Support for Strong Non-democratic Leadership and Confusion with Democracy: Explaining Variation in Support for NAFTA in Mexico

Introduction to Political Science Methods, and Data IDecember 14, 2015

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Abstract

This paper examines Mexican citizens’ confidence level in NAFTA using the 2010-2014 wave of the World Values Survey. While previous literature on citizen support for Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) has found that identity and cultural factors play a major role (Rankin 2004, Inglehart 1996), and that support for other institutions is closely related few have considered the psychology behind preference for the more simple direct decision making process they represent. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, (2001) found that U.S. citizens do not like democratic deliberation. This distaste for the democratic process could cause RTA support. I find a positive relationship between support for a strong unaccountable leader and confidence in NAFTA after controlling for the factors of tendency to approve and North American Identity. I also find that being confused about what democracy means is positively related to confidence in NAFTA after controlling. My analysis provides further evidence for the global trend in democratic backsliding in favor of more efficient decision making and I contribute that RTAs are another manifestation of public desire for results rather than democratic process.

In recent decades Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) have become not only

nearly ubiquitous but also increasingly powerful (diao et al. 2002). The EU, NAFTA,

ASEAN, the Arab league, and the like are drivers of increased regional economic (and

sometimes other) integration. They have shown reasonable effectiveness at preventing

regional conflict and facilitating growth (Martin et al., 2012). As their bodies of policy

become increasingly large, the impact their policy has on citizens in the region increases.

Such regional organizations are a major instance of globalization’s reach in the 21st

century.

RTA’s are commonly criticized for their lack of democratic accountability (Lord,

2008). They tend to be lead efficiently rather than democratically. Therefore, we would

expect for citizens with high levels of support for democracy to be more likely to dislike

RTAS. Yet many RTA’s claim that they promote democracy in their member states and

in many developing countries, such a Mexico, the case I shall examine, political

discourse about joining an RTA has been inextricably linked with the goal of a more

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democratic regime type. Before NAFTA was ratified, many Mexicans believed that the

foreign direct investment and other growth creating benefits would help end Mexico’s

one party rule (Castañeda, 1993).

This creates a major puzzle. Would we expect democrats to support or oppose

RTAs? In this paper, I hypothesis that those who would support a strong non-democratic

leader are more likely to support NAFTA because they find the efficient, non-deliberative

process, refreshingly expedient. I global trend seems to exist toward efficient leadership

styles at the expense of democratic process (Freedom House, 2013, Sinykin, 2015).

Additionally, I expect that for those respondents who do not understand the nature

of democracy an RTA will be more appealing than for those who understand democracy.

This is because they find democratic deliberation confusing and unnecessary since they

do not understand its purpose or meaning. Compared to the public discourse in domestic

democracy the closure and certainty that NAFTA brings about policy will be desirable

for those who are confused with democracy.

This study is worth doing because it helps us understand what causes support for

globalization. For the average citizen, RTAs are among the most obvious, unified, and

relevant institutions that represent globalization. They are also a policy choice by the

national government, taken with or without public approval. This is important, because

unlike the actions of Multinational Corporations or more global International

Governmental Organizations, RTAs are much more well-known to citizens and likely to

be influenced by national governments. Citizen approval for RTAs is one good way of

examining approval of globalization.

It is important to understand what circumstances lead to citizens feeling that

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globalization is favorable or unfavorable. Many extremist movements, instances of

xenophobia, and other violent political events are a result of citizens disapproving of

globalization in one way or another. Bussmann and Schneider (2007) show that

globalization can cause violent instability within a country when those who perceive

themselves as being hurt by changes are likely to become politically violent. Similarly,

Appadurai (1998) shows that interethnic violence intensifies and becomes more rage-

driven as a result of globalization. Again, the conflict is initiated by those who feel

uncertain about the future under the context of globalization. Understanding why citizens

hold these feelings toward globalization may help explain these reactions and ultimately

aid in preventing ethnic violence and instability.

Confidence in RTAs has primarily been explained through economic and cultural

lenses. The material gain of a respondent from globalization has been shown to be a

major predictor of support. Those with more openness to diversity and other cultures

also have a higher level of confidence while those with more national pride are less likely

to have

It is well documented that those who support one institution are more likely to

support others (Easton, 1975). Therefore I have developed a measure of tendency to

support institutions in order to control for this trait and see the relationship between

regime type support and confidence in NAFTA without this spurious relationship.

