The Contours of Political Polarization in 21st Century Latin America

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Along with growing inequality and rapid demographic change owing to massive migration, political polarization is one of the tectonic forces shaping Latin American societies today. While the well-established literatures that describe how societal cleavages correspond to party systems have shown to not travel well to Latin American countries, recent evidence shows particular dynamics, in both parties and publics, that suggest the emergence of novel cleavages and polarizing forces.

Politics that mobilizes publics based on their identity is certainly not a novel phenomenon in the region. However, since the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1998, and after two decades of left-leaning governments in many countries, the region has increasingly seen the usage of discourses by leftist elites, defining a large, fluid and all-encompassing “us” —the people, the poor, the excluded— versus a vague, ever-changing and all-encompassing “them” —the rich, traditional parties, the media. Part reaction and part long-term formation and consolidation, right-wing elites have also adopted a polarizing rhetoric. Invocations to the return to social order, security, and fiscal responsibility are common currency in the repertoire of liberal-conservative actors that have —sometimes successfully— challenged progressive incumbents.

Some evidence suggests that polarization does not only exist in the rhetoric of the elites. Research monitoring the tactics of representatives in the legislatures shows that the use of assertive actions aiming at stalling other-side initiatives has become more common in recent years, creating dysfunctional outcomes and making it more difficult to govern via consensus. The question of whether this rhetoric and the tactics deployed by elites correlate with divisions among the public remains under scrutiny, but certain research suggests that the publics are becoming increasingly divided in their trust toward government and democratic institutions, and, importantly, more socially distant to those with whom they disagree.

In this panel, we bring together a collection of papers that speak to these recent developments and analytical challenges. As polarization is a multifaceted phenomenon, we leverage the skills and perspectives of multiple scholars in the spirit of assessing the current state and advancing our understanding of various aspects on polarization in Latin America.

Adding a critical layer of complexity to the study of party polarization, Mariano Torcal and Emily B. Carty take on the question of internal ideological variation within parties. Some level of polarization between parties is positive, the authors argue, as it signals clear and distinct political orientations to the electors. However, the interplay between party systems and within-party variation opens up multiple possibilities that range from highly polarized, highly cohesive parties to parties with low cohesion existing in undifferentiated party systems. In their paper, the authors explore the emergence of such multiple scenarios.

As an update to a useful metric proposed recently, Matthew Singer explores, comparatively, how political parties in the region fall in the left-right continuum and appeal to different publics. The author examines the relations between various identities —poor, indigenous—and voting intentions, and assesses the strength of these associations in different countries marked by varying degrees of ideological polarization.

While elite polarization merits scholarly attention, the concurrent process of mass polarization is an analytical challenge in its own right. When elites signal divisions, what happens to the public? Building on the literature on affective polarization, Lisa Zanotti and Carlos Meléndez use original survey data to examine the extent to which social groups in Peru dislike specific elites —and each other— in the context of the most recent presidential election.

Finally, using data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project, Paolo Moncagatta and Javier Rodríguez present a comparative analysis of the differences in mass ideological polarization processes across the countries in the region. Specifically, they propose a measure of polarization based on citizens´ self-positioning on the ideological left-right scale to then examine the dynamics of polarization occurring in eighteen Latin American countries.

It is our hope that this panel will attract both scholars of Latin American politics and polarization researchers interested in polarization processes outside Europe and the United States. The panel showcases different approaches to the issue of polarization and, we hope, will contribute to the work of our scholarly community.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Birds of a Feather? Elite Polarization and Ideological Cohesion in Latin America - Mariano Torcal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Emily B Carty, University of Salamanca

• Elite Polarization and Demographic-Based Electoral Cleavages in the Americas - Matthew Singer, University of Connecticut

• Affective Polarization and Negative Identities in Peru - Lisa Zanotti, Diego Portales University; Carlos Melendez, Universidad Diego Portales

• Processes of Ideological Polarization in 21st Century Latin America - Paolo Moncagatta, Universidad San Francisco de Quito; Javier Rodríguez, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Chair

• Paolo Moncagatta Universidad San Francisco de Quito

Discussant

• Amy Erica Smith Iowa State University