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The Engagement Curve: Populism and Political Engagement in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Rafael Piñeiro ,
Matthew Rhodes-Purdy  and
Fernando Rosenblatt
Rafael Piñeiro
Affiliation:
Universidad Católica de Uruguay
Matthew Rhodes-Purdy
Affiliation:
Boise State University
Fernando Rosenblatt
Affiliation:
Universidad de Diego Portales, Chile
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Abstract

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Considerable research has been conducted on the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and political engagement. However, there is little consensus on the exact nature of the relationship, and considerable variation in the relationship exists even among countries with similar levels of inequality. This lack of clarity in the literature exists because the impact of inequality on engagement is not constant, but changes depending on the strategic choices of political leaders. Populist leaders; who tend to explicitly connect political and socioeconomic exclusion, can activate latent grievances around inequality. Using data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project, we show that inequality leads to disengagement among the poor in most contexts but increases engagement under populist rule. In other words, a primarily structural relationship is mediated by political variables. Even though the severity of inequality is outside the control of any political actor, leaders' reaction to inequality can dramatically alter its impact on mass political behavior.

Resumen

Resumen

Entre los diferentes efectos de la extrema desigualdad socioeconómica, el relativo a los patrones de involucramiento político es uno de los más corroborados. Sin embargo, esta relación varía bastante de país en país, de un modo que no puede ser explicado únicamente por el nivel objetivo de desigualdad. En este sentido, sostenemos que la relación entre desigualdad e involucramiento político es moderada por el contexto político. Más específicamente, señalamos cómo las estrategias políticas de los líderes políticos pueden modificar la relación entre los ciudadanos y la política. Los líderes populistas, con su tendencia a conectar explícitamente la exclusión política y socioeconómica pueden politizar el conflicto distributivo. A partir de datos de la encuesta LAPOP, estimamos los parámetros de un modelo multinivel para evaluar esta hipótesis en América Latina. A partir de una comparación de patrones de involucramiento político bajo gobiernos populistas y de izquierda moderada, en el trabajo mostramos que nuestros hallazgos están explicados por factores políticos más que únicamente por apelaciones económicas. Por tanto, esperamos mostrar que el impacto de variables estructurales está mediado por variables políticas. Si bien las primeras no están bajo el control de ningún actor político en el corto plazo, sus efectos son contingentes a las reacciones de aquellos frente a los constreñimientos estructurales.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , 2016 , pp. 3 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

We are grateful to Jake Bowers, Juan Pablo Luna, Huang Kai-Ping, Anthony Pezzola, Mauro Berazategui, Whitney Lopez-Hardin, Kirk Hawkins, Andrew Gelman, the anonymous reviewers from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and LARR, and all the participants of the Permanent Seminar at the Instituto de Ciencia Política, Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Chile. Additionally, we thank the LAPOP staff for their support. We also thank LAPOP and its major supporters (US Agency for International Development, UN Development Program, Inter-American Development Bank, and Vanderbilt University) for making the data available. We further thank LAPOP for their generous support through a LAPOP Small Grant, which was critical during the early phase of this project. Fernando Rosenblatt acknowledges support from the Chilean Millennium Science Initiative (NS130008). Matthew Rhodes-Purdy thanks the Fulbright Student Program for supporting his collaboration with this project.

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