En Dios Confiamos”: Politics, Populism, and Pentecostalism in Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua

• In Event: Pentecostalism in Latin America: Political and Religious Change

Abstract

While much of the scholarship on religion and politics in Latin America has portrayed Pentecostalism as either a retrogressive and demobilizing force or a harbinger of democracy and development, scholars of religion have recently and emphatically denied this bifurcated schema. While academics may be prone to view ideological scales on in a linear left/right fashion, the politics of Pentecostalism in Latin America is multidimensional and rarely conforms to such a linear model. Using data from the 2004 to 2014 Americas Barometer surveys, this article examines attitudes toward politics among Nicaraguan Protestants, who now represent an astounding 38.4% of the total national population in Nicaragua. We found that while Pentecostals were more conservative than Catholics or the non-affiliated on specific social issues such as abortion and homosexuality, they were equally or more supportive than Catholics for President Ortega and the FSLN and differed little from Catholics on a scale for ideological self-placement. The Nicaraguan case is telling, because it suggests that populist politicians such as Daniel Ortega have discovered a potential winning electoral strategy by combining hot button public morality issues (such as homosexuality and abortion) with a leftist political agenda.

Authors

• Timothy J Steigenga, Florida Atlantic University

• Kenneth M Coleman, University of Michigan