Voice and inequality poverty and political participation in Latin American democracies

· 19 citations

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Political Science

"How do poor people in Latin America participate in politics? What explains the variation in the patterns of voting, protesting, and contacting government for the region's poorest citizens? Why are participation gaps larger in some countries than in others? This book offers the first large scale empirical analysis of political participation in Latin America, focusing on patterns of participation among the poorest citizens in each country, and comparing those patterns to those of individuals with more resources. Far from being politically inert, under certain conditions the poorest citizens in Latin America can act and speak for themselves with an intensity that far exceeds their modest socioeconomic resources. We argue that key institutions of democracy, namely civil society, political parties, and competitive elections, have an enormous impact on whether or not poor people turn out to vote, protest, and contact government officials. When voluntary organizations thrive in poor communities and when political parties focus their mobilization efforts on poor individuals, they respond with high levels of political activism. Poor people's activism also benefits from strong parties, robust electoral competition and well-functioning democratic institutions. Where electoral competition is robust and where the power of incumbents is constrained, we see higher levels of participation by poor individuals and more political equality. Precisely because the individual resource constraints that poor people face are daunting obstacles to political activism, our explanation focuses on those features of democratic politics that create opportunities for participation that have the strongest effect on poor people's political behavior." (Verlagsinformation)

Clientelist Mobilization and Political Participation Outside of the Electoral Arena

Revista Latinoamericana de Opinión Pública · 2023-09-30 · 2 citations

Scholarship on clientelist mobilization has focused almost exclusively on electoral clientelism, that is efforts by patrons and brokers to encourage turnout and participation in campaign rallies. What is less well understood is the impact of clientelist mobilization on other modes of political participation, like protest activity and citizen claim making. To fill this gap, I use LAPOP survey data from 2010 and 2014 to explore the relationship between vote-buying and nonelectoral forms of political activity. Despite the expectation by many that collective action and clientelist mobilization are incompatible, this study finds a strong relationship between vote-buying efforts and participation in protests in most of Latin America. Similarly, people who receive vote-buying offers are much more likely to engage in claim-making activities. I explore the mechanisms through which clientelism encourages political activism, highlighting ways that clientelist networks work through civic organizations and foster stronger partisan identities and greater political engagement.

Conservative Party-Building in Latin America: Authoritarian Inheritance and Counterrevolutionary Struggle. By James Loxton. Oxford University Press, 2021. 304p. $74.00 cloth.

Perspectives on Politics · 2022-06-01

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Response to James Loxton’s Review of <i>Voice and Inequality: Poverty and Political Participation in Latin American Democracies</i>

Perspectives on Politics · 2022-06-01

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What Shapes Political Participation of the Poorest Citizens?

Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-06-16 · 1 citations

This chapter presents the theoretical explanation that links core institutional features of democracy (political parties, competitive elections, civil society, and protection of democratic rights) to the political behavior of the poorest citizens. The focus is not only on those factors that boost the political activity of the poor, but those that have a disproportionately strong positive impact on poor people’s activism. The chapter argues that where civil society is strong, where political parties have the capacity and incentives to focus mobilization efforts on the poor, and where democratic institutions are strong, poor people will be able to participate at high levels.

Quality of Democracy

Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-06-16

Political participation is frequently taken as an indicator of how well a democracy is working. Chapter 7 considers the relationship in reverse: what impact does quality of democracy have on the ability of poor people to participate in politics? It argues that declines in the quality of democracy have a disproportionately negative effect on the capacity of poor citizens to participate in the political process. The erosion of political rights, attacks on associations, and the erosion of political competition create barriers to participation that are more difficult for low-resource actors to overcome. As a result, where democracy is in trouble, poor people often opt out of politics at higher rates than everyone else.

Community Organizations and Mobilization from Below

Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-06-16

Chapter 4 examines the role that community organizations play in mobilizing poor people into politics. It shows that part of the explanation for the unusually high levels of participation among poor citizens in Latin America can be traced to extraordinarily high levels of community organization. People across all social classes in Latin America are very involved in community organizations, including neighborhood associations, community groups, parent groups, professional organizations, religious groups, and women’s organizations. The chapter shows that organizations promote greater political participation by poor citizens through two mechanisms. The first operates at the community level, through the mobilizational resources and infrastructure provided by densely organized communities that reduce barriers to collective action. The second operates at the elite level, when parties and campaigns channel their political mobilization efforts through organizations rather than targeting atomized individuals. The evidence shows that the effect of involvement with community organizations has a stronger effect on political activism of poorer citizens—but only for voting and protesting, thus helping to equalize overall levels of political participation.

Patterns and Puzzles

Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-06-16

This chapter describes in detail patterns of political participation in Latin America with a particular focus on the political activity of poor citizens. It also introduces the book’s measures of poverty and political participation and engages in some preliminary statistical analysis in order to rule out alternative explanations. We identify three important findings: first, the poorest individuals in Latin America now participate in politics at least as much as, if not more than, more affluent individuals; second, the relationship between wealth and political activism is not uniform across countries or acts: in some places poor people participate more than the affluent, in most countries there is no difference in overall levels of participation across social classes, and in a few countries political stratification by class continues; third, the chapter shows that poor people do vote and protest a bit less than more affluent people but contact government more. It is the frequency with which poor people contact government officials that accounts for much of the equality in political participation that the book identifies. The analysis finds little evidence that individual-level factors explain these patterns. Instead, poor individuals participate as much or more than more affluent individuals <italic>despite</italic> possessing lower levels of education, political interest, and wealth. The chapter also explores the effect that efforts at vote buying and clientelist mobilization have on poor people’s activism, showing that although clientelism is common, it not the only mechanism through which poor people are mobilized into politics.

Inclusion and Exclusion during the Left Turn

Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-06-16

Chapter 6 takes a closer look at the impact of Latin America’s left turn on the political activism of poor people, and on political equality more generally. This chapter shows a surprising pattern: while the election of leftist governments did spark more political activity across the board, it did not produce more equal patterns of political participation. On the contrary, political participation is most stratified by wealth where radical-left parties or candidates govern. This chapter argues that the ideology of ruling parties matters less than expected for a number of reasons. First, due to their electoral and institutional dominance and weak organizational structure, ruling leftist parties in places like Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela had neither the capacity nor the incentives to mobilize poor citizens outside of election. This is in contrast to European contexts where leftist parties face stiff electoral competition and have strong linkages to groups in society. Second, most research based on advanced democracies assumes that poor people are core constituents of leftist parties. In Latin America, in contrast, poor people are just as likely to hold right-of-center views as left-of-center views.

Conclusion

Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021-06-16

The concluding chapter considers the implications of the book’s findings for the health and stability of democracy in the region and for future research. Democracy is not strong unless the voices of all people are heard and considered equally by those in power. Political equality obviously affects representation and accountability, and also impacts public policies that are likely to be more responsive to the needs of all citizens where the poor are politically active. The chapter reflects on the limitations of socioeconomic status (SES) and resource-based theories of political participation that emphasize individual-level factors and attitudes and advocates for more comparative analyses of political behavior that takes institutional factors seriously in explaining who participates and in which political activities.