The environment is vital to social and economic development. Understanding institutional and individual perceptions of environmental problems facilitates more effective policy formulation. The aim of this study is to evaluate how a sample of South American countries’ political systems influence people’s concern about the environment. To that end, a non-linear panel data model was used with data from the World Values Survey and the Freedom House index. The random effects logit model using dummy variables for survey wave and country showed a positive and statistically significant relationship between democracy and environmental concern, indicating that in democratic countries the population tends to exhibit more environmental concern. The behaviour of sociodemographic variables for age, education level and marital status was also as expected.