Crime, elites, and democratic support in Latin America

This dissertation uses insights from political psychology and theories of elite influence to examine an important but understudied aspect of democratization - the role of physical insecurity in transitional democracies. To examine how elites affect citizen support for democracy, I focus on the region of Latin America, an area of the world dealing with extraordinary levels of criminal violence at the same time that most of its member countries are still trying to consolidate their relatively young democracies. As violent crime rates continue to rise in Latin America and impunity becomes a fact of life, it is reasonable to fear that this may threaten the process of consolidation. The aspect of democratization that I focus on in this work is the public support for democratic values, principles, and institutions. If the democracies of Latin America fail to meet the most basic of responsibilities---protecting its citizens' physical security, then it may cause citizens to question their support for a truly democratic regime. A number of seminal works in the area of democratization recognize that the widespread public perception that democracies are not successfully carrying out the basic functions of government, will likely undermine consolidation (Lipset, 1961; Easton, 1975; Linz, 1978). In other words, democracy will suffer significantly and may not survive if citizens do not feel that it can provide for their essential needs, and perceive it to be an ineffective form of government. Indeed, this is not an unpopular belief. Various international organizations operate as if this relationship were the case, committing resources in the form of aid to nascent democracies dedicated to reducing crime and enhancing police operations all in the name of protecting democracy. Although scholars have long recognized the threat to democracy represented by criminal violence, and the existence of what O'Donnell (1994) called "brown spaces" outside the state's ability to provide rule of law, we still know relatively little about the mechanism by which physical insecurity undermines public support for democracy. While scholars expect that the growing prevalence of violent street crime will undermine support for democratic principles (Bateson, 2012; Malone, 2010; Demombynes, 2009), evidence is inconsistent and inconclusive.;This dissertation is novel in that it incorporates an important element of the crime and democracy story which has yet to be seriously analyzed---the role of elites. Drawing from Affective Intelligence theory in Political Psychology, I offer a new explanation of how citizen support for democracy in the face of high crime rates is moderated by the influence of elite actors. By applying a theory of opinion formation, I am able to derive the conditions under which the rampant crime experienced by many Latin American countries represents a serious threat to citizen support for democratic principles and institutions, and potentially democracy itself. Specifically, I find that the anxiety produced by physical insecurity does not have a monolithic effect across all national contexts. Criminal violence represents a threat to democratic support in that it makes anxious citizens more vulnerable to the messaging of authoritarian elites. When elites are promoting anti-democratic ideas and policies, fearful citizens are less supportive of democratic principles. But when the elite environment is not sufficiently authoritarian, crime-induced anxiety has no effect on democratic support. In addition to examining the role of elites in affecting attitudes about democratic values, I also analyze how elites---both in terms of their political and media resources---affect attitudes toward specific criminal justice institutions, in particular the police. In order to support the theoretical claims of this dissertation, I employ a mixed methods strategy that consists of qualitative case studies informed by semi-structured elite interviews, statistical analysis of survey data from all eighteen Latin American democracies, and content analysis of newspapers from fourteen countries in the region. The findings have important implications for scholars and practitioners of democratization in terms of the role of elites and the consequences of widespread criminal violence in transitional democracies.