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| (Selección de artículos: noviembre de 2024) |
Autoridad y privilegio: confianza en la policía en Latinoamérica
Juan Manuel Caicedo
Colombia internacional. 2022
El presente estudio parte de preguntarse cuáles son los principales determinantes de la confianza en la policía en Latinoamérica. Desde la teoría del conflicto, se argumenta que la división de clases y la diversidad étnica fundada en la colonización europea han dejado un legado de conflictos de control social en el que unos grupos se encuentran en una posición privilegiada en su trato con la policía, mientras que otros permanecen en una situación de exclusión y vulnerabilidad. Metodología: esta investigación toma sus datos del Latinobarómetro 2018. Se emplean modelos de regresión ordinal logística (OLR, por sus siglas en inglés) para evaluar los efectos de las características sociodemográficas y actitudinales de los sujetos, así como un modelo de efectos mixtos para observar los efectos de indicadores de nivel contextual (características de los países). Conclusiones: la confianza de los latinoamericanos en la policía se ve afectada por su posición de clase, su opinión sobre para quién se gobierna el país y su percepción sobre la corrupción en los miembros de la institución. Aunque se encuentran evidencias de un menor nivel de confianza entre los indígenas, la identificación racial de los sujetos no muestra efectos significativos. En el nivel contextual, el fraccionamiento étnico y la tasa de homicidios del país afectan negativamente la confianza en la policía, aunque la desigualdad (coeficiente de Gini) muestra un efecto positivo contrario al esperado. Originalidad: el artículo explora los factores que pueden producir un trato diferenciado entre policía y ciudadanos, en una región marcada por altos niveles de desigualdad y violencia. Between perception and reality: the economy and trust in Latin American political institutions
Memoli, Vincenzo, Maria Pina Di Pastena
Rivista Italania di Scienza Politica. 2019
What is the effect of the economy on political trust among Latin American countries? The few studies that have examined the causal link between the economy and trust in institutions have observed the phenomenon in a synchronic way, adopting information collected at the individual or at the aggregate level. The results shown by these works reveal a citizenry that is dissatisfied, less tolerant towards the political class, and oriented to de-legitimize the political system. In this work, which analyses the political attitudes of citizens in 18 Latin American countries from a longitudinal perspective (1996–2013), the conjoint effect that economic perceptions and the real economy have on political trust is estimated. In particular, by using data from the Latinobarómetro, we show that in contexts where the political regime continues to alternate between democracy and authoritarianism, citizens’ sociotropic understanding of the economy contributes to strengthening the relationship between citizens and political institutions. Broken Trust. Confidence Gaps and Distrust in Latin America
Paolo Parra Saiani, Enrico Ivaldi, Andrea Ciacci, Lucia Di Stefano
Social indicators research. 2024
Latin American societies show lower levels of political trust when compared to other regions of the world. The lack of trust in institutions can led to ineffective management of public affairs, social crises, lack of transparency, economic problems and even difficulties in countering pandemics. The objective of this work is to build an index (LADI) that provides a measure of the level of perceived distrust in the institutions of the different Latin American countries and its variations over the period from 2008 to 2018. The data used for this analysis are of a subjective nature and come from the series of surveys provided by Latinobarómetro . To develop the analysis, we have used a quantitative approach of a partially non-compensatory aggregative type, known as Adjusted Mazziotta and Pareto Index. The results show a generalized increase of distrust in the years 2017 and 2018 for several Latin American countries. On the other hand, in countries where the rule of law is more consolidated, a best perception of the functioning of democracy emerges. Building Trust in Politics: Causes of Widespread Disillusionment in Latin American Countries
Michele Lobina, Marco Bottone
Civic Engagement and Politics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. 2019
This chapter studies the process of trust building in politics by using large data set on political behaviour in Latin America. The results yielded by developed models indicate specific elements as the most influential on the popular trust in institutions. These observed determinants were enclosed in five macro classes: cohesion of society; economic factors; electoral transparency; efficiency of judicial organs; and crime diffusion. The analysis of the public support in governments and parliaments revealed that certain variables have a direct impact on the stability of the Latin American democracies, while other factors merely determine the likelihood of a government’s reappointment. Citizen Participation and Political Trust in Latin America and the Caribbean : A Machine Learning Approach
Natalia Gisel Pecorari, Jose Antonio Cuesta Leiva
Policy Research Working Paper. 2023
This paper advances the understanding of the linkages between trust in government and citizenparticipation in Latin America and the Caribbean, using machine learning techniques and Latinobarómetro 2020 data.Proponents of the concept of stealth democracy argue that an inverse relationship exists between political trust andcitizen participation, while deliberative democracy theorists claim the opposite. The paper estimates that trustin national governments or other governmental institutions plays neither a dominant nor consistent role in drivingpolitical participation. Instead, interest in politics, personal circumstances such as experience of crime anddiscrimination, and socioeconomic aspects appear to drive citizen participation much more strongly in the LatinAmerica and the Caribbean region. This is true across models imposing simple linear trends (logit and lasso) and othersallowing for nonlinear and complex relations (decision trees). The results vary across the type ofparticipation—signing a petition, participation in demonstrations, or involvement in a community issue—whichthe paper attributes to increasing net costs associated with participation. Confianza en las instituciones en México: análisis de las variables democráticas
José Luis Estrada Rodríguez, Angélica Mendieta Ramírez, Ketzalcóatl Pérez Pérez
Rev. Iberoam. Investig. Desarro. Educ. 2022
Existe una amplia preocupación dentro de los estudiosos de las ciencias sociales porque las instituciones cada vez tienen reciben menos aceptación y confianza de los ciudadanos. Los aparatos del Estado que se construyeron para garantizar la gobernabilidad y paz social están en entredicho y eso afecta al desarrollo económico y contribuye al crecimiento de la desigualdad en los países. El objetivo de este trabajo de investigación cuantitativa es describir las variables que inciden en el desarrollo de la confianza en las instituciones de los distintos países de América Latina y, por tanto, de la democracia. Con base en la teoría de las instituciones, se describe la importancia de construir un orden a través del Estado de derecho y la certeza en las reglas del juego. A partir de evidencias empíricas y datos cuantitativos, se menciona cuáles son los problemas que enfrenta México y los países de América Latina y se proponen vías alternativas para reconstruir la credibilidad. Confianza institucional en Chile: un desafío para el desarrollo
Ignacio Irarrázaval, Florencia Cruz
Puntos de Referencia. 2023
En este trabajo se indaga respecto a la confianza en las instituciones en Chile en los últimos veinte años, analizando características socioeconómicas, demográficas, políticas y religiosas que están relacionadas con una menor o mayor confianza institucional. Se analiza también el vínculo entre la confianza en las instituciones y características fundamentales para su generación en la ciudadanía, como la integridad, la benevolencia y la preparación. La confianza en las instituciones se ha reconocido como un elemento fundamental para la estabilidad de las democracias y el desarrollo de los países en términos sociales, culturales, económicos y políticos. La desconfianza presenta barreras al desarrollo pues merma la acción colectiva necesaria, genera desafección política, desincentiva la colaboración económica y social, y deteriora el sentido de responsabilidad cívica. A partir de los resultados del estudio se observa que, durante las últimas dos décadas, Chile registra una baja confianza institucional en comparación con países de la OCDE y, en la actualidad, también con respecto a la región. Sin embargo, a partir de 2019 se observa un leve aumento en la confianza en las instituciones políticas y medios de comunicación, así como un incremento considerable en la confianza hacia las instituciones armadas, retomando los niveles de 2015… Confianza : la clave de la cohesión social y el crecimiento en América Latina y el Caribe
Editado por Philip Keefer y Carlos Scartascini
Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. 2022
La confianza es el problema más acuciante y, sin embargo, el menos abordado al que se enfrenta América Latina y el Caribe. Ya se trate de los demás, del gobierno o de las empresas, la confianza en la región es menor que en cualquier otra parte del mundo. Las consecuencias económicas y políticas de la desconfianza se propagan a toda la sociedad. La desconfianza reduce el crecimiento y la innovación: la inversión, la iniciativa empresarial y el empleo florecen cuando las empresas y el gobierno, los trabajadores y los empleadores, los bancos y prestatarios, así como los consumidores y productores confían unos en otros. Por otro lado, la confianza dentro de las organizaciones del sector privado y público es esencial para la colaboración y la innovación. La desconfianza distorsiona la toma de decisiones democrática. Impide que los ciudadanos exijan mejores servicios públicos e infraestructura, y que se unan entre sí para controlar la corrupción; asimismo, reduce sus incentivos para hacer sacrificios colectivos que benefician a todos. La buena noticia es que los gobiernos pueden aumentar la confianza ciudadana con promesas más claras sobre lo que los ciudadanos pueden esperar de ellos, con reformas del sector público que les permitan cumplir sus promesas y con reformas institucionales que refuercen los compromisos que los ciudadanos contraigan unos con otros. Este libro orienta a los responsables de la toma de decisiones en su esfuerzo para incorporar la confianza y la cohesión social en las reformas integrales necesarias para abordar los retos más difíciles de la región. Confianza partidista y estabilidad electoral en América Latina