Understanding the relationship between levels of support for democracy and

RTAs in the context of developing economies and democratizing countries is vital for

understanding development and democracy. It is normatively desirable for development

and democratization to occur simultaneously. We need to know whether RTA’s are as

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good for democratic consolidation as they can be for trade. New democracies are the

victims of the perverse fact that they have finally emerged as democracies at the time

when their national sovereignty and therefore democracy will mean the least. In order to

understand support for globalization we need to see if citizens have noticed and are upset

by this situation.

If citizens view open trade and RTAs as compatible with democracy then this will

look favorably for the international trend toward RTAs. However, if citizens do not see

the two as compatible it will be negative for both the RTAs and the health of democracy.

It would mean that governments had to make a conscious choice in rhetoric between the

importance of free trade versus democracy and it could even lead to social unrest. This

paper hopes to shed light on the relationship between being a democrat and having

confidence in RTAs.

Explanation of Case Selection:

I will use the 2010-2014 Mexican section of the World Values Survey as my data

in this analysis because Mexico is an interesting and helpful case to explore. Mexico is a

recently democratized developing country. This makes it a perfect place to analyze

citizens’ views on globalization and their new democracy. NAFTA was signed in 1994

by a non-democratically elected Mexican government, since the Institutional

Revolutionary Party (PRI) did not lose their single party control until 1997 (Polity IV).

NAFTA is therefore not necessarily a democratically chosen institution from the

perspective of a Mexican citizen. Mexico’s position in NAFTA is also especially weak

because of the considerable power and economic differences between Mexico and its

neighbors to the north. Mexico’s executive therefore lacks bargaining power and has

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little control over the terms of NAFTA. For example “Various proposals have been

placed on the table to transfer resources from NAFTA-winners to NAFTA-losers: border

transaction taxes, a windfall profit tax, a North American development bank, a European-

style regional fund scheme and a deeper reduction in Mexico’s debt, among others. These

proposals are viable because their proponents come from the two wealthier nations, who

would have to foot most of the bill” (Castañeda, 1993). In other words, Mexico is widely

assumed to be a NAFTA loser. Yet, public opinion within Mexico regarding NAFTA

varies widely. Understanding why these citizens might approve or disapprove of a

regional free trade zone will shed light on how citizens come to see themselves as

winners or losers in globalization.

The World Values Survey is a good data set to use in exploring this question

because it asks citizens about specific regime type preferences, policy and values and

detailed demographic information. It asks about confidence in a wide range of

institutions, identities, and experiences and this provides detailed information for all my

variables, including tendency to support institutions. It also delves deeply into citizens’

views of regime type, which can help us to understand the relationship between

globalization and democracy for Mexican citizens.

Measuring Confidence in NAFTA

The World Values Survey asks respondents to describe their confidence in the

RTA in which they reside. The question reads: “I am going to name a number of

organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is

it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence, or none

at all?” Then NAFTA is listed as one of the organizations when interviewing North

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American respondents. This provides a measure for confidence in NAFTA.

This question is a valid measure for a variety of reasons. The question asks about

confidence, which is different from support in important ways. Support would mean you

agree with the existence and the policy of NAFTA. However, I am not interested in if a

citizen supported the original creation of NAFTA or approves of its specific policy. I

want to know if they view this organization as legitimate now, almost twenty years after

its signing, and if they have faith in the institutional process to make policy. Confidence

suggests faith in the process of this international institution rather than support for

creating it or its policies themselves.

It also gives no middle option; the respondent is required to answer either in a

positive or a negative way. Four categories give us more valid data and more information

than if it were a binary question. Understanding that citizens in general know very little

about NAFTA, I am not going to include the “Don’t Know” or missing responses in my

analysis. Given the low information most citizens seem to have about NAFTA and

politics in general (Converse,1964, Rankin, 2004), it seems that to assign ambiguous

responses to the middle of the scale would be invalid. With higher levels of political

information they might be able to tell us if they have confidence or not. With 2,000

observations, missing this data will not hurt my analysis.

Figure 1. Distribution of Confidence in NAFTA

How much confidence do you have in NAFTA?

