State-Sponsored Democracy Promotion and Democratic Malaise in Latin America

• In Event: Popular Support for Democracy in Lower and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

Recent scholarship describes a period of democratic “malaise” or “fatigue” in Latin America, based on surprisingly powerful protest movements in countries like Chile and Peru, renewed public attraction to populist leaders in El Salvador, Brazil, and beyond, and direct challenges to democratic institutions in the form of executive aggrandizement and democratic backsliding. At the same time, survey research has generated considerable evidence of decreased public support for, and satisfaction with, democracy in the region (Zechmeister and Lupu 2019).

There are many reasons for democratic decline and decreased satisfaction in these countries. In this paper, I propose an additional factor that helps to explain negative attitudes towards democracy in some Latin American cases: state-sponsored messaging about the importance of voting as a means of fulfilling the responsibilities of democratic citizenship and holding those who govern “accountable.” This view of elections, which Achen and Bartels (2016) characterize as the “folk theory of democracy,” is widely accepted among scholars and citizens, and is often promoted by Latin American governments themselves. Yet empirical support for this view of elections is inconclusive, and the effects of disseminating these ideas among the public are unknown.

I illustrate that state-sponsored messaging, particularly during campaign periods, routinely implores citizens to vote and assures citizens that doing so will produce good governance. Yet citizens in most Latin American democracies can readily observe that the process does not work as advertised. Exclusive faith in elections is symptomatic of an impoverished understanding of democracy and the institutional framework that sustains it. When the quality of government fails to live up to the expectations generated by state rhetoric, the result is further dissatisfaction with democratic institutions.

Of course, other types of elite messaging, such as the repeated rhetorical attacks on electoral institutions by Bolsonaro (in Brazil) and López-Obrador (in Mexico), might also generate more negative attitudes towards democracy. But the full picture is a bit more complicated. Available evidence suggests, for example, that Brazilian voters have a positive view of electoral efficacy, and that support for democracy increased significantly during Bolsonaro’s term. Perhaps Bolsonaro’s rhetoric reduced trust in elections among his supporters, while also increasing the level of trust among other Brazilians. In contrast, Peruvian citizens of all ideological stripes have become significantly less supportive of democracy since about 2014, even as the national electoral authority (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones) introduced new public information campaigns to encourage voting.

I support this argument with a range of empirical materials, including a qualitative review of state-sponsored “get out the vote” campaigns in Peru and Mexico, recent public opinion data from the Americas Barometer (LAPOP), and election turnout data. I also outline a future research agenda that would provide clearer experimental tests of specific predictions about the exposure to state-sponsored messaging about elections.

I have presented drafts of this paper at workshops at Princeton and Syracuse universities, so the paper is already written and ready for distribution. The paper would fit with any panel on electoral mechanisms of accountability, public support for democracy, or voting behavior. It would fit best on a panel devoted to Latin America or to developing democracies in other regions.

Works Cited:

Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. 2016. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Zechmeister, Elizabeth J., and Noam Lupu, Eds. 2019. Pulse of Democracy. Nashville, TN: LAPOP.

Author

• Matthew R. Cleary, Syracuse University