Democracy in the Protest State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mason W. Moseley
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Important Addition ◽  
Recent Trends

The book ends with a chapter on the implications and conclusions to be drawn from its findings, and avenues for future research. Few scholars have examined the consequences of varying levels of institutional quality for mass political participation in Third Wave democracies, making the findings of this book an important addition to our understanding of important political phenomena in Latin America. Moreover, by connecting these institutional factors to recent trends in political engagement in the region, it explains how socioeconomic gains can produce heightened rates of protest participation in certain institutional environments. Overall, the findings from this book call for a recalibration of the received wisdom on the nexus between political institutions, civic engagement, and contentious politics, and deepen our understanding of Latin American democracy today.

Seeing Women, Strengthening Democracy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magda Hinojosa ◽  
Miki Caul Kittilson
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Gender Gaps ◽  
Women's Representation ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Women’S Representation ◽  
The Impact

How does the more equitable representation of women in positions of power affect male and female citizens? We argue that the election of women to political office—particularly where women’s presence is highly visible to the public—strengthens the connections between women and the democratic process. For women, seeing more “people like me” in politics changes attitudes and orientations toward the democratic process. Substantial variation persists across Latin America in gender gaps in political engagement and political support. To assess the effects that women’s officeholding has on these, we pair comparative survey data from Latin American countries with case study evidence from Uruguay. The Uruguayan case offers a unique laboratory for testing the impact of women’s representation in elected positions of power on political engagement and support. Our panel survey of Uruguayan citizens reveals that the expected gender gaps in political knowledge, political interest, and other forms of political engagement were alive and well six weeks before the elections. Yet, just six weeks following the election—after the use of a gender quota had led to a doubling of women’s representation in the Senate—those gender gaps had largely disappeared or had significantly waned. Our findings indicate that far-reaching gender gaps can be overcome by more equitable representation in our political institutions.

Protest State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mason W. Moseley
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Weak Institutions ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Government Responsiveness

In the midst of an unprecedented era of democratic governments and economic prosperity, why are a record number of Latin American citizens choosing to participate in protests? This book argues that increasingly engaged citizenries, forged by economic progress and technological advances throughout the region, combined with dysfunctional political institutions have fueled more contentious modes of participation in Latin America, as citizens’ demands for government responsiveness have overwhelmed many regimes’ institutional capacity to provide it. Where weak institutions and active citizenries collide, countries can morph into “protest states,” where contentious participation becomes so common as to render it a conventional characteristic of everyday political life. Drawing on cross-national surveys from Latin America and a case study of Argentina, which includes a rich dataset of protest events and dozens of interviews with political elites and citizen activists, Moseley tests this explanation against other leading theories in the contentious politics literature. Rather than emphasizing how worsening economic conditions and mounting grievances fuel protest, this book builds the case that it is actually the improvement of economic conditions amid low-quality political institutions that lies at the root of surging contention in the region. In presenting and systematically defending this novel approach, Protest State offers a comprehensive multilevel, mixed-methods study of one of the most intriguing puzzles in Latin American politics today.

The Rise of Outsiders in Latin America, 1980–2010

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (12) ◽  
pp. 1451-1482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Carreras
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
Favorable Conditions ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis

One of the most significant developments in Latin American democracies since the beginning of the third wave of democratization is the rise to political prominence of outsider candidates in presidential elections. I use an original database of political outsiders in Latin America to examine the institutional factors that contribute to the emergence of political outsiders. Using a fixed effects variance decomposition (FEVD) model, I find that, in addition to the favorable conditions already identified in the literature—legitimacy crisis of traditional political parties and negative socioeconomic conditions—the rise of political outsiders is determined by institutional factors, such as nonconcurrent elections, compulsory voting rules, and reelection provisions.

Contribution to a Historical-Structuralist Understanding of Latin American Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 089692052094035
Author(s):  
Eduardo Enríquez Arévalo
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
The World ◽  
Structuralist View ◽  
Democratic Systems

Mainstream views for the study of democracy and of democracy in Latin America tend to center around a restricted model of democratic systems, which decides to ignore the wider social environment in which they exist. This article seeks to contribute toward a more sociological understanding of democracy and democratization in Latin America and the world. It does that through a review of structuralist and neo-structuralist theories of democracy and of Latin American democracy, which is put in dialogue and confrontation with mainstream political science views of democracy and more recent critical views of really existing democracy. From that exercise the article proposes what it calls a historical-structuralist view of Latin American democracy based on looking at the interaction of social structures, political institutions, and sociopolitical actors, to understand its democratic systems as determined by the possession or lack of sociopolitical power through resources within the inequalities of capitalist and global structures.

Citizen Deliberation Online

2019 ◽  
pp. 689-712
Author(s):  
Patrícia Rossini ◽  
Jennifer Stromer-Galley
Keyword(s):  
Political Engagement ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Conversation ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Citizen Deliberation ◽  
The Impact

Political conversation is at the heart of democratic societies, and it is an important precursor of political engagement. As society has become intertwined with the communication infrastructure of the Internet, we need to understand its uses and the implications of those uses for democracy. This chapter provides an overview of the core topics of scholarly concern around online citizen deliberation, focusing on three key areas of research: the standards of quality of communication and the normative stance on citizen deliberation online; the impact and importance of digital platforms in structuring political talk; and the differences between formal and informal political talk spaces. After providing a critical review of these three major areas of research, we outline directions for future research on online citizen deliberation.