Mikel Barreda, Leticia M. Ruiz Rodríguez
Revista Mexicana de Sociología. 2019
Este trabajo estudia la relación entre el nivel de confianza partidista y las transformaciones de la competencia electoral en América Latina. Se explora el contraste entre escenarios de estabilidad con ganadores consecutivos y escenarios de cambio con nuevos ganadores. Se muestra que los escenarios caracterizados por traslados de los apoyos suelen estar asociados con variaciones en los niveles de confianza en los partidos políticos. La confianza política en territorios disparejos. Democracia subnacional, territorialidad estatal subjetiva y confianza en las elecciones en América Latina
Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo
Estudios Políticos. 2023
En el estudio de la confianza en las instituciones políticas muchas veces se da por sentado que las personas que viven en un mismo país están expuestas a un grado similar de calidad institucional en todo el territorio nacional. Este artículo argumenta, en cambio, que las diferencias en el desempeño institucional en el plano subnacional condicionan la confianza ciudadana en las instituciones del régimen. Este argumento se somete a prueba mediante un análisis de la confianza en las elecciones en quince democracias latinoamericanas. El análisis muestra que la uniformidad subnacional de la democracia y la exposición individual a la presencia territorial del Estado se asocian positivamente con la confianza electoral. El análisis revela, asimismo, que la confianza en las elecciones depende de la interacción entre la uniformidad subnacional de la democracia y la experiencia individual con alcance territorial del Estado. Los hallazgos sugieren que las disparidades institucionales al interior de los países desempeñan un papel clave en la formación de la confianza política. Corruption in Latin America: Stereotypes of Politicians and their Implications for Affect and Perceived Justice
Miguel R. Ramos, Marcelo Moriconi.
Stereotypes of Politicians and Perceived Justice. 2017
Latin America has experienced a series of recent corruption scandals, resulting in an unprecedented uncertainty in political leadership across the whole region. Within this context, we have conducted a survey study comprising 9 countries in Latin America (n=1,250) examining the stereotype content of politicians. We tested a dual effects model in which the stereotypes of politicians were predicted to shape perceptions of justice directly and indirectly through the activation of affect. Our findings revealed that politicians tended to be stereotyped with negative morality traits and with a certain degree of negativity across other stereotype dimensions. Results supported a positive direct effect of morality on perceived justice and a positive indirect effect through the activation of affect. We discuss the implications of these findings for the current political context in Latin America and also for our understanding of perceptions about politicians and their relationship with leader and power legitimacy. Corruption, institutional trust and political engagement in Peru
Celeste Beesley, Darren Hawkins
World Development. 2022
Experimental methods show that corruption information causally reduces citizen trust in political institutions. Corruption information does not motivate citizen citizen political action in the form of small donations to an anti-corruption NGO. Petty corruption information significantly decreases institutional trust while grand corruption information does not. Discussing the consequences of corruption decreases institutional trust even when the potential consequences are positive. Widespread corruption and lack of trust in political institutions are common development problems that are likely deeply interconnected. We contribute to the existing understanding of their relationship using survey experimental methods and by investigating how different dimensions of corruption affect trust. Does grand versus petty corruption affect citizen trust in political institutions? What about corruption with positive versus negative consequences? After presenting respondents in Peru with randomly assigned information about these specific aspects of political corruption, we measure 1) attitudes about trust in government institutions and 2) behavioral engagement in anti-corruption efforts through donations to a well-known Peruvian NGO. We find that petty corruption, but not grand corruption, decreased institutional trust compared to a control. Additionally, in contrast to previous findings showing that “beneficial” corruption reduces electoral punishments for individual politicians, both positive and negative consequences decreased institutional trust. Corruption information did not alter donations to an NGO. Going beyond the correlations found in prior observational studies, this paper demonstrates a causal relationship between corruption information and institutional trust. Our results signal the importance of addressing petty corruption to improve public trust. They also emphasize important difficulties in motivating citizen action against corruption because anti-corruption messaging can decrease trust, while failing to motivate even low-cost political action Crime and Erosion of Trust: Evidence for Latin America
Ana Corbacho, Julia Philipp, Mauricio Ruiz-Vega
World development. 2015
Trust links citizens to the institutions intended to represent them and to one another. By reducing trust, crime has the potential to grind down social capital and become an obstacle to development. This paper analyzes the relationship between individual victimization and trust in Latin America using an empirical strategy that reduces both overt and hidden biases. Victimization significantly reduces vertical trust (in the local police) but has no robust effect on measures of horizontal trust. Governments need to reduce actual victimization but also rebuild trust in local public institutions to enhance the effectiveness of crime prevention efforts. Democracia y confianza
Julia Isabel Flores
Cuadernos de Divulgación de la Cultura Democrática. 2023
Uno de los mayores logros políticos del siglo XX ha sido el desarrollo de la democracia en el mundo. El buen gobierno determina la vida de los individuos y de los miembros de una comunidad, y organiza la utilización de recursos y la economía en general; y la ciudadanía quiere expresar su voluntad de manera amplia y profunda en todos los aspectos de la vida, no sólo con un voto cada periodo electoral. Las democracias establecidas no parecen hoy ser capaces de dar respuesta a las crecientes demandas de participación directa de la ciudadanía, y el resultado es un desencanto cada vez mayor. Este texto ha sido construido con una intención básicamente didáctica, asumiendo la tarea de compilar y analizar tópicos tan diversos, aunque transversales, a la democracia y la confianza. En consecuencia, se ofrecen diversas reflexiones que servirán como guía no sólo para comprender y pensar los problemas a los que nos enfrentamos, sino también para buscar posibles soluciones. Determinantes de la confianza política. Un estudio transversal
Marjorie Morales Casetti, Marco Bustos Gutiérrez, Javiera Silva Sánchez
Revista del CLAD Reforma y Democracia. 2018
La confianza política se ha convertido en un bien escaso en las sociedades actuales. La ciencia política busca responder qué factores afectan la confianza política y cómo es posible crearla. En este artículo se estima un modelo de regresión lineal múltiple contemplando información del año 2015 para 62 países. Los resultados muestran que la confianza social y el crecimiento económico tienen efectos positivos y significativos sobre la confianza política. Contrario a lo esperado, no se encontraron efectos significativos de la calidad de los servicios públicos ni de la imparcialidad del gobierno sobre la confianza política. Como desafío futuro está el diseño de políticas concretas que contribuyan a un aumento del crecimiento económico y de la confianza social. Determinants of trust in government in Latin America
Luis Rene Caceres
Revista mexicana de economía y finanzas. 2019
The objective of this paper is to identify the determinants of trust in government in the Latin American countries, using a cross section of average labor market and social data of the 2007-2012 period. The methodology consists of the estimation of equations based on the application of Phillips and Hansen’s cointegration least squares, using as independent variables labor market indicators, as well as those associated with public expenditures, institutional quality and others. The emphasis of this paper is to study the association between trust in government and economic and social variables. Results show that while inequality is an important determinant of trust in government, the rates of female self employment and quality employment have positive and negative impacts on trust in government. Male self and quality employment have no impacts. Citizens’ perception that government is committed to combat poverty leads to increased trust in government. This is a topic that has not received attention in the literature.The main limitation of this study is the reduced size of the sample of 18 observations. It is concluded that increasing social expenditures and reducing inequality would be conducive to higher levels of trust in the government in the Latin American countries. Does information about citizen participation initiatives increase political trust?
