Ethnoracial Inequality and the Discrediting of Democracy

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

Abstract

This paper considers how ethnoracial hierarchies within democratic systems shape people as democratic citizens. We argue that ethnoracial hierarchies threaten democratic commitments across society by alienating the marginalized while at the same time rationalizing privilege. We also develop and evaluate a framework that emphasizes how politicized group consciousness shapes whether those in marginalized groups are particularly vulnerable or resilient to the negative consequences of exclusion. We leverage evidence from cross-national analysis across Latin America, temporal analysis in Bolivia, interviews in Peru as well as two survey experiments fielded in Colombia and Peru. The findings demonstrate that ethnoracial hierarchies are associated with weaker democratic commitments across all ethnoracial groups. We also find some evidence that Afro-descendant Latin Americans have more resilient democratic commitments than Indigenous people because Afro-descendants tend to have higher group consciousness. This paper contributes a theoretical foundation for understanding how ethnoracial hierarchies pose a fundamental challenge to democracy and provides empirical evidence that systemic marginalization inhibits democratic commitments---not only among those who belong to minoritized groups but across society.

Authors

• Jana Morgan, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

• Nathan J. Kelly, Rutgers University, New Brunswick