Percent that answered

None at all 26.7%

Not very much 35.6%

Quite a lot 28.5%

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A Great Deal 9.2%

As you can see from Figure 1, NAFTA is not particularly popular in Mexico. A

majority, 62.3% of respondents, had either no confidence at all or not very much, and

only 37.7% had quite a lot or a great deal of confidence. Given that Mexico is generally

perceived to be, as a country, the single loser of NAFTA, this is unsurprising (Castañeda,

1993). Still, there is a great deal of variation. The mean is 2.2 and the standard deviation

is 0.93. We have enough variation to explain in order to conduct this analysis.

Existing explanations for RTA Support:Identity Related Concepts

In a study of North American public opinion in all three countries Inglehart,

Nevitte, and Basanez (1996) concluded that "free trade does not attract widespread public

interest because the general public has suddenly developed a new appreciation for the

intricacies of comparative economic advantage.... Free trade galvanizes public concern

for a much wider set of issues, such as cultural integrity and national identity" (166).

This hypothesis would say that support for trade organizations is actually about culture

and identity rather than trade attitudes.

A large amount of the scholarship regarding attitudes toward NAFTA has been

conducted with Canadian and U.S. American respondents. Rankin’s Comparative study

(2004) of U.S. American and Canadian public opinions on NAFTA found that “symbolic

conceptions of national identity” were the greatest predictor of approval for NAFTA. He

argues that these symbolic ideas help voters form policy positions in an environment with

extremely limited information, and will have more explanatory power than self interest in

trade (Rankin 2004). For both U.S. and Canadian respondents identities were important

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for predicting views of NAFTA in three ways: views of “North American” culture and

unity, national pride, and openness to cultural diversity. These three concepts were

stronger predictors of confidence in NAFTA than views on trade or social class. I will

test to see if Mexican respondents share this pattern (Rankin 2004).

Mexican National Pride

This aspect of symbolic national identity is national pride. Rankin claims

“Patriotism is a commonly identified dimension of national identity, composed of

emotional attachment and devotion to one's country and its symbols” (337). It is

hypothesized that a high level of patriotism will be related to low rates of confidence in

NAFTA.

This variable is measured with the question: “How proud are you to be Mexican?

Very proud, Quite proud, Not very proud, Not at all proud, I am not Mexican.” This

question gives a gradient of options. It does come with the common problem that

respondents may feel that they are obligated to give the interviewer a “correct” answer

and will therefore say that they are more proud than they really are. However, generally,

this question has excellent face validity and is worded in the way a typical citizens is

likely to think about the concept.

Openness to cultural heterogeneity

The second variable Rankin uses is openness to cultural heterogeneity. This is

relevant to attitudes of NAFTA because for many the concept of free trade is connected

to increased immigration and the introduction of foreign cultures. Rankin explains that,

“the liberalization of national borders exposes the nation's distinctive cultural attributes to

diverse linguistic, ethnic, and immigrant influences, which may activate a cultural

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dimension of national identity in the symbolic processing of NAFTA” (337). Those who

are more open to different identities and cultures will be more likely to support NAFTA.

Rankin also states that “NAFTA's perceived impact on domestic culture and sovereignty”

has been particularly important to the opposition of NAFTA and has been an emotional

component to the debate in general (Rankin, 2004 338).

The question used to code openness to cultural heterogeneity is as follows: “On

this list are various groups of people. Could you please mention any that you would not

like to have as neighbors?” Groups are coded dicotimously as mentioned or not

mentioned. The groups listed are “people of a different race, Immigrants/foreign

workers, people of a different religion, people who speak a different language.” I code

this as a count of how many of these groups were not mentioned, meaning high values on

this variable mean higher openness to cultural heterogeneity. I recognize that there is an

argument to be made for including other groups such as those with HIV, homosexuals,

unmarried couples, etc. However, I feel that the concept we want to get at here is about

an openness to foreign cultures while sexual orientation etc. are not identities that are

made more prevalent as borders become more porous. This measurement is most

consistent with Rankin’s conceptualization of openness to cultural heterogeneity.