A Trump Effect? Women and the 2018 Midterm Elections

The Forum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Lawless ◽  
Richard L. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Candidate Emergence ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Negative Feelings

Abstract From the moment Donald Trump took the oath of office, women’s political engagement skyrocketed. This groundswell of activism almost immediately led to widespread reporting that Trump’s victory was inspiring a large new crop of female candidates across the country. We rely on a May 2017 national survey of “potential candidates” and the 2018 midterm election results to assess whether this “Trump Effect” materialized. Our analysis uncovers some evidence for it. Democrats – especially women – held very negative feelings toward Trump, and those feelings generated heightened political interest and activity during the 2018 election cycle. That activism, however, was not accompanied by a broad scale surge in women’s interest in running for office. In fact, the overall gender gap in political ambition today is quite similar to the gap we’ve uncovered throughout the last 20 years. Notably, though, about one quarter of the Democratic women who expressed interest in running for office first started thinking about it only after Trump was elected. That relatively small group of newly interested candidates was sufficient to result in a record number of Democratic women seeking and winning election to Congress. With no commensurate increase in Republican women’s political engagement or candidate emergence, however, prospects for gender parity in US political institutions remain bleak.

Ethnic Differences in the Smoking-Related Risk of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Piovani ◽  
Claudia Pansieri ◽  
Soumya R R Kotha ◽  
Amanda C Piazza ◽  
Celia-Louise Comberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inflammatory Bowel Disease ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Bowel Disease ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Related Risk ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Inflammatory Bowel

Abstract Background and aims The association between smoking and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) relies on old meta-analyses including exclusively non-Jewish White populations. Uncertainty persists regarding the role of smoking in other ethnicities. Methods We systematically searched Medline/PubMed, Embase and Scopus for studies examining tobacco smoking and the risk of developing IBD, i.e., Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC). Two authors independently extracted study data and assessed each study’s risk-of-bias. We examined heterogeneity and small-study effect, and calculated summary estimates using random-effects models. Stratified analyses and meta-regression were employed to study the association between study-level characteristics and effect estimates. The strength of epidemiological evidence was assessed through prespecified criteria. Results We synthesized 57 studies examining the smoking-related risk of developing CD and UC. Non-Jewish White smokers were at increased risk of CD (29 studies; RR: 1.95, 95% CI: 1.69‒2.24; moderate evidence). No association was observed in Asian, Jewish and Latin-American populations (11 studies; RR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.83–1.13), with no evidence of heterogeneity across these ethnicities. Smokers were at reduced risk of UC (51 studies; RR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.48–0.64; weak evidence) irrespectively of ethnicity; however, cohort studies, large studies and those recently published showed attenuated associations. Conclusions This meta-analysis did not identify any increased risk of CD in smokers in ethnicities other than non-Jewish Whites, and confirmed the protective effect of smoking on UC occurrence. Future research should characterize the genetic background of CD patients across different ethnicities to improve our understanding on the role of smoking in CD pathogenesis.

scholarly journals Chiming In: A Computer-Assisted Analysis of Popular Musicians’ Political Engagement on Twitter

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110190
Author(s):  
Josephine Lukito ◽  
Luis Loya ◽  
Carlos Dávalos ◽  
Jianing Li ◽  
Chau Tong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Christian Music ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
Systematic Examination ◽  
Assisted Analysis

While music as an artistic form is well studied, the individuals behind the art receive relatively less attention. In this article, we provide evidence of celebrity advocacy with a systematic examination of musicians’ political engagement on Twitter. This study estimates the extent to which musicians use Twitter for political purposes, with particular attention to whether such engagement varies across music genres. Through a computational-assisted analysis of 2,286,434 tweets, we group 881 musicians into three categories of political engagement on Twitter: not engaged (comprising the majority of artists), circumstantial engagement, and active political engagement. We examine the latter categories in detail with two qualitative case studies. The findings indicate that musicians from different genres have distinct patterns of political engagement. The Christian music genre shows the most engagement as a whole, especially in philanthropy. On the contrary, the most active accounts are rock and hip-hop artists, some of whom discuss political issues and call for mobilization. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

scholarly journals Geosocial Networking Apps Use Among Sexual Minority Men in Ecuador: An Exploratory Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Hermosa-Bosano ◽  
Paula Hidalgo-Andrade ◽  
Clara Paz
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Sexual Minority ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Romantic Relationship ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sexual Minority Men ◽  
Geosocial Networking ◽  
Minority Men ◽  
Geosocial Networking Apps ◽  
Latin American Countries

AbstractGeosocial networking applications (GSN apps) have become important socialization contexts for sexual minority men (SMM). Despite their popularity, there is limited research carried out in Latin American countries and no single previous study done in Ecuador. To fill this gap, this exploratory study described and analyzed the relationships between the sociodemographic characteristics of SMM using GSN apps, their sought and fulfilled expectations, profile shared and sought characteristics, and the evaluation of their experiences as users including their perceptions of support, and discrimination. We used an online recruited sample of 303 participants enrolled between November 2019 and January 2020. Most respondents used Grindr and reported spending up to 3 h per day using apps. Most common sought expectations were getting distracted, meeting new friends, and meeting people for sexual encounters. The least met expectation was meeting someone to build a romantic relationship with. When asked about their profiles, participants reported sharing mainly their age, photographs, and sexual role. Participants also prioritized these characteristics when looking at others’ profiles. When asked about their experiences, most reported having been discriminated against, weight being the main reason for it. Some participants also indicated having received emotional support from other users. Correlation analyses indicated significant but weak relationships among the variables. Results indicated a positive correlation between time as an active GSN app user and higher experiences of discrimination. Likewise, higher number of used apps related positively with levels of received support. These results provide information that could inform future research in the country and the region regarding GSN apps use among SMM, socialization practices, and modern dating tools.

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