The Political Consequences of Decreasing Inequality: New Electoral Alignments in Latin America

• In Event: Elections and Voting Behavior in Latin America

Abstract

This paper presents new evidence of an ongoing process of electoral realignment affecting most Latin American countries and interprets this phenomenon as a direct consequence of these countries’ increasing investments in social policies. The only countries where such a process has not been observed are those where levels of income inequality have either increased or not changed substantially in the past two decades. Interestingly, the electoral bases of all incumbent parties ruling in times of decreasing inequality were affected similarly, independently of their ideology: poor voters joined their ranks, upper class voters defected to the opposition, and voters’ social classes became a stronger correlate of electoral behavior. As a consequence, the degree of electoral polarization in Latin American countries has reached levels remarkably high for historical standards. To empirically demonstrate this, I analyze data from electoral courts, social development ministries and other governmental institutions, all of which gathered by a team of researchers at the Núcleo de Estudos Comparados e Internacionais / University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The geographic ramifications of the phenomenon revealed by the data are striking: incumbents’ electoral bases have weakened in most Latin American capitals and major metropolitan areas, at the same time that they strengthened in the least developed areas of the countryside. This is explained, for the most part, by the fact that public and social investments increased in the latter areas by much higher rates than in the former ones.

Author

• Diego Sanches Corrêa, Universidade de São Paulo