Martin Ardanaz, Susana Otálvaro-Ramírez, Carlos Scartascini
World Development. 2023
Participatory programs can reduce the informational and power asymmetries that engender mistrust. These programs, however, cannot include every citizen. Hence, it is important to evaluate if providing information about those programs could affect trust among those who do not participate. We assess the effect of an informational campaign about these programs in the context of a survey experiment conducted in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Results show that providing detailed information about citizen involvement and outputs of a participatory budget initiative marginally shapes voters’ assessments of government performance and political trust. In particular, it increases voters’ perceptions about the benevolence and honesty of the government. Effects are larger for individuals with ex ante more negative views about the local government’s quality and they differ according to the respondents’ interpersonal trust and their beliefs about the ability of their communities to solve the type of collective-action problems that the program seeks to address. This article complements the literature that has examined the effects of participatory interventions on trust, and the literature that evaluates the role of information. The results in the article suggest that participatory budget programs could directly affect budget allocations and trust for those who participate, and those that are well-disseminated could also affect trust in the broader population. Because mistrustful individuals tend to shy away from demanding the government public goods that increase overall welfare, well-disseminated participatory budget programs could affect budget allocations directly and through their effect on trust. Does voting at a younger age have an effect on satisfaction with democracy and political trust? Evidence from Latin America
C Sanhueza Petrarca
In “Lowering the Voting Age to 16: Learning from Real Experiences Worldwide, 2020
This chapter investigates whether lowering the minimum voting age to 16 has a positive effect on voters’ satisfaction with democracy and political trust. In particular, it examines if voters that were enfranchised at a younger age show more positive political attitudes. In Latin America, five countries have lowered the voting age to 16. Cuba, Nicaragua and Brazil have been the pioneers in the region and worldwide in the inclusion of under 18-year-old voters, while Ecuador and Argentina changed their electoral laws following a recent global trend in debating the enfranchisement of young voters. After examining the political and social contexts in which these electoral laws were adopted in these five countries, the chapter analyzes whether voters who could Vote at 16 show more positive evaluations of democracy and trust in the national government, parliament and political parties compared to voters that were enfranchised at an older age. The evidence shows that early enfranchisement is marginally associated with satisfaction with democracy and strongly associated with trust in political parliaments and parties. Economic Inequality and Unfairness Evaluations of Income Distribution Negatively Predict Political and Social Trust: Evidence From Latin America Over 23 Years
Efraín García-Sánchez; J. D. García‐Castro, G. Willis, Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón
Research has produced mixed results on the relationship between economic inequality and social and political trust. These studies overrepresent developed countries, cross-sectional designs, and overlook the role of subjective evaluations of inequality. We use 13 waves from 18 Latin American countries over 23 years (above 250,000 participants) to examine the association between structural inequality and fairness evaluations with political and social trust. Multilevel regression analyses for comparative longitudinal surveys suggest that within-country changes in economic inequality over time are negatively associated with political and social trust. However, between-country inequality was negatively related to social trust but not political trust. In addition, fairness evaluations of inequality were positively related to social and political trust. Exploratory analyses revealed that fairness evaluations mediated the negative association between economic inequality and political and social trust. We discussed that fairness evaluations of inequality may explain why inequality affects social and political trust. Efeito da qualidade da governança pública sobre o sentimento de confiança da população nas instituições governamentais: uma análise para países latino-americanos
Paulo Sérgio Almeida-Santos, Andréia Carpes Dani, Cristian Baú Dal Magro, José Matias-Pereira, Vinícius Costa da Silva Zonatto.
Administração Pública e Gestão Social. 2018
O objetivo da pesquisa consiste em verificar o efeito da qualidade da governança pública sobre o sentimento de confiança da população nas instituições governamentais de países latino-americanos. A análise compreende um período de 19 anos (1996-2014) para um painel de sete países. Os principais resultados mostram que quanto melhor for a qualidade da governança pública, maior tende a ser a confiança dos cidadãos nas instituições governamentais, embora, que numa frequência de 0 a 100%, o nível de confiança em instituições tais como: forças armadas, polícia, judiciário, partidos políticos, parlamento e governo nacional, não supere os 50% para a maioria dos casos. Estes achados, de modo geral, fornecem então, suporte para o fortalecimento da confiança dos cidadãos e nomeadamente das instituições públicas nesses países. Com efeito, a confiança dos cidadãos pode ser melhorada quando os governos, dentre outras instituições governamentais, consigam prover bens e serviços que elevem o nível de bem-estar social daqueles. The effects of combating corruption on institutional trust and political engagement: evidence from Latin America
Mathias Poertner, Nan Zhang
Political Science Research and Methods. 2023
While a number of high-level figures around the world have been prosecuted and even jailed for corruption in recent years, we know little about how such anticorruption efforts shape public opinion and patterns of political engagement. To address this question, we examine evidence from Argentina and Costa Rica involving the unprecedented sentencing of two former Presidents on corruption charges. Exploiting the coincidence in timing between these cases and fieldwork on nationally representative surveys, we find that citizens interviewed in the aftermath of these events expressed lower trust in institutions and were less willing to vote or join in collective demonstrations. Overall, these findings suggest that high-profile efforts to punish corrupt actors may have similar effects as political scandals in shaping citizens’ relationship to the political system. Electoral integrity matters: how electoral process conditions the relationship between political losing and political trust
Marlene Mauk
Quality & quantity. 2022
This contribution adds a new perspective to the debate on electoral integrity by asking how electoral integrity affects the way in which election results translate into citizen attitudes towards the political system. It introduces a causal mechanism that links political losing to political trust via evaluations of electoral fairness: citizens who voted for the losing camp are more likely to view the electoral process as unfair than citizens who voted for the winning camp, resulting in political distrust. It further suggests that the effects of political losing on political trust depend on the level of electoral integrity. In conditions where the elections were conducted in a free and fair manner, even those who voted for the losing camp have little reason to suspect foul play and therefore political losing should barely affect perceptions of the electoral process. Whenever there are actual indications of electoral malpractice, however, political losers have much more reason to doubt the integrity of the electoral process than those who are content with the outcome of the election. The contribution makes use of a unique dataset that ex-post harmonizes survey data from three cross-national survey projects (Asian Barometer Survey, European Social Survey, Latinobarómetro) and macro-level data from the Varieties-of-Democracy Project to cover 45 democracies in Europe, East Asia, and Latin America. Using multi-level modeling, it finds that political losing indeed decreases political trust indirectly via perceptions of electoral fairness. Confirming its key proposition, the empirical analysis shows that political losing has a weaker effect on political trust in countries where electoral integrity is high. Enfoque cuantitativo de factores de desempeño de los gobiernos locales que inciden en el nivel de confianza de los ciudadanos en el área urbana del cantón Cuenca en el Ecuador
Mario Enrique Tapia Tapia, Gustavo Juan Alarcón Martinez.