North American Identity

Rankin’s third dimension of identity that predicted confidence in NAFTA was

identification with North America. It makes perfect sense that those who see themselves

as citizens of a North America that is unified on some level will be more supportive of a

regional free trade agreement. This not only makes sense symbolically but also

instrumentally, as cultural goods from the co-member countries will be cheaper and more

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easily available as a result of NAFTA.

The World Values Survey measures identification with North America by

proposing the statement “I see myself as a citizen of North America” and the options

“strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree.” This question has good face validity

because it does not ask about NAFTA as a free trade agreement but rather the continent

as a potential community. This helps maintain separability with the dependent variable.

The Tendency to Support Institutions

It is widely understood that confidence in any institution is largely “related to

confidence in other institutions” (Price and Romantan 2004, Easton 1975). It is even

unclear whether citizens are aware where the outputs of governments come from and

therefore are able to separate the support for a single institution from support for the

entire political system (Easton 1975). I will control for the tendency of individual

respondents to answer questions of the survey in the affirmative. This will be important

because those with this tendency will be both more likely to have confidence in NAFTA

and more likely to answer in the affirmative to the rest of my independent variables. We

don’t want this personality trait clouding the relationship between NAFTA and support

for other things like strong authoritarian leadership, etc.

I will measure this by creating a count of the number of times the respondent

answered positively (agree, strongly agree, good, very good, a fair amount of confidence,

a great deal of confidence, etc.) to a list of non-political institutions. It is important that

this applies to affirmative or negative preference options for non-politicized institutions

because support for things like the president will include the president’s views on free

trade and NAFTA. The items in the counts are confidence in the church, the army,

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universities, television, the civil service, banks, and multinational corporations. This

might seem like a disjointed list but it is intentionally so. The variety helps me get at the

diffuse support for the institutions of society. The count has an alpha level of 0.66, which

means it has a fair level of internal consistency.

Interpersonal Trust

I hypothesize that interpersonal trust will be positively related to confidence in

NAFTA. Price and Romantan (2004) discuss both general and specific support for the

political regime and institutions. Interpersonal trust is generally related to trust in

institutions (Bennett et al. 1999). I expect NAFTA to work similarly, however, since trust

seems to be easily generalized based on the literature.

On the contrary, Wang’s (2015) study of East Asian public opinion found that

interpersonal trust was a much less significant predictor of support for institutions than

other major factors. Additionally, in all but one country social networks were more

significant than interpersonal trust. Given this recent paper it is possible the relationship

will be insignificant or absent.

The World Values Survey provides a valid measure of interpersonal trust.

“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to

be very careful in dealing with people? Most people can be trusted. Need to be very

careful.” This binary does not account for other variation and it is only one measure.

However, the question is worded in a way that does not give the respondent the option to

agree with the survey but rather makes them choose between the two. Interpersonal trust

could not be combined with confidence in Mexican institutions. The alpha level for the

institutional confidence variable is higher without it. However, interpersonal trust does

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correlate positively at between a 0.04 and 0.08 with all of the institutional trust measures,

which we would expect based on the literature.

Support for Competition

NAFTA is ostensibly a trade based regional international organization. Therefore

it is unsurprising that views of free trade might be related to confidence in NAFTA. In

Uslaner’s 1998 study of U.S. public opinion on NAFTA, views changed very slowly

over time and not in response to any major event, involving NAFTA or otherwise.

People said their views of NAFTA were based on trade, rather than how they personally

were affected by it (Uslaner, 1998). This is somewhat surprising given the large

perceived impact of NAFTA on blue collar Americans. It demonstrates a way of

thinking about NAFTA that is more ideological than material.

Unfortunately, the World Values Survey does not ask about perceptions of free

trade. It does, however, ask about perceptions of competition in general. I measured this

concept using the statement “Competition is good It stimulates people to work hard and

develop new ideas” as a one on the scale and “Competition is harmful. It brings out the

worst in people” as a ten. We would expect this to matter to attitudes toward NAFTA if

citizens think about NAFTA in terms of free trade.

I think that the view of competition is a better way of getting at ideological views

toward trade liberalization than asking about opinions toward trade. Work in political

behavior generally shows that real attitudes toward policy issues are rare among the

general public (Converse, 1964). Personal values, however, are more likely to be held by

individuals and are very closely related to political preferences (Schwartz et al, 2004). I

will not rename support for competition into support for free trade because that would not

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be the concept that this question is asking, but I think that this is a useful and potentially

interesting way of measuring the issue.

