.[xvii] What is more, the final draft excluded a proposal that explicitly referred to environmental justice and the fair distribution of environmental burdens and benefits.[xviii]
For many participants, the draft failed to include not only youth voices but also the voices of Chilean society. Instead, it aimed to preserve the economic system enshrined in the current constitution, which reflects the views of the extreme right. Indeed, some believed that if approved, the draft would have led to greater inequality and an entrenchment of the neoliberal system. For them, there was no attempt to fundamentally change Chile’s education or pension system, improve opportunities, or address any of the other demands of the Social Uprising.
Globally, constitutional processes are rarely successful in contexts of high polarisation.[xix] They require politicians to balance their short-term political interests with longer-term national interests.[xx] Among those interviewed, there was general dissatisfaction with how the Chilean process became distorted by politics and, as such, how the draft responded mainly to polarising issues of the day, as opposed to being a neutral document that would be relevant for years to come.
Deciding who should be involved
Most interviewees believed that those involved in writing the draft constitution, particularly those on the constitutional council, were not acting in the interests of young people. This is not necessarily because most of the council were members of the Republican Party, but because politicians generally were perceived as untrustworthy and acting in their own interests, mirroring a global trend of young people’s distrust in political elites.[xxi]
There was a general desire for the drafters to have not only subject-matter expertise but also lived experience of the topics they were writing about. While young people supported the involvement of the expert commission, they believed that the politicians in the constitutional council who created the final version did not know enough about important issues. Other groups that young people believed should have been more formally involved to make the process more representative of youth voices included trade unions, grassroots civil society groups, teachers, doctors, Indigenous communities, charities, foundations, and environmental groups, as well as young people with expertise on certain topics.
Student groups were more controversial, because some young people believed them to be too radical and a way for politicians to launch their careers instead of representing young people. These groups were viewed as an extension of party politics at a time when young people globally are motivated by “cause-oriented” and “self-actualizing” forms of engagement that lead them to organise within particular interest groups – for example, women’s rights or environmental groups.[xxii] This perception was also reflected in the way that participation in the Social Uprising was motivated by demands related to topics beyond youth issues.
Enhancing inclusion
Almost all those interviewed said they would have felt more included in the constitution-drafting process if there had been more opportunities, either in person or online, to meet constituents from their region to discuss their priorities for the draft, particularly in rural areas or regions outside Santiago. Meanwhile, some interviewees acknowledged that because those on the council wanted to retain the status quo, no amount of dialogue would have substantively altered the content of the draft. For them, their demands were clear from the extensive consultation that had taken place in the first constitutional process.
Others, particularly those less interested in politics, would have valued opportunities simply to hear about the process directly from those involved in it. That would have allowed them to feel informed without relying on social and traditional media, both of which were seen as unreliable sources of information. Indeed, many felt that the lack of access to unbiased information meant they did not feel sufficiently informed when the time came to vote on the final draft.
In sum, the youth voice in Chile’s 2023 constitutional process can be seen not as a demand for issues that relate uniquely to young people but as a desire for a more just and equal society for all. This means a more fundamental shift that may include a new constitution but should also seek to address Chile’s economic and social inequalities. For this reason, it was important for young people that the draft did not reflect just one ideology but encompassed demands and desires shared by all Chileans. The limitations of the citizen participation process, along with the manipulation of the process by political elites on the extreme right, significantly restrained the degree to which youth voices were included in the draft.
Conclusion
The inclusion of youth voices in the 2023 proposed draft of the Chilean constitution was limited by several factors. Young people wanted a document that represented the whole of Chilean society and responded to the fundamental demands of the Social Uprising. Yet the politicisation of the process and the dominance of right-wing parties in the constitutional council meant that young people felt the document was unrepresentative and reflected the views of elites who sought to maintain the status quo.
Those who took part in the citizen participation process faced barriers to meaningful involvement, including limited timeframes, a lack of follow-up, restrictions on submitting new initiatives, and a perceived lack of willingness among the constitutional council to consider progressive proposals. What is more, a lack of access to neutral and reliable information made young people feel disconnected and disengaged from the process. At the same time, the multiplicity of youth voices meant that some elements of the draft, particularly those on gender equality and animal rights, found approval.
While there was little optimism for the future of the constitutional process, participants felt that Chile had woken up at the time of the Social Uprising, generating momentum that would bring about change in the long term.
As of this writing, however, with José Antonio Kast of the Republican Party having taken office as Chile’s president in March 2026, the possibility of the constitutional process being revived looks increasingly remote. Throughout the presidential campaign, the most dominant topics across the political spectrum were security and immigration.