Innovaciones de negocios. 2022
Investigaciones con el propósito de determinar los factores de mayor incidencia en los niveles de confianza en los gobiernos locales han sido desarrollados principalmente para el caso de países desarrollados. En tanto que, pocos son los trabajos realizados en los países latinoamericanos. Particularmente para el caso del Ecuador solo se pueden encontrar trabajos exploratorios con enfoque cualitativo y en menor número trabajos con enfoque cuantitativos como el presente. Este trabajo se realizó en la zona urbana del cantón Cuenca – Ecuador y tiene como objetivo determinar los factores que inciden en el nivel de confianza de los ciudadanos en su gobierno local. La pregunta de investigación que se pretende responder es: ¿Cuáles son los factores de desempeño de los gobiernos locales que inciden en el nivel de confianza de los ciudadanos? Partiendo de la construcción de un marco teórico, se plantea que los factores que podrían dar respuesta a este planteamiento son: La efectividad en la prestación de los servicios públicos, Honestidad de los servidores públicos, Equidad en la distribución de los recursos, Acceso a la información pública y Participación ciudadana. Para probar las hipótesis, se requirió el diseño, validación y aplicación de un instrumento tipo encuesta. Los datos recabados se analizaron utilizando la regresión lineal múltiple (método escalonado), utilizando el estadístico SPSS. Los resultados que se obtuvieron, muestran que las variables; Honestidad de los servidores públicos, Equidad en la distribución de los recursos y Acceso a la información pública son estadísticamente significativas con respecto de la variable confianza en el gobierno local. Experiencias y desafíos de la revocatoria de mandato por «incumplimiento del programa electoral». Los casos de Colombia, Ecuador, Perú y Bolivia
Itzel Ethelvina Cruz Pérez
Estudios Políticos (Universidad de Antioquia) 2024
El incumplimiento de las promesas hechas por los políticos se percibe como una práctica frecuente en los países de América Latina, afectando, entre otros aspectos, la confianza ciudadana hacia la democracia. En este artículo se analizan cuatro países —Colombia, Ecuador, Perú y Bolivia— que presentan casos únicos en el mundo al implementar un mecanismo particular de rendición de cuentas: la revocatoria de mandato por incumplimiento del programa electoral. Principalmente, se busca responder a la pregunta: ¿cómo ha sido el desarrollo de la aplicación de este mecanismo? Para ello se analizan diferentes aspectos, desde el marco legal que da forma a este mecanismo, hasta su implementación en los diferentes países. Asimismo, se presta especial atención a la discusión teórica que ha existido en torno a los «mandatos vinculantes». El análisis comparado permitió identificar que se trata de un mecanismo con fortalezas, pero también serias debilidades, sobre todo, en su implementación, las cuales tienen que ser atendidas con miras a mejorar estos mecanismos tan relevantes en estos países. Government performance, political trust, and satisfaction with democracy in Venezuela, 2016–2017
Antonella Watson, Margarida Soares Rodrigues, Juheon Lee.
Latin American Policy. 2023
Since 2015, Venezuela has been home to numerous protests, instigated mostly by people’s discontent with the government and its public services. Despite the seriousness of these protests, limited studies have examined the Venezuelans’ evaluation of their government and democracy, and only a few of these studies have used quantitative analysis. To fill this gap, this article offers a snapshot of the ongoing crisis using the Americas Barometer survey data collected between 2016 and 2017. We first identified Venezuelans’ three main concerns during this time—shortage of food and necessities, economic crisis, and crime—and examined their relationships with the respondents’ trust in government and satisfaction with democracy. We found that shortages of food and necessities and increasing crime were negatively associated with Venezuelans’ trust in their government (although shortages were a more significant factor than crime). The long-standing problem of economic crisis was not a significant factor in people’s trust in the government. Furthermore, these three factors were not directly linked to Venezuelans’ satisfaction with democracy, but people who showed low levels of trust in government tended to have low satisfaction levels with Venezuelan democracy. Our results invite future studies to compare different times and contexts in Venezuela’s ever-changing political landscape. Happy Winners, Sore Partisans? Political Trust, Partisanship, and the Populist Assault on Electoral Integrity in Mexico
Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo.
Journal of Politics in Latin America. 2023
Winning elections usually make partisan voters more politically satisfied and confident. However, if they voted for a president that actively undermines the legitimacy of democratic institutions, they will be compelled to accommodate their views and update their judgment on a selective basis. They will support the regime’s performance and yet distrust the institutions denounced by the government. This claim is tested using data from a representative survey conducted in Mexico. In this country, the president is a populist leader who consistently denounces all constraints on the executive. In particular, the president frequently undermines the institutions safeguarding free and fair elections. The analysis reveals that the gap in political trust reflects the opposite reactions from partisan winners and losers to the executive’s antagonizing behavior. Voters supporting the winning party are more satisfied with democracy. However, they are less likely to trust the integrity of elections than the partisan losers. Impacto de la inseguridad y la participación ciudadana sobre la satisfacción con la democracia
Arturo Alvarado-Mendoza.
Revista Científica General José María Córdova. 2024
Este artículo analiza cómo la inseguridad y la participación ciudadana afectan la satisfacción democrática, la confianza en las instituciones y el estado de derecho. En primer lugar, se revisa la literatura sobre los determinantes de la satisfacción con un régimen democrático, según la cual la criminalidad afecta la percepción de seguridad, la evaluación y la confianza en el gobierno, el respeto a la ley y el apoyo al régimen, componentes esenciales de un régimen democrático. Luego se presentan los resultados de una encuesta aleatoria realizada en el Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México en 2022. Los resultados indican que cuando la ciudadanía percibe una menor presencia del crimen y tiene una mayor confianza en las autoridades, especialmente en la policía, su satisfacción con el gobierno y el régimen democrático aumenta. Income and Social Trust in Latin America
Juan Pablo González.
Journal of Politics in Latin America. 2022
How do economic conditions affect trust? In this paper, I analyze the effect of natural resource shocks on social trust in Latin American regions. To deal with the endogeneity between income and trust, I use an identification strategy that relies on the exogeneity of the international prices of commodities. I show that income shocks have a positive effect on social trust, a result that is robust to a number of checks. I present evidence that points to two mechanisms: increases in life satisfaction and a reduction in crime victimization. I do not find that inequality is moderating this effect nor that extractive commodities are detrimental to social trust. These results are consistent with the decline in social trust on the continent during the last decade of sluggish growth and economic turmoil. Income inequality, distributive fairness and political trust in Latin America
Sonja Zmerli a, Juan Carlos Castillo.