It would be interesting to see if the Mexican public thinks in the same way as the

U.S. respondents, given that they are possibly more personally impacted by NAFTA.

Choosing to support NAFTA because you support competition, despite its drawbacks for

the respondent would be ideological or post material rather than material. Since Mexico

is generally at a lower level of human and economic development than the United States

it would be surprising to see such a level of economic development. Those wary of

competition are likely to worry they will be the victim.

Interest in Politics

I am including interesting in politics as a control variable because we can

reasonably expect those who are uninformed about politics, or who do not care, to be

confused about democracy. We need to make sure that the relationship in the model is

not due to this other variable. This is measure on a scale of high t low political interest.

Demographic Controls

Gender, Socio-economic status, education level, and self placed ideology (level of

conservatism) are also necessary controls that I include in my model.

New Explanations: Desire for Strong Leadership, and Confusion About Democracy

Support of a Strong Non-democratic Leader

Kruglanski and Webster (1996) identify “the need for closure (as) a desire for

definite knowledge on some issue” (263). They argue that it is a stable trait of individual

personalities that has numerous consequences for cognition and behavior. Closure, they

write, will become a personal goal and the individual will feel threatened when that

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closure is challenged and rewarded when it is achieved. This is a personality trait that we

would expect to have great impact on political opinions, especially as they apply to

leadership.

People with a high level of need for cognitive closure will desire leaders who will

make a decision, any decision, expediently and without much hesitation or discussion.

These individuals would have lower desire for compromise and express preferences for

strong leaders who will run government quickly and decisively. Jost et al (2003) link

need for cognitive closure to preferences for non-democratic authority types. Though the

psychological literature gives reason to believe this personality trait would be constant

over different topics, the measures I have at my disposal are all in the political realm and

I want to understand whether preference for a strong non-democratic leader related to

NAFTA support.

Individuals who support a strong non-democratic leader, all else equal, should be

more supportive of political globalization and RTAs because they will like the concept of

an international body without a contentious parliament or veto players to stall up decision

making. They desire efficiency, and NAFTA is very efficient. Based on their theory, I

would expect to see respondents with higher levels of support for a strong leader have

higher levels of confidence in NAFTA.

The survey asks about support for a variety of authority types on a scale of 1 to 4,

including “Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and

elections.” This is the measure I use for support for a strong leader.

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Confusion with Democracy

I propose a new variable in order to help explain support for NAFTA: confusion

with democracy. I expect that those who do not understand what democracy means will

be more likely to support NAFTA. This may seem counter intuitive but there is a good

explanation for it. We know that the democratic process is messy and often ugly to

watch. In general democrats put up with it because they either believe in the principles of

limited government or they value the instrumental power of democracy to provide civil

liberties and better economics etc. However, if the concept of democracy is unclear to an

individual they will think of it only as good government (Inglehar, 2003) and they will

not recognize that the unattractive deliberative process is necessary in order to maintain

that desirable government. It is unlikely that most democrats would put up with the the

democratic process if they didn’t understand that it is what enables the desirable

government. For those who are confused about democracy the link between the process

and the outcome is not made and so deliberative processes will seem both unnecessary

and undesirable.

Therefore, for these people, the unaccountable decision making process and the

fixed policy of NAFTA will look better than the messy domestic political process. They

will have higher support for the RTA because discussion on the subject is rare and largely

settled.

I created a measure of confusion with democracy using a series of questions in the

World Values Survey about the essential characteristics of democracy. The question

reads “Many things are desirable, but not all of them are essential characteristics of

democracy. Please tell me for each of the following things how essential you think it is as

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a characteristic of democracy. Use this scale where 1 means ‘not at all an essential

characteristic of democracy’ and 10 means it definitely is ‘an essential characteristic of

democracy.’” I created a mean index with the questions that do not relate to democracy.

