Latin America’s “New” Polarization: Elite and Mass Levels of Analysis

• In Event: Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference I: Polarization in Developing Democracies

Abstract

Although several democratic regimes in Latin America have become increasingly polarized in the past decade, it is not clear why. Existing public opinion data is not moving in a uniformly polarizing direction. But even where public opinion is, in the aggregate, moderate or centrist, established political parties have collapsed in much of the region; political centers have dissipated almost everywhere; and in some unlikely cases, established parties have been outflanked by protest movements on both the left and the right, leading to highly polarized, high-stakes electoral contests. This paper examines the multidimensional character of polarization processes in an effort to explain how elite and mass levels of analysis do and do not align with one another – or why societies that do not appear to be highly polarized in public opinion surveys end up voting for highly polarized alternatives in the electoral arena. To develop this analysis, the paper uses a combination of public opinion and electoral data, as well as comparative case studies.

Authors

• Santiago Anria, Cornell University

• Kenneth M. Roberts, Cornell University