Social Science Research. 2015
In the wake of rising levels of income inequality during the past two decades, widespread concerns emerged about the social and political consequences of the widening gap between the poor and the rich that can be observed in many established democracies. Several empirical studies substantiate the link between macro-level income inequality and political attitudes and behavior, pointing at its broad and negative implications for political equality. Accordingly, these implications are expected to be accentuated in contexts of high inequality, as is the case in Latin America. Despite these general concerns about the consequences of income inequality, few studies have accounted for the importance of individual perceptions of distributive fairness in regard to trust in political institutions. Even less is known about the extent to which distributive fairness perceptions co-vary with objective indicators of inequality. Moreover, the research in this area has traditionally focused on OECD countries, which have lower indexes of inequality than the rest of the world. This study aims at filling this gap by focusing on the relevance of distributive fairness perceptions and macro-level inequality for political trust and on how these two levels interact in Latin American countries. The analyses are based on the Latinobarometer survey 2011, which consists of 18 countries. Multilevel estimations suggest that both dimensions of inequality are negatively associated with political trust but that higher levels of macro-level inequality attenuate rather than increase the strength of the negative association between distributive fairness perceptions and political trust. La insatisfacción con la democracia en América Latina: análisis de factores económicos y políticos en 2017
Yissel Santos González, Oscar Alfonso Martínez Martínez.
Universitas: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas. 2020
Los bajos índices de satisfacción con el funcionamiento de la democracia en Latinoamérica desde inicios de siglo, ha motivado a investigar las causas que originan estos resultados. Por esa razón, el objetivo del artículo fue, explicar qué factores inciden en la percepción de satisfacción con el funcionamiento de la democracia en dicha región. Para comprobarlo, se aplicó un modelo de regresión logístico binaria, a ocho variables agrupadas en tres dimensiones: rendimiento económico, político y percepción de corrupción; la base de datos utilizada fue el Latinobarómetro 2017. Los resultados muestran que tanto los factores económicos como los políticos, generan mayor probabilidad de estar insatisfechos con el funcionamiento de la democracia, a pesar de esto, las personas siguen considerando a la democracia como la mejor forma de gobierno. Institutional Trust and Corruption: Evidence from Latin America
Luca Andriani, Margarita Maria Escudero Loaiza
Revista Debates. 2021
During decades of political and social change, corruption has become a pervasive and habitual factor of Latin American governments. The literature of political economic of corruption largely debates about the negative impact that inefficient anti-corruption policies have on state accountability. Undoubtedly this work contributes to the literature by providing important supportive evidence on this matter. Using data from the Latinobarómetro collected between 2006 and 2010, this study explores the relationship between citizens’ perception of corruption and trust toward public institutions, more commonly called institutional trust. Empirical evidence suggests that citizens’ trust increases if they perceive improvements in reducing corruption. These results are robust also to the inclusion of several socio-economic covariates as well as when we replicate the analysis for each institutional trust item separately. Our analysis inevitably connects with the literature of quality of government institutions and makes of the Latin American context the new geopolitical ground for this complex debate Investigating the relationship between gender equality and citizen trust: Evidence from Latin America
Yunsoo Lee, Mattias Ottervik.
Social Science Quarterly. 2024
Previous research has shown a relationship between social and economic equality and trust, but the relationship between gender equality and trust has received relatively little attention. This study addresses that lacuna and analyzes the relationship between gender equality and political trust as well as social trust. Using the 2015 Latinobarómetro, we test the relationship between two types of gender equality, labor gender equality and overall gender equality, and two types of trust, political trust and social trust in a series of regressions. The results show that gender equality is positively associated with social and political trust. In particular, the magnitude of association of labor gender equality with social trust is greater than that of overall gender equality. Also, the magnitude of association of overall gender equality with political trust is greater than that of labor gender equality. Our article contributes to the literature by demonstrating that overall gender equality and labor gender equality have varying association with trust depending on types of trust. La juventud de Argentina y de américa latina alza su voz: así opinan sobre nacionalismo, racismo, instituciones, problemas, machismo, sexualidad, política y religiosidad (1993-2019)
Tomás Calvo Buezas.
(En)clave Comahue. Revista Patagónica de Estudios Sociales. 2022
Este artículo presenta los resultados de la macroencuesta de valores aplicada en 2019 a 11.322 estudiantes de Latinoamérica –526 de ellos de Argentina–, 1.041 cubanos y 2.476 españoles. Estos datos fueron comparados con preguntas idénticas que se hicieron en 1993 a 36.516 escolares latinoamericanos –3.098 de ellos de Argentina– y 5.168 españoles. Los temas que se tratan son el nacionalismo, los prejuicios, la xenofobia y el racismo. Otros tópicos que se exploran son las imágenes negativas y positivas sobre la colonización española en América, la confianza en las instituciones, los problemas más sentidos y el cambio de valores en América y en Argentina desde 1993 a 2019. Todos estos temas se relacionan con el machismo, el sexismo, la moral sexual, la confianza en las instituciones, las opciones políticas, la religiosidad y el grado de felicidad. Latin America’s Shifting Politics: Democratic Survival and Weakness
Steven Levitsky. Journal of democracy. 2018
Today, most countries in Latin America are experiencing the longest uninterrupted period of democracy in their respective histories. Yet while Latin American democracies may be surviving, few are thriving. Public-opinion surveys reveal waning satisfaction with democratic systems, which Latin Americans have expressed by voting against the political establishment. Public anger at established parties is in some cases a response to poor governance, but also has deeper structural causes that include persistent social inequality, state weakness, and weak political parties. Latin American democracies also face new challenges from a resurgent illiberal right; rising partisan polarization; and a changing international environment. Nonetheless, the continuing robustness of core democratic institutions—together with the poor recent track record of the region’s autocracies—offers some grounds for democratic optimism. Legitimidad y compromiso democrático : impases contemporáneos en América Latina
Maria do Socorro Sousa Braga, Gabriel Avila Casalecchi.
Anuario Latinoamericano: Ciencias Políticas y Relaciones Internacionales. 2019
Ante el contexto de la alternancia de grupos políticos más próximos a la extrema derecha en países de América Latina en las últimas elecciones nacionales, el objetivo de este artículo es evaluar algunas actitudes políticas de los ciudadanos y su relación con los cambios en el régimen político que permitan identificar cuál es el nivel la “reserva de legitimidad política” y de compromiso con la democracia en esta región. Para ello, el análisis es realizado mediante medidas empíricas informadas por el instituto de investigación Latinobarómetro. Se han revelado al menos dos impases de las democracias latinoamericanas: primero, la reserva de compromiso con el régimen es pequeña, demostrado por el bajo apoyo de las sociedades a la democracia y a su estructura institucional; segundo, es cada vez menos efectiva la legitimidad democrática, lo que es demostrado por las elevadas tasas de insatisfacción y desconfianza tanto con el desempeño del régimen como con la actuación de la clase política tradicional. Medios de comunicación y confianza política en América Latina:
análisis individual y contextual del rol de las noticias en la confianza en el gobierno y el Estado
Claudia Labarca, Sebastián Valenzuela, Ingrid Bachmann, Daniela Grassau.
