Economic Vulnerability and Partisanship in Latin America

Abstract

A significant proportion of the population in Latin America depends on the informal economy and lacks adequate protection against a variety of economic risks. This article suggests that economic vulnerability affects the way individuals relate to political parties. Given the truncated structure of welfare states in the region, citizens in the informal sector receive lower levels of social security benefits and face higher economic uncertainty. This vulnerability makes it difficult for voters to establish strong programmatic linkages with political parties because partisan platforms and policies do not necessarily represent their interests and needs. Using cross-national microlevel data, this study shows that individuals living in informality are skeptical about state social policy efforts and exhibit weaker partisan attachments. The findings suggest that effective political representation of disadvantaged groups remains a challenge in Latin American democracies.

Labor Informality and Economic Political Accountability of Executive Incumbents in Latin America

“…Future works could test the proposed mechanisms. This work importantly contributes to the small but expanding literature that seeks to identify how labor informality affects individuals' political preferences, attitudes, and behaviors in Latin America (Altamirano, 2019;Baker & Velasco-Guachalla, 2018;Berens, 2015Berens, , 2020Berens & Kemmerling, 2019). However, future efforts are vital.…”

“…However, informal workers in Latin America are more skeptical about labor laws' protective capacity and less likely to vote than their formal counterparts (Berens & Kemmerling, 2019). Additionally, evidence suggests that informal workers' inherent state of uncertainty and vulnerability has caused an erosion of the linkages between these workers and political parties across the Latin American region (Altamirano, 2019).…”

“…Informal workers' linkages with the government and various other political actors are looser (Altamirano, 2019) compared to other groups of society, such as formal workers. As the government is absent in mediating many of the economic relations of informal workers, the information to provide clarity of the responsibility of incumbents in generating economic outcomes becomes sparse for workers in the informal sector.…”

The past, present and future ISO 9001 quality management system standard

“…Significant increases and decreases have been observed in other countries for many years. Countries are being a part of the global system in today's world, making them more vulnerable to internal and external political and economic uncertainties (Grauwe, 2011;Kelly, Pástor and Veronesi, 2016;Altamirano, 2019;Jiang, Zhu, Tian and Nie, 2019). Besides, it leads countries to develop more protectionist policies (Kee, Neagu and Nicita, 2013;Frieden, 2018;Williams, 2019;Mullan, 2020).…”

Opting for Exit: Informalization, Social Policy Discontent, and Lack of Good Governance

“…The informal sector is conceived as a worrisome phenomenon, as it implies a significant lack of tax revenue, inefficient allocation of resources, lower productivity and, overall, lower economic growth (Perry et al 2007;Dabla-Norris et al 2008;Loayza et al 2009). Moreover, it comes with social exclusion from and "outsiderness" in the labor market (Carnes and Mares 2014;Berens 2015a) and lack of political representation (Altamirano 2019).…”