Radiografía del desencanto: La participación electoral en Colombia

Colombia has the reputation of being one of the countries with the lowest voter turnout in Latin America, which on several occasions in the country's recent history has led to debates about making voting compulsory. In general, this is based on a positive assessment of citizen participation and its importance for democracy; however, this has rarely been supported by a rigorous diagnosis of the problem of abstention. This book aims to contribute to this assessment by studying electoral participation from various perspectives: historical, geographical, sociological and comparative with other Latin American countries. In this way, it shows that the trend towards abstention cannot be generalised to the country as a whole. It also seeks to contribute to the debate on compulsory voting by identifying, on the basis of electoral results, the groups that are least likely to make their voices heard through the ballot box, and what kind of problems these disparities pose for democracy in Colombia.