Social Unrest, Elite Cues and Changing Democratic Norms: Evidence from Chile

• In Event: Protest Dynamics and Social Change

Abstract

What is the effect of protests on individuals’ support for democracy? Beyond their success (or failure) in achieving the specific goals for which they were organized, protests can have widespread effects if they are able to change the way people see institutions, politics, or democracy itself. Further, how might citizen attitudes towards their government change when these protests are accompanied by disorder, vandalism, and violence, and subsequent police suppression? When the violent actions of protestors and reactions by state security officials – rather than protestor demands –become the focus of media attention, and politicians on the right start to emphasize “mano dura” (iron fist) punishments, the elite cues literature suggests that support for democratic norms ought to decrease among citizens on the right. Using data from Chile, however, we find evidence for the reverse.
First, we conduct a content analysis using the newspapers and politicians’ YouTube videos to show that elite rhetoric did shift following the protests. Politicians on the right started emphasizing more “mano dura” punishments to protesters. In response, politicians on the left reacted by emphasizing human rights and advocating for restrictions on the police.
Second, we use panel data in Chile from 2016-2022 to show how citizen support for democracy changed during the protests. We find that right-leaning citizens barely move in their support for democracy, regardless of what their preferred leaders were saying. Instead, both independents and those who identify with the political left surged in their support for democracy. Because the 2019 round of the panel data was fielded during and immediately after the protests, but before Chile’s first COVID-19 case in early 2020, we can confidently attribute any attitude changes during this period to the protests, rather than COVID-19. Additionally, in our analyses, we demonstrate that protests did not significantly alter perceptions of security threat among right-wing citizens. This observation may explain why support for democracy scarcely shifted among individuals leaning towards the right, regardless of cues from right-wing politicians.
These findings suggest that the impact of elite cues on public opinion depends on the interaction among political elites. Riots and street violence associated with protests may prompt right-wing politicians to advocate for “mano dura” policies. In response, this strategic move compels their opponents, left-wing politicians, to endorse increased police oversight. Therefore, this paper proposes an alternative mechanism to explain how large-scale demonstrations can result in greater popular support for democratic institutions.

Authors

• Isabella Randle

• Jaime Lindh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill