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Between perception and reality: the economy and trust in Latin American political institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2018

Vincenzo Memoli Open the ORCID record for Vincenzo Memoli [Opens in a new window]  and
Maria Pina Di Pastena
Vincenzo Memoli*
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Catania, Department of Political and Social Science, Catania, Italy
Maria Pina Di Pastena
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi del Molise, Department of Economy, Campobasso, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

What is the effect of the economy on political trust among Latin American countries? The few studies that have examined the causal link between the economy and trust in institutions have observed the phenomenon in a synchronic way, adopting information collected at the individual or at the aggregate level. The results shown by these works reveal a citizenry that is dissatisfied, less tolerant towards the political class, and oriented to de-legitimize the political system. In this work, which analyses the political attitudes of citizens in 18 Latin American countries from a longitudinal perspective (1996–2013), the conjoint effect that economic perceptions and the real economy have on political trust is estimated. In particular, by using data from the Latinobarómetro, we show that in contexts where the political regime continues to alternate between democracy and authoritarianism, citizens’ sociotropic understanding of the economy contributes to strengthening the relationship between citizens and political institutions.

Keywords

political trusteconomic perceptionLatin Americapolitical institutions
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 229 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2018 

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Memoli and Di Pastena Dataset

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https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/0BQX6X
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