Public Opinion and Turmoil In Latin American Democracies

This book analyzes the impacts of growing political turmoil and distrust in democracy on public opinion, political communication and electoral behavior of Latin American citizens over the first two decades of the 21st century. During this period, Latin American’s young democracies, which were in the process of consolidation, have faced a number of unresolved challenges, such as growing distrust in representative institutions and the judiciary, anti-system protests, the emergence of radical right groups and the election of outsiders and populist leaders. At the same time, Latin American citizens became more suspicious of corporate communication channels and started to trust more in information from social media, while scientific denialism and support to the Armed Forces and to religious groups have also grown. The rise of new right-wing and left-wing forces in Latin America, along with the proliferation of populist leaders from various ideological camps, have produced informational reconfigurations, with the strengthening of digital social media as an important source of political information and disinformation. All these processes have deeply affected public opinion and political behavior in the region, making election campaigns more polarized, radicalized and based on false messages, while the electorate also has gone through major changes, becoming more independent of parties, less young, more religious and with a greater presence of women. Public Opinion and Turmoil in Latin American Democracies analyzes how political turbulence, sociodemographic changes and frustration with the unfulfilled promises of the democratic regimes inaugurated in the last decades of the 20th century have produced important transformations on public opinion that deeply reshaped political behavior leading to an unprecedented crisis of democracy across the region.