Participación Política de Jóvenes en Ecuador: Entre la Espiral del Desencanto y el Desafío del Re-encantamiento en Torno de la Revolución Ciudadana

The beginning of the new political cycle of the government of the Citizen Revolution (2013-2017) began by placing the issue of extractivism at the center of the political dispute as one of the points of conflict that had been seen coming since the constituent process itself (2007-2008) and even before, during the period of emergence and visibility of the heterogeneous political movement Alianza PAIS and its leader, President Rafael Correa. The enthusiastic support given by a considerable diversity of youth associations to the ruling party's forces during the process of drafting the Constitutional Charter of Good Living between January 2007 and September 2008 was followed by a phase of progressive distancing among various sectors and youth movements due to the imminent exploitation of non-renewable resources (one of Ecuador's main sources of income). From 2013 onwards, political participation practices adopted or intensified modalities and repertoires of collective action that in addition to showing an enormous capacity for pendulation between the space of institutionalized politics and "wild politics" (Tapia, 2008) used and incorporated various resources from one and the other space. We argue that this multiform production of tensions expresses a part of the complex social production of youth in the current political cycle experienced by Ecuadorian society and that, among the possibilities and meanings of youth political participation, one of them is the one that arises from the combined demands of radicalization, revision and even "reversal" of certain behaviors, decisions and official policies; This would imply a re-enchantment with/of the political narrative of the Citizen Revolution as a condition of possibility of renewed forms of participation on which the consolidation of its political project is based.