Participation levels in civil society have decreased, study says

Civil society’s involvement in the areas of governance and peace has yielded limited successes, a recent study argues, while noting that stakeholder confidence is low and participation has declined.

A survey conducted here as part of the 2008-9 AmericasBarometer series of surveys, under the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), found that “participation levels across all forms of civic participation have decreased” when compared with results of the previous survey in 2006. It noted that some of the decreases have been dramatic, like participation in labour unions falling from 14.5% to 5.5% and in religious groups, from 81.4% to 62.2%. Further, it said there was no clear explanation for the across the board decrease.

The findings of the survey of 2,514 respondents, who were drawn from a nationally representative sample, were published in