Suchergebnisse

There is abundant research on how social cleavages shape political preferences in developed countries with uninterrupted democracies, but we know less about this topic for middle income countries with recently restored democracies. In this analysis of the Chilean case, we examine with Latinobarometer survey data from 1995 to 2009 the evolution of social cleavages as shapers of political preferences (measured with a left–right self-placement scale). We find a general process of dealignment across time, indicated by the decreasing association between political preferences on the one hand, and class, religion and regime preferences on the other. We tentatively link dealignment at the mass level to the strategies pursued by political parties operating in a political and economic context that encourages ideological moderation and convergence to the centre. These strategies weaken the differentiated signals needed for sustaining an aligned citizenry.

Abstract
Previous research has shown that corruption diminishes citizens' level of political support and engagement. We extend this line of reasoning and evaluate whether previous levels of perceived corruption can influence subsequent levels of political knowledge. We test this proposition with data from a two-wave panel probability survey applied in Chile between 2016 and 2017, just after a 2-year period in which an avalanche of corruption scandals shook the country. Our estimates confirm that perceived corruption reduces subsequent political knowledge, while controlling for prior knowledge. This pattern is particularly strong among non-ideologues and people ideologically distant from the incumbent government. Given the status of political knowledge as a democratically valuable trait, our results uncover some normatively disturbing consequences of corruption.

Many studies reveal that socioeconomic resources increase protest participation, lending more political voice to the affluent and reinforcing preexisting political inequality. But existing studies ignore whether this holds across different protest issues. We argue that some issues reinforce political inequality, while other ones do not. We differentiate between survival protests—in which people react to direct threats to their material and social survival—and furtherance protests—which press authorities to make policy changes that seek to improve some aspect of society. Regression models with Latin American survey data show that people with higher socioeconomic status are overrepresented in furtherance protests, by implication reinforcing preexisting political inequality. However, survival protests attract people socioeconomically similar to national averages, contributing to a more balanced political field. Our results emphasize the need to reconsider the place of issues in the study of protest participation, political inequality, and political behavior in general.

This article analyses how religious orientations and ideological preferences have coevolved in Chilean society between 1998 and 2014. On the basis of the premise that people experience religion heterogeneously, we develop four hypotheses that describe possible changes in the association between these two variables. Using data from yearly national probability surveys and multinomial regression models, we obtain two general results. First, we observe a general process of political "dealignment," whereby the proportion of the population, religious and irreligious, that ceases to identify with ideological positions strongly increases. Second, the magnitude of this dealignment is moderated by religious denomination and frequency of church attendance. Irreligious people have ceased to identify with ideological positions at higher rates than Evangelicals and Catholics, whereas frequently attending Catholics have become more reluctant than nonattending Catholics to abandon their traditional right-wing preferences. These results imply that as Catholics have reduced their size in the population, they have also become more politically heterogeneous.

AbstractUsing Latinobarometer survey data, we study the evolution of religious identities among the adult populations of 17 Latin American countries between 1996 and 2013. We find several interesting patterns. First, the current religious landscape is highly dynamic and is becoming increasingly pluralist among a majority of countries. Changes derive not only from the growth of Evangelicals, as commonly assumed, but also from the sharp rise in irreligious individuals. Second, religious change cannot be convincingly explained by important theories such as secularization, religious economies, and anomie. However, the predictions derived from anomie theory seem more useful for understanding Evangelical growth. Finally, our cohort analysis indicates that aggregate religious change largely results from individual-level change across time—religious conversion and apostasy—rather than from generational replacement. Still, there are interesting variations across countries in that respect.