Political Belief System Networks in Latin America

• In Event: Networks, Elites and Social Norms

Abstract

How Latin Americans organize their political beliefs? In this article I examine the degree to which partisan, ideological and charismatic political identities are central in Latin Americans’ belief systems and explain cross-national variation in terms of their centrality. How central are partisan, charismatic, and ideological identities in Latin Americans’ belief systems? What explains cross-national variation in the centrality of different political identities? In what cases are charismatic and ideological identities more relevant than partisan ones? While previous research in the United States has shown that political identities, in particular partisanship, play a central role structuring belief systems, we know much less about how belief systems are structured in places where partisanship is not as strong. I argue that the relative centrality of different political identities is associated with the characteristics of the party system. Based on self-categorization theory, I claim that different political contexts can raise or diminish the importance of some political categories over others. Within the broader political context, I focus on the characteristics of the party system, a key element of the domestic political landscape. Following Boutlyne and Vaisey (2017), I understand belief systems and modeled as networks of attitudes, and show that political identities are core to Latin Americans’ belief systems and that there is substantive degree of cross-national variation in terms of the centrality of each type of identity.

Author

• Nicolás de la Cerda, Tulane University