Revista internacional de sociología. 2022
¿Cuál es la asociación entre exposición a noticias y confianza política en Latinoamérica? ¿Hay diferencias según la libertad del sistema de medios y los niveles de polarización política? Para responder estas preguntas, este estudio analiza 10 países latinoamericanos incluidos en la última Encuesta Mundial de Valores (2017-2020) (N = 11.769), así como los índices de intervención gubernamental en el sistema informativo y polarización del proyecto V-Dem. Los resultados estadísticos muestran que, en general, la exposición a noticias en plataformas sociales se relaciona negativamente con la confianza en instituciones del gobierno y el Estado. Sin embargo, el contexto hace una diferencia significativa: a mayor libertad de información y polarización, más negativa es esta relación. En cambio, el uso de los medios tradicionales se asocia positivamente con la confianza política, independientemente de los factores contextuales. Estos hallazgos confirman la importancia de considerar el contexto mediático micro y macro en el análisis sobre confianza en América Latina. Militarismo, actitudes autoritarias y desempeño institucional en América Latina
Rafael Soares Duarte de Moura, Geélison Ferreira da Silva , Diego Maradona Cortezzi Guimarães Pedra.
Crítica Penal y Poder. 2024
El propósito del estudio es explicar el apoyo a la participación militar en el control del crimen en América Latina. La hipótesis es que el militarismo se explica por aspectos actitudinales e institucionales. En cuanto a las actitudes políticas, se observan actitudes autoritarias, como el apoyo a golpes de estado en situaciones críticas como alta criminalidad, desempleo y corrupción. En cuanto al desempeño institucional, se observa victimización por delincuencia, satisfacción con la democracia y la policía. Se espera que cuando las instituciones son ineficaces para controlar el crimen y garantizar la seguridad, la asociación entre actitudes políticas autoritarias y militarismo es mayor. La mejor base de datos para probar el efecto de los dos conjuntos de indicadores, actitudinales e institucionales, sobre la variable dependiente es el Proyecto de Opinión Pública de América Latina (LAPOP, 2014). Las pruebas se realizan mediante regresión logística. Los resultados confirman que existe una fuerte asociación entre variables de carácter actitudinal, especialmente aquellas que apoyan golpes militares en situaciones críticas, con el militarismo. Las variables relacionadas con el desempeño institucional también tienen efectos estadísticamente significativos sobre el militarismo. Esto muestra la importancia de los análisis multidimensionales e integrados entre las dos perspectivas para explicar el comportamiento político. El artículo también sitúa a la seguridad pública como un punto de atención para la democracia latinoamericana ya que, de manera controvertida, la percepción de que el gobierno garantiza la seguridad, que la delincuencia ha disminuido y la confianza en las fuerzas armadas aumenta las posibilidades del militarismo. The Militarization of Law Enforcement: Evidence from Latin America
Gustavo A Flores-Macías, Jessica Zarkin. Perspectives on Politics. 2021
What are the political consequences of militarizing law enforcement? Across the world, law enforcement has become increasingly militarized over the last three decades, with civilian police operating more like armed forces and soldiers replacing civilian police in law enforcement tasks. Scholarly, policy, and journalistic attention has mostly focused on the first type, but has neglected the study of three main areas toward which we seek to contribute: 1) the constabularization of the military—i.e., when the armed forces take on the responsibilities of civilian law enforcement agencies, 2) the extent to which this process has taken place outside of the United States, and 3) its political consequences. Toward this end, we unpack the concept of militarized law enforcement, develop theoretical expectations about its political consequences, take stock of militarization in Latin America, and evaluate whether expectations have played out in the region. We show that the distinction between civilian and military law enforcement typical of democratic regimes has been severely blurred in the region. Further, we argue that the constabularization of the military has had important consequences for the quality of democracy in the region by undermining citizen security, human rights, police reform, and the legal order. Mobilizing the Shy and Closed-Minded into Politics:
The Mediating Role of Political Trust for Conventional Participation in the Americas
Matthew Cawvey.
Political science quarterly. 2023
Political participants tend to be extraverted and open to experience, but we know virtually nothing about the exceptions to the rule. Why do individuals low in extraversion and openness sometimes engage in public affairs? The answer to this question has implications for political equity in the expression and representation of public opinion, regardless of personality traits. To address my query, I turn to political trust as a mediator of the relationship between personality and political participation. I argue that extraverts often feel disappointed about the impersonal nature of public affairs and thus possess a lower level of political trust than introverts; meanwhile, people high in openness value progress and ideals, likely perceive a disconnect between their political preferences and political reality, and thus may be more likely to distrust government than the closed-minded. For the trust–participation link, I contend that trusting citizens will be inclined to perpetuate the status quo through conventional behaviors such as voting, attending government meetings, and contacting government officials. Using mediation analysis of AmericasBarometer survey data from North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean, I find that introverted and closed-minded individuals tend to be more politically engaged—through their higher levels of political trust. ¡No nos representan!: análisis comparado de la relación democracia y corrupción en Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica y Ecuador 2015-2018
Pedro Piedrahita-Bustamante, Néstor J. Restrepo, Ana Lucía Ponce.
Análisis Político. 2022
El artículo compara las correlaciones entre la democracia y la corrupción en cuatro países de América Latina: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica y Ecuador, entre 2015 y 2018. Los casos estudiados llevaron entre 2018 y 2020 a una serie de manifestaciones sociales que expresan una crisis de representación, además de diversos hechos de corrupción; no obstante, los cuatro son diferentes en cuanto a sus procesos de construcción y consolidación democrática, así como en la valoración de la corrupción política como problemática relevante. A través de una metodología cuantitativa y la política comparada, se concluye que, a pesar de las similitudes y las diferencias entre los casos objeto de estudio, en términos de legitimidad y confianza todos presentan una tendencia hacia la desdemocratización. A note on institutional trust and poverty: Evidence from Latin America
Edgar Demetrio Tovar-GarcíA.
Economics and Business Letters. 2023
This short paper argues that institutional trust should be considered as an additional factor influencing poverty at the macroeconomic level. By examining a sample of Latin American countries and analyzing annual data from 1995 to 2019 using panel data techniques such as cointegration analysis and panel fully modified least squares, this study estimates the long-term relationships between poverty, economic growth, inequality, and institutional trust. As hypothesized, the empirical evidence suggests that institutional trust also reduces poverty. These findings hold particular significance for Latin America, where inequality levels are relatively high, institutional trust is low, and poverty rates have only recently begun to decline. Therefore, to alleviate poverty, it is crucial to implement public policies that restore and enhance institutional trust. Opinión pública sobre el Estado y el mercado en América Latina
Mary Fran Malone, Elizabeth Carter, Dinorah Azpuru.
