Democracy and Citizen Participation: A Comparative Study Between Peru and Ecuador

Democracy is a fundamental part of a society, and it refers to the condition in which citizens exercise their autonomy. This research aimed to analyze the effect of democratic management on citizen participation. The study was approached from the positivist paradigm, with a non-experimental cross-sectional design; the participants were 416 Peruvians and 105 Ecuadorians. An exploratory analysis was carried out to determine the factorial structure of the constructs, and a confirmatory analysis was conducted for its validity. Subsequently, the structural equation model (SEM) was applied to test the hypotheses. The results present a three-dimensional structure (Citizenship legislation, Representative and responsible Government, Civil society and participation) of the democratic management variable. Likewise, the citizen participation variable presents a three-dimensional structure (opinionative, associative, Electoral-Partisan). On the other hand, the SEM model presents an adequate fit with an x2/df = 4.248, TLI is 0.911, CFI= 0.929, and RMSEA= 0.080. The hypothesis tests show an influence of democratic management on optimistic citizen participation with a ? of 0.861 and a significance of 0.000 (p<0.001) in the associative participation of citizens with a ? of 0.678 and a statistical significance of 0.000 (p<0.001), and democratic participation with a ? of 0.814 and 678 and a statistical significance of p<0.001. In conclusion, the results demonstrate the influence of these variables, highlighting the importance of strengthening democratic mechanisms for citizen participation. Received: 25 August 2024 / Accepted: 23 April 2025 / Published: 06 May 2025