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Conditional Accountability for the Economy, Insecurity, and Corruption Across Latin American Party Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2020

Matthew M. Singer Open the ORCID record for Matthew M. Singer [Opens in a new window]
Matthew M. Singer*
Affiliation:
Matthew M. Singer is an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut. [email protected].
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Abstract

The association between how citizens perceive economic performance, insecurity, or corruption and how they evaluate the president varies systematically across Latin American countries and within them over time. In particular, while presidential popularity reflects these outcomes in the average Latin American country, survey data from 2006–17 confirm that the connection between government performance and presidential approval is generally stronger when unfragmented party systems or single-party majority governments make assessments of political responsibility easier. While these results suggest that the region’s citizens do not blindly blame the president for outcomes where political responsibility should be shared, they also remind us that there are many countries in the region where fragmented party systems weaken the conditions for effective political accountability.

Keywords

Accountabilityparty system fragmentationeconomic votinginsecuritycorruptionclarity of responsibility
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 126 - 152
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the University of Miami

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Footnotes

Conflict of interest: I, Matthew M. Singer, declare none.

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