These were “Governments tax the rich and subsidize the poor,” “Religious authorities

ultimately interpret the laws,” “People receive state aid for unemployment,” “The army

takes over when government is incompetent,” “The state makes people’s incomes equal,”

and “People obey their rulers.” It is notable that in my analysis, if I include the questions

that do correspond with democracy in my mean index the results do not change

significantly. Though I recognize that for some people one or more of these incorrect

characteristics may be essential to democracy, they certainly aren’t all essential for any

thoughtful and informed conceptualization of the concept. Yet my mean index has a fiar

amount of internal consistency, with an alpha of 0.61.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: The level of support for a strong leader will be positively related to

confidence in NAFTA.

The desire for a strong leader is caused by the desire for government to simply get things

done without the road blocks or conflict of democratic decision making. This same

characteristic makes a citizen more likely to favor NAFTA because as an RTA it has a

simple and efficient decision-making structure.

Hypothesis 2: Respondents who have a low level of understanding of democracy will

have higher levels of confidence in NAFTA.

For respondents who lack a concrete understanding of democracy as a political system,

an RTA will be seen as more positive with all else equal, because it avoids the

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complexity of democracy. Additionally those with a greater understanding of democracy

will see that NAFTA and the decision making process that goes with it as simpler and

more favorable.

ModelThe mean for NAFTA confidence is 2.2 and the standard deviation is 0.93. The

difference between a 2 and a 3 is the difference between having “not very much” and

“quite a lot of confidence” in NAFTA. Only about 38% of respondents said they had

confidence in NAFTA.

I am running two different Ordinary Least Squared models of confidence in

NAFTA. The first includes only my control variables and my two major independent

variables: confusion with democracy and support for a strong non-democratic leader.

The second includes attitudinal variables including the tendency to support institutions,

interpersonal trust, support for competition, and interest in politics. This way we can see

if my independent variables are significant whether or not other attitudes (which are

likely to be related) are controlled for.

One Table 2 you can see my two models. They meet the assumptions of an OLS

regression well, considering that this is not a controlled experiment. None of my

variables are correlated with each other much. Though many factors are related to the

tendency to support institutions, none of them are strongly correlated. The strongest

correlation in my model is the negative relationship between education level and

confusion about democracy at -0.15. This is not nearly a strong enough correlation to

cause large problems with using OLS. The number of observations is too large for

normality to be a problem. The variance is constant across the range, so there is no issue

with the homoscedasticity assumption. Due to the type of data here (non-time series,

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ordinal, etc.) there is no issue with the independent individual errors assumption. It is

highly unlikely that any of these respondents are in each other’s networks or impact the

views of NAFTA in their region. The only major violation of OLS in this study is the

likely high prevalence of measurement error or bias. I will discuss the measurement error

and bias issues in a caveats section in my conclusion.

Table 2. Confidence in NAFTAVariable Model 1 Model 2Confusion with Democracy 0.066***

(.011) 0.036***

(.011)Support for a Strong Non-Democratic Leader

0.114***(.028)

0.066*(.026)

Socio-economic status 0.036(.028)

0.023(.022)

Education Level 0.021*(.010)

0.012(.009)

Sex (female) -0.068(.044)

-0.036(.041)

Conservatism 0.009(.148)

0.000(.007)

North American Identity 0.073***(.021)

Competition is harmful -0.002(.006)

Interpersonal Trust 0.135*(.060)

Tendency to Support Institutions

0.115***(.006)

Not Interested in Politics -0.029(.022)

Constant 1.411*** 1.083***(.165)

N 1763 1736Standard errors in parentheses: * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001

Respondents who were confused about what democracy means are more likely to

have confidence in NAFTA with other variables controlled for. This relationship is

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significant both statistically (the p-value is 0.002) and substantively significant. The

coefficient is 0.03, which may seem small, but it means that as the level of confusion

goes from 1 to 10 the expected value of NAFTA confidence increases from 2.06 to 2.37

where the mean for NAFTA confidence is 2.2 and the standard deviation is 0.93. The

difference between a 2 and a 3 is the difference between having not very much and quite

a lot of confidence in NAFTA which makes this difference important.

Support for a strong leader is significantly and positively related to confidence in

NAFTA. The coefficient is 0.06 and the p-value is 0.012, so the relationship is

significant at a 0.05 level and almost significant at a 0.01 level. This is as I predicted. It

means that all else equal, those who desire a strong and unaccountable leader favor

NAFTA more than those who do not. The substantive effect is fairly small but the

implications are very large, as I