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Gangs' territorial control affects the lives of residents in thousands of neighborhoods across Latin America, particularly in northern Central American countries. I argue that gang dominance constrains the ability of neighborhood residents to mobilize politically and consequently resist gang violence through institutionalized channels. Living in gang-controlled neighborhoods results in fewer incentives and opportunities to make political elites accountable for one's personal safety. Even residents who have already experienced crime firsthand are discouraged from turning to politics as a strategy to change the status quo. My theoretical insights identify mechanisms through which gangs' neighborhood control affects nonelectoral and electoral participation. To test my hypotheses, I rely on census and public opinion data collected in seventy-one neighborhoods in El Salvador. This article offers the first systematic statistical analysis of the effect of gangs' territorial control on political participation in the Latin American context. The findings suggest that living under gang rule undermines residents' right to engage freely in politics in nuanced ways.

With a focus on the implementation of women's police stations (WPS), we posit that local policies that address violence against women can result in positive feedback effects on institutional legitimacy. We theorize that WPS increase police legitimacy among women by improving perceptions of personal safety and government responsiveness. To test our hypotheses, we rely on municipal and public opinion data from more than 100 municipalities in Brazil. The results of our multilevel analysis indicate that WPS produce positive feedback effects among women, resulting in higher trust in the police among women than men and closing the gender gap in perceptions of police effectiveness. Incorporating an instrumental variable in the analyses yields similar results, suggesting that these effects are not endogenous. Moreover, the results of our mediation models show that WPS' positive effects on women's views of police legitimacy are driven by improved perceptions of personal safety, and not perceptions of government responsiveness.

The dramatic rise of democratic regimes around the world has coincided with an equally significant increase in migration, characterized by an unprecedented movement of people from emerging to established democracies. Through analysis of survey data from six Latin American countries, we offer an empirical evaluation of theoretical mechanisms through which migration can shape the political behaviors of non-migrants in sending nations. We find that individuals who have strong cross-border ties that connect them with relatives living in the United States are more likely to participate in local politics, sympathize with a political party, and persuade others to vote for a party. Those effects are influenced by the positive impact of cross-border ties on civic community involvement, political interest, and political efficacy. Moreover, the evidence suggests that frequent usage of the Internet among non-migrants with strong cross-border ties results in increased political knowledge, which contributes to their greater political interest and efficacy.

AbstractHistorical evidence suggests that bad economic times often mean bad times for democracy, but prior research has given us little guidance on how this process may work. What economic conditions are most threatening, and how might they weaken consolidating democracies? This article uses the AmericasBarometer conducted by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to answer these questions by focusing on core attitudes for the consolidation of democracy. We use survey data at the level of the individual and economic data at the country level to help detect democratic vulnerabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study finds that conditions of low levels of economic development, low economic growth, and high levels of income inequality increase those vulnerabilities substantially, but the effects are not uniform across individuals. Some groups, especially the young and the poor, are particularly vulnerable to some antidemocratic appeals.

While the world is focused on the economic impact of the financial and credit meltdown, what might be its impact on politics? In well-established democracies, probably not more than elections lost by incumbent parties seen as having mismanaged the economy. But what of consolidating democracies that predominate in the developing world, where some forecasts expect the crisis to hit the poor especially hard? This article uses AmericasBarometer survey data from Latin America and the Caribbean drawn on the eve of the crisis to project how it might affect democracy in the region.

As decentralisation reforms devolved greater responsibilities to local governments, improving local governance has become central to strengthening democracy. With the promise of increasing citizen representation and government transparency at the local level, in 2015 El Salvador implemented a new electoral system. The new system allowed for the election of opposition parties in municipal councils for the first time. In the context of El Salvador, we examine how opposition parties' numerical representation influences the views of governing and opposition party members about multi-party councils' effectiveness to improve local governance. To test our hypotheses, we rely on data from an original elite survey of 303 municipal councillors in 101 municipalities, which we complement with qualitative information. Contrary to what the literature suggests, we do not find evidence that a stronger opposition leads to more negative evaluations among members of governing parties, notwithstanding the country's polarised party system. (JPLA/GIGA)