For any future constitutional process to succeed, its design and implementation must include and empower a diversity of youth voices.
This chapter is part of a Deep Dive of Young Researchers who worked on Youth Participation for three years. This deep dive is a global collection of 12 case studies unpacking how young people are reshaping political engagement.
The Young Researchers’ Network is an initiative developed in the framework of the European Democracy Hub and EPD’s Women and Youth in Democracy WYDE Civic Engagement project, supported by the European Union.
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[ii] “Towards a democracy with and for youth in Latin America”, United Nations Development Programme, https://www.undp.org/latin-america/stories/towards-democracy-and-youth-lac.
[iii] Alicja Lelwic-Ojeda and Lukmon Akintola, “Youth Participation Strategies for Building Sustainable Democracies”, European Democracy Hub, 2024, https://europeandemocracyhub.epd.eu/youth-participation-strategies-for-building-sustainable-democracies/.
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[ix] César Jiménez-Yañez, “#Chiledespertó: causas del estallido social en Chile” [#ChileWokeUp: Causes of the social uprising in Chile], Revista mexicana de sociología 82, no. 4 (2021): 949–57, https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0188-25032020000400008.
[x] Angel Aedo et al., “Mapuche Anticolonial Politics and Chile’s Social Uprising”, South Atlantic Quarterly 123, no. 1 (2024): 14–224, https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-abstract/123/1/214/383040/Mapuche-Anticolonial-Politics-and-Chile-s-Social.
[xi] Anlar et al., “The Global”.
[xii] John Bartlett, “‘The constitution of the dictatorship has died’: Chile agrees deal on reform vote”, Guardian, 15 November 2019,
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[xiii] Chilean Ministry of Social Development, “Panorama CASEN: Jóvenes que no estudian ni trabajan. ¿Quiénes son? Informe N° 2” [CASEN overview: Young people who are neither studying nor working. Who are they? Report No. 2], Observatorio Social, 2016, https://observatorio.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/storage/docs/panorama-casen/Panorama_Casen_N2_Jovenes_quenotrabajan_niestudian_24082016.pdf.
[xiv] Shannon K. O’Neil, “Chile’s Failed Pensions Are Neoliberalism’s Badge of Shame”, Council on Foreign Relations, 25 August 2022,
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[xv] “Análisis jurídico propuesta nueva constitución” [Legal analysis of the proposed new constitution], Iguales, 2023, https://iguales.cl/argumentos-tecnico-juridicos-que-respaldan-nuestra-decision-de-votar-en-contra-de-la-nueva-propuesta-de-constitucion/.
[xvi] Constitutional Council, “Propuesta Constitución Política de la República de Chile” [Proposed political constitution of the Republic of Chile], Proceso Constitucional, 2023, https://www.procesoconstitucional.cl/docs/Propuesta-Nueva-Constitucion.pdf.
[xvii] Ricardo Irarrázaval, “Profesor Ricardo Irarrázaval realiza análisis sobre la propuesta constitucional en materia ambiental” [Professor Ricardo Irarrázaval conducts an analysis of the proposed constitutional amendment on environmental matters], Faculty of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, 2023,
[xviii] Ricardo Irarrázabal et al., “Análisis de la propuesta de nueva Constitución 2023. Medio ambiente, recursos naturales, sustentabilidad y desarrollo” [Analysis of the proposed new constitution 2023. Environment, natural resources, sustainability, and development], Foro Constitucional UC, 2023, https://foroconstitucional.uc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Analisis-de-la-propuesta-de-nueva-constitucion-2023_Medio-ambiente-recursos-naturales-sustentabilidad-y-desarrollo.pdf.
[xix] Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher, “How Constitution-making Fails and What We Can Learn from It”, International IDEA, 2023, https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/how-constitution-making-fails-and-what-we-can-learn.
[xx] Martin van Vliet, Winluck Wahiu, and Augustine Magolowondo, “Constitutional Reform Processes and Political Parties: Principles for Practice”, International IDEA, 2012, https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/constitutional-reform-processes-and-political-parties-principles-practice.
[xxi] Matt Henn and Nick Foard, “Young People, Political Participation and Trust in Britain”, Parliamentary Affairs 65, no. 1 (2012): 47–67, https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/65/1/47/1464259.
[xxii] Roger Soler-i-Martí, “Youth political involvement update: measuring the role of cause-oriented political interest in young people’s activism”, Journal of Youth Studies 18, no. 3 (2014): 396–416, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13676261.2014.963538; Alice Binder et al., “Dealigned but Mobilized? Insights from a Citizen Science Study on Youth Political Engagement”, Journal of Youth Studies 24, no. 2 (2022): 232–49, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676261.2020.1714567.