Vote and Protest in Argentina and Brazil: contemporary research based reflections on political participation

Abstract

The article presents a comparative analysis of recent citizen?s reflections on politi-cal participation in Argentina and Brazil. Throughout the recollection of data from focus groups carried out in 2015 and 2016, we aim to discuss the ways the partici-pants conceived and related the compulsory act of voting with the participation in the recent wave of demonstration in both countries. In the cases presented, there was a prevalent understanding of voting and protesting as complementary forms of political engagement and the participation in protests was conceived as a form to compensate the limitations of formal electoral politics.