Elites are out of touch: Latin American Elite and Mass Opinion on International Affairs

• In Event: Tackling contentious international issues: Public Opinion and international affairs in Latin America

Abstract

The proposed paper evaluates the causes and effects of different degrees of congruence between elite and mass opinion on international issues in Latin America. While few elections in the region can be said to turn on international issues, many elections turn on the degree to which people believe their politicians represent their views. In fact, international issues stand in for fundamental questions of the degree to which Left and Right voters believe that putatively Left and Right politicians represent them. Elite data comes from the Salamanca Observatorio de Elites Parliamentarias de America Latina, and public opinion data comes from the Las Americas y el Mundo project. Degrees of congruence will be measured using multiple techniques, including comparisons of many to many and many to one, and will be further spliced according to congruence and disjuncture specifically for Left and Right voters and parties to determine whether political systems essentially truncate one side of the spectrum in some countries.

Authors

• Aaron M Schneider, University of Denver

• Mariano Torcal, Universidad Pompeu Fabra