América Latina Hoy. 2022
Este artículo examina la opinión pública hacia la propiedad estatal de la industria y las políticas estatales para reducir la desigualdad de ingresos. Basado en los datos del Barómetro de las Américas en 2016/17, el análisis estadístico muestra que la confianza en las instituciones y la educación son los principales determinantes de apoyo público, mientras que la ideología y la aprobación presidencial son importantes en ciertos casos, cuando los líderes enmarcan sus políticas en términos ideológicos. Partidos Políticos y Satisfacción con la Democracia “Una mirada desde la institucionalidad de América Latina”
Lucero Liliana Cabrera Benavides. Cuadernos de H Ideas. 2020
El artículo se desarrolla a partir de la pregunta de investigación: ¿Cuál es la incidencia de la satisfacción con la democracia en la confianza hacia los partidos políticos en América Latina, 2017? Se aborda a partir de datos de la encuesta anual de opinión publica de Latinobarometro que para el año 2017 involucra 20.000 entrevistas en 18 países latinoamericanos que representan a más de 600 millones de personas, donde se observa el desarrollo de las democracias utilizando indicadores de actitud, comportamiento y opinión. La encuesta Latinobarometro (2017) contribuye al estudio de ciertos indicadores relacionados a satisfacción de la democracia que podrían incidir en la variable dependiente confianza electoral a partir del modelo estadístico Ordeded probit, el cual permite comprender el grado proximidad de las variables. A partir de lo anterior, y de la revisión de fuentes teóricas se sostiene como hipótesis: a mayor satisfacción con la democracia, mayor confianza hacia los partidos políticos. O a la inversa entre menor satisfacción con la democracia, menor confianza hacia los partidos políticos, es decir que los resultados podrían presentarse de manera directa y proporcional. Perception of corruption and public support for redistribution in Latin America
Esther Hauk, Mónica Oviedo, Xavier Ramos.
European Journal of Political Economy. 2022
This paper studies the relationship between people’s beliefs about the quality of their institutions, as measured by corruption perceptions, and preferences for redistribution in Latin America. Our empirical study is guided by a theoretical model which introduces taxes into Foellmi and Oechslin’s (2007) general equilibrium model of non-collusive corruption. In this model perceived corruption influences people’s preferences for redistribution through two channels. On the one hand it undermines trust in government, which reduces people’s support for redistribution. On the other hand, more corruption decreases own wealth relative to average wealth of below-average-wealth individuals leading to a higher demand for redistribution. Thus, the effect of perceived corruption on redistribution cannot be signed a priori. Our novel empirical findings for Latin America suggest that perceiving corruption in the public sector increases people’s support for redistribution. Although the wealth channel dominates in the data, we also find evidence for the trust channel — from corruption to demand for redistribution via reduced trust. •We present model guided evidence for the link of corruption and redistribution in Latin America. We propose corruption victimization as a novel instrument for corruption perceptions. We identify a positive and negative channel how corruption affects demand for redistribution. The positive channel through increased inequality dominates the negative channel. The negative channel works through reduced trust in government. The police and the public: policing practices and public trust in Latin America
Mary Fran T. Malone, Lucia Dammert.
Policing and Society. 2020
Over the past two decades, most Latin American countries have struggled to create or reform their police forces while simultaneously confronting sharp increases in violent crime. Reformers have gravitated towards community-oriented policing practices, which aim to rely on preventive tactics and build closer ties between police officers and the public. The implementation of such policing practices can be daunting, particularly for countries with authoritarian histories of policing and/or military repression. When confronting rising crime rates, some new democracies are tempted to revert to authoritarian policing practices and circumvent constitutional safeguards on human rights and civil liberties. Still, some countries have resisted such temptations, and seriously invested in community-oriented policing practices. However, do these community-oriented policing practices lead citizens to trust the police more? Or does public trust depend more heavily on results – particularly in countries undergoing crises in public security? To answer these questions, we analyze public trust in the police in 17 Latin American countries through a series of regression analyses of the Latin American Public Opinion Project’s (LAPOP) 2016–2017 survey data. We find that community-oriented policing practices tend to garner more public trust, but that perceptions of police effectiveness are equally important. Political Trust and Ecological Crisis Perceptions in Developing Economies: Evidence from Ecuador
Marija Verner.
Latin American Politics and Society. 2023
Could an individual’s perception of the possibility of a future ecological crisis be linked to their level of political trust? Studies of environmental attitudes have identified political trust as an important predictor of support for environmental taxation or risk perceptions surrounding specific local environmental hazards, but less is known about its role when environmental risks are perceived as diffuse and distant. Using original survey data from Ecuador, this article finds that political distrust predicts heightened ecological crisis perceptions and that higher educational attainment intensifies this relationship. A follow-up analysis of the AmericasBarometer’s Ecuador survey shows that political distrust also predicts higher concern about climate change. These findings suggest that when evaluations of political institutions reflect perceptions of environmental risks, individuals blame the government for environmental failures. The implications of this study are particularly relevant for political institutions in developing economies, where the public sector often spearheads development efforts. Political Trust and the “Crisis of Democracy”
Tom W. G. van der Meer.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. 2017
For decades, scholarly inquiry into political trust has been motivated by concerns about declining levels of public trust in politics. Because political trust is considered a necessary precondition for democratic rule, a decline in trust is thought to fundamentally challenge the quality of representative democracy. Fundamentally, political trust can be understood as citizens’ support for political institutions such as government and parliament in the face of uncertainty about or vulnerability to the actions of these institutions. While political trust is conventionally treated as a pro-democratic value, its absence is not evidently detrimental to democracy. Rather, skepticism stimulates political engagement and signals a willingness to judge political institutions by their own merits. In cross-national comparisons political trust is consistently highest in countries that are not considered liberal democracies. Within the set of liberal democracies, the Nordic countries tend to have the highest trust rates, while the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe have the lowest. Despite evidence that political trust declines in many longstanding democracies in the 1960s and 1970s, the last few decades are characterized by trendless fluctuations in most countries. While scholars have made great headway in understanding the sources of political trust—most notably corruption, procedural fairness, (economic) performance, inclusive institutions, and socialization—this article argues that knowledge about its consequences has remained remarkably scarce. Putting ‘political’ back in political trust: an IRT test of the unidimensionality and cross‑national equivalence of political trust measures
T. W. G. van der Meer, ·E. Ouattara.
Quality & Quantity. 2019
Much research intro political trust—its causes, correlates and trends—builds on the twin assumptions that trust in a wide range of political institutions is ultimately an expression of a singular and a cross-nationally equivalent underlying attitude. Yet, the widespread assumptions of unidimensionality and cross-national equivalence of political trust is at odds with the dominant conceptual understanding of political trust as a relational concept, driven by subjects, objects, and their interplay. This paper employs Rasch modelling as a direct, strict test of unidimensionality, equivalence and item hierarchy. We test the fit of the Rasch model on political trust items in seven widely used, cross-national surveys (World Values Survey, Afrobarometer, Arabbarometer, Asian Barometer, Eurobarometer, European Social Survey, and Latinobarometro), covering 161 national surveys in 119 countries across the globe. We find that the unidimensional specification of the Rasch model does not fit the standard political trust question batteries. Political trust is not cross-nationally equivalent; trust in specific political institutions is more than a mere indicator of an underlying attitude. This conclusion does not impede cross-national research into political trust; rather it illustrates the need for consistent robustness checks across a range of objects of political trust. Our findings open up new venues for substantive research questions on specific objects of political trust and their relationships. ¿Quién confía en el gobierno en las Américas?
Adriana M. Rosario Surillo.
