Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This paper argues that where institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation become more appealing. This relationship is explored empirically by combining countrylevel measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest participation in 17 Latin American countries. Evidence is found that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest. Also found are interesting interactions between country-level institutional strength and some individual-level determinants of participation in protests. Terms of use: Documents in

Redistributive Preferences and Protests in Latin America

“…Autocratic regimes, on the other hand, are more likely to repress protests and other forms of social mobilization (Hollyer, Rosendorff, and Vreeland 2015). Protests are also more likely when institutions are weak and unresponsive to citizen demands (Machado, Scartascini, and Tommasi 2011). Independent of the political regime in place, perceptions of how governments and institutions function are also central to individual motivations to participate in protests and demonstrations.…”

“…Bruhn (2008) discusses the structural and organizational factors that may explain them. Machado, Scartascini, and Tommasi (2011) analyze the relationship between protests across Latin America in 2008 and the quality of political institutions. Our article adds to this literature an analysis of motivations to protest at the individual level and the role of redistributive preferences in this process.…”

Happy Medium, Happy Citizens

“…Behavioral evidence also indicates that citizens would prefer to strike a middle ground of presidential power. Saiegh (2011) finds violent riots are most frequent when executives pass either a very low (<15%) or very high (>80%) percentage of their bills, and least frequent when they pass roughly half (see also Machado, Scartascini, and Tommasi 2011; Przeworski 2010). If violent political protests correspond to presidential policy prowess in a nonlinear manner, democratic attitudes might reasonably be expected to do so as well.…”