Trust in Latin American Governing Institutions

The end of dictatorships, civil wars, and exclusive party systems by the close of the 20th century was a genuine cause for optimism about democracy in Latin America. Once the euphoria surrounding transitions subsided, the cold realities of transitioning to open market economies thrust the region into a crisis of representation. That is, Latin America’s parties, elected officials, and voters struggled mightily to achieve the democratic ideals of representation, accountability, effective citizenship rights, and rule of law (inter alia, Frances Hagopian’s “After Regime Change: Authoritarian Legacies, Political Representation and the Democratic Future of South America”; Jorge Domínguez’s “Latin America’s Crisis of Representation”; Kenneth M. Roberts’s “Party-Society Linkages and Democratic Representation in Latin America”; Scott Mainwaring’s “The Crisis of Representation in the Andes”). In many Latin American countries, a general malaise set in that bubbled over (again) with protests in 2019. COVID-19’s global pandemic placed a temporary lid on this simmering situation but likely exacerbated the region’s crisis of representation. Viewed as a barometer for democratic viability, political trust has become a lynchpin among institutional, behavioral, and cultural theories of democratization. Though “political trust” could refer to myriad institutions, we conceptually circumscribe it to governments, legislatures, political parties, local government, the judiciary, the police, the military, and the civil service / bureaucracy. We acknowledge that a research tradition built on David Easton’s conception of political system support (A Systems Analysis of Political Life, 1965; “A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support,” 1975) views presidential approval and satisfaction with democracy as conceptually kindred to political trust. We nevertheless distinguish these concepts because satisfaction with democracy remains in conceptual and empirical limbo after decades of debate. Moreover, early-21st-century work from the Executive Approval Project and others diverges theoretically from political trust by considering characteristics (e.g., gender, ideology) and actions (e.g., scandals, executive decrees) of a single person, the president, as opposed to institutions more broadly. We also acknowledge the tradition of Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic Culture (1963), which analyzes interpersonal trust alongside political trust. Research on interpersonal trust in the region has, unfortunately, lagged behind research on political trust and, if anything, has hewn more closely to the multidisciplinary work on prosociality than the culturalist tradition. In sum, interpersonal trust, presidential approval, and support for and satisfaction with democracy arise in the works cited in this article. But we view them as conceptually distinct from political trust and judge the scholarly advances related to the latter as worthy of separate treatment. Scholars have invested vast resources into measuring political trust, theorizing its drivers, and modeling its implications. This article explores advances on those three fronts. Along the way it highlights major breakthroughs and unresolved questions.

Challenging the Argentine Melting Pot: Peronism, Hispanidad, and Cultural Diversity

On 12 October 1947, Argentine President, Juan Domingo Perón, used the events of the Hispanidad Day to extoll the Spanish heritage in Latin America. Within a few years, however, Perón well understood the futility of using Hispanidad as the basis of a new national consciousness for the Argentine immigrant society. Instead, he opted for a corporative mode of political representation under the aegis of the ‘organized community’. This model was designed to be of an inclusive nature and to offer space not only to different social groups, but also to the variety of ethnic and immigrant groups of Argentine society. This new concept of corporative citizenship facilitated a heightened recognition of collective rights, which manifested in the gradual integration of Argentines of Jewish, Arab, or Japanese origins in the political system, as well as that of indigenous peoples’ movements. By the early 1950s, Peronism had adopted a more inclusive perspective and began to demonstrate respect for all religions. Peronism aspired to confront the transgressions of the privileged few by protecting the rights of minorities and marginalized groups. Thus, it also challenged the traditional melting pot with its emphasis on White, European, and Christian Argentines.

Contemporary Populist Representation and Its Implications for Democracy

This chapter aims to shed light on the connections between populism, democracy, and democratic theory by providing a theoretical assessment of contemporary populism and populist representation as an alternative form of political representation to party government or as a corrective of it. The chapter summarizes the conceptual background relating to democracies, populism, and contextual surroundings. Then, it proceeds to investigate how they relate to each other in present-day politics. The author argues that populism is a strategic political style that exploits the gap between the promise and the actual performance of democracies thus reflects on democratic reality. Hence, it embodies what realist democratic theory has argued for quite some time now about the nature of politics. Namely: voters are irrational, our notions of democracy are delusional and populist politicians seem to have realized it first..

Political Representation of Gender in Nepal

This paper is based on qualitative methods and discusses women's struggle for equal political participation, currently successful in the political representation of gender in Nepal. The aim of this paper is to examine the establishing equal representation in all sectors of elected government and to find out the inclusive participation of male and female in Nepalese, politics and parliament in together. It is based on completely secondary sources of data through the published in different governmental (election commission, 2074) and non-governmental organization. Nepal has been undergoing tremendous socio-political transformations over the past three decades, unitary to federal and monarchical government to the current republican political system; Nepali women have established themselves as key actors of socio-political changes. Nepali women began their struggle during the Rana Regime and advanced since the 1950s, by engaging both in popular peaceful political movements to armed insurgency and parliamentary competition with their male political counterparts. As a result, latest constitution of Nepal ensured 33% of seats are guaranteed to the parliaments and all other government positions as well as provision of male-female alternates eat provisions. As a result, from the national and local elections of 2017-18, women have come to occupy 41.8 percent political positions across the country. One of the key factors to ensure higher and meaningful participation of women in politics was these favorable electoral provisions. Women have demonstrated success in achieving higher participation in political positions. However, what has been achieved so far is not enough and continued rigorous action among all actors is essential.

Demandas de representação e comunicação no Facebook: análise de fanpages de organizações indigenistas

Este artigo consiste em análise de conteúdo das fanpages das organizações Mobilização Nacional Indígena e Conselho Indigenista Missionário na rede social Facebook, entre agosto e novembro de 2017, considerando a proposta dos elementos de cultura de comunicação on-line de Kavada (2013) e identificação de demandas de representação (representative claim) segundo Saward (2010). Os resultados indicam que as organizações levantam demandas semelhantes, como a demarcação de terras indígenas, mas têm diferenças em relação à abordagem dos conteúdos, fins e funções da comunicação, o que abre espaço para problemas quanto à representação política não eleitoral de povos indígenas.Representative claims and communication on Facebook: indigenists organizations fan pages analysisAbstractThis article consists of content analysis of the fan pages of the organizations Mobilização Nacional Indígena and Conselho Indigenista Missionário on the Facebook, between August and November 2017, considering the proposal of the elements of Kavada's online communication culture (2013) and identification of representative claims (SAWARD, 2010). The results indicate that the organizations raise similar demands, such as the demarcation of indigenous lands, but have differences in relation to the approach to the contents and purposes and functions of communication, which opens space for problems regarding the non-electoral political representation of indigenous peoples.Keywords: indigenous movement; Facebook; political representation; communication culture.

The empowerment of Latin American women in politics

The book untitle: “The empowerment of Latin American women in politics” is integrated by three chapters. The first one covers elements related to female empowerment in politics, especifically the topics related to feminist theory and political representation. The second one deals with empowerment and political participation of women in Latin America; it highlights the status of women and their political participation as well as the influencing factors in women’s political participation. The third one transactions with neutrosophical evaluation of the political participation of women candidates and elected officials of the provincial municipality of Huamanga.