Perspectivas. 2023
La confianza en el gobierno es parte integral de un conjunto más amplio de evaluaciones de la democracia. Teniendo en cuenta que los países de América Latina y el Caribe (ALyC) enfrentan desafíos relacionados con la salud de sus democracias, resulta relevante examinar la confianza en el gobierno. Unos bajos niveles de confianza en el gobierno pueden generar una falta de participación política, menor apoyo a políticas públicasnecesarias, cinismo o descontento político y pueden ser nocivos para el desempeño del gobierno. Esto lleva a la pregunta central de este informe: ¿cuánto confían los ciudadanos de América Latina y el Caribe en que su gobierno hace lo correcto? Este informe aborda el tema de la confianza en el gobierno usando datos del Barómetro delas Américas de 2021 en 19 países de la región de ALyC. La variable “confianza en el gobierno nacional” está basada en una pregunta de American National Election Studies (ANES) y fue incluida como ítem nuevo en el Barómetro de las Américas de 2021. Los encuestados respondieron la siguiente pregunta: ¿Qué tanto confía en que el gobierno nacional hace lo correcto?. Los encuestados podían responder mucho, algo, poco o nada . Este informe encuentra que, en la mayoría de los países, la mayoría tiene bajos niveles deconfianza en el gobierno. A partir de una serie de análisis a nivel individual de la confianza de los ciudadanos en el gobierno nacional, se halla que la confianza está altamente asociada con la aprobación del trabajo del presidente. Estos resultados ayudan a identificar áreas de oportunidad para conseguir una dinámica de relaciones sanas y de confianza entre los individuos y las instituciones del gobierno, que en teoría deberían promover un mejor desempeño gubernamental en las Américas. Race, Inequality, and Political Trust in Latin America
Castellar Granados, Francisco Sánchez.
Latin American politics and society. 2024
During the last decades, political distrust has seemingly become a common trend across Latin American democracies, however, differences in the levels of confidence among groups have also been identified. This article considers the potential effects of ethno-racial structures and their interactions with other forms of socioeconomic inequalities on political trust. Building on data from four waves of the Latinobarometer project and contextual measures from different sources, we analyze these relations and find that both socioeconomic and ethno-racial inequalities affect political trust and impact on the formation of different relations with the political system across Latin America. Furthermore, in particular it is found that at the individual-level interactions between inequalities shape political trust differently depending on the particular ethno-racial identification. These findings contribute to the understanding of ethnicity and race and its associations with other structural inequalities in shaping mass political culture Satisfaction with democracy in Latin America: Do the characteristics of the political system matter?
Selim Jürgen Ergun, M. Fernanda Rivas, Maximo Rossi.
Desarrollo y Sociedad. 2019
Citizens’ attitudes are crucial in preventing or encouraging democratic weakening, specifically satisfaction with the functioning of the democratic system. We analyse the nexus between the rules and characteristics of the political system and satisfaction with democracy in Latin America. Using data from the 2015 Latinobarometer survey, we have estimated ordered multilevel logit models. We find that satisfaction is greater in countries that use a proportional electoral rule to elect the legislature. The rule used to elect the president is partially related to satisfaction with democracy, while the age of democracy is negatively related to satisfaction. Moreover, the degree of voting obligatoriness in elections and the degree of federalism are not related to satisfaction with democracy. Our results suggest that a more representative legislature and a stronger fight against corruption could improve people’s level of satisfaction with democracy. Shaping Political Trust through Participatory Governance in Latin America
Tesalia Rizzo.
Inter-American Development Bank. 2021
This paper critically assesses research that examines the link between participatory institutions and political trust in the context of developing countries, with a focus on Latin America. A significant limitation in the systematic accumulation of knowledge in this field is inattention to identifying a clear causal chain through which citizen participation shapes political, economic, and attitudinal outcomes such as political trust. This is particularly important in the Latin American case where constitutionally stated objectives of participatory governance include the improvement of citizen welfare as well as strengthening of political trust in public institutions. Future work should concentrate in providing clear and testable models of the complex relationship between participatory mechanisms, policy, governance, and trust, with particular attention to what mediates and moderates this relationship. Additionally, empirical work done of the Latin America case should move away from a predominantly case-study based and macro-level perspective in the study of participatory institutions to micro-level studies from the citizens point of view. A new frontier for the study of participatory governance in Latin America lies in understanding how citizens experiences with and expectations of participatory institutions as well as the policy outcomes delivered by these institutions shape political trust. Social and Political Trust in a Low Trust Society
Matías Bargsted, Camila Ortiz, Ignacio Cáceres, Nicolás M. Somma.
Political Behavior. 2022
We study the causal relationship between social and political trust in a low trust society, a setting where this topic has received very little attention. We focus on contemporary Chile, a relatively consolidated new democracy lacking many of the conditions that fosters trust such as high socioeconomic equality, weak social divisions, or universal welfare policies. Our empirical analysis is based on a 4-wave panel survey applied to a representative sample of 2000 Chilean adults interviewed face to face each year between 2016 and 2019. Based on statistical models with varying specifications and assumptions, we find support for the institutionalist view that claims that political trust exercises a positive influence over social trust. However, contrary to recent findings for some European democracies (Sønderskov & Dinesen 2016, Seifert 2018), we also find that social trust positively affects political trust. Our results suggest that the positive relationship between both types of trust travels to different political settings, and that there is no minimum threshold required in levels of trust for this relationship to emerge. Sociedades cansadas y democracias fatigadas en América Latina
Manuel Alcántara Sáez, Cristina Rivas Pérez, Cecilia Graciela Rodríguez Balmaceda.
Revista Mexicana de Sociología. 2024
Este artículo examina los niveles de democracia en América Latina y su evolución a partir de datos proporcionados por los principales indicadores del estado de la democracia, que muestran la heterogeneidad regional con distintos niveles de fatiga democrática evidenciados a través del tiempo. Asimismo, y de manera correlacionada, el análisis constata el creciente cansancio ciudadano manifestado por la crisis de la representación, centrada en el agotamiento del papel de los partidos políticos, la pérdida de confianza en las instituciones y los elevados niveles de insatisfacción democrática en el marco de los cambios socioculturales exponenciales que arrastra la revolución digital. “Wish you were here” trust in public administration in Latin America
Cecilia Güemes.
Revista de administração pública. 2019
Sabemos que os cidadãos latino-americanos são muito desconfiados das instituições. Mas o que subjaz essas atitudes? Este trabalho apresenta um esforço exploratório e descritivo em torno da Administração Pública. Os objetivos são: a) contrastar as crenças que cidadãos e administradores têm sobre a referida instituição, b) verificar diferenças e semelhanças entre os países da região, c) identificar eixos de reforma para promover a criação de confiança. Metodologicamente, as informações são coletadas de três fontes de dados: Latinobarómetro (2011, 2015), CAF Banco de Desenvolvimento da América Latina (CAF, 2014) e uma pesquisa própria com o apoio da Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA, 2015). A análise revela que: a) não há diferenças apreciáveis entre funcionários e cidadãos, b) há relativa homogeneidade entre países, c) políticas governamentais abertas podem ser uma excelente oportunidade para renovar a confiança. Why did Latin America Lose Faith in the Law?
Timo Schaefer.
Law and history review. 2023
Colonial Latin America had the fame of being a land where lower-class people were forever suing their betters. To Latin America’s popular classes, the law was an indispensable instrument for claiming rights, solving conflicts, and advancing interests. Fast-forward to the middle of the twentieth century, however, and Latin American law held a very different fame. The law was now something to be shunned. It was seen as an instrument of power, manipulated by the rich and influential. Public trust in the law was low, and support for alternative forms of justice, high. In comparison with the colonial era, we are faced with a baffling reversal. This article seeks to explain that reversal by elaborating three propositions: (P1) popular trust in the law declined because of the law’s increasing formalism, particularly evident in the codification of civil and criminal law over the course of the nineteenth century; (P2) popular trust in the law declined because of the rise of patrimonial capitalism over the period of study; and (P3) popular trust in the law declined because a new generation of social rights became politicized, first under populist, corporatist regimes that arose in the region in the early and mid-twentieth century and then under the region’s Cold-War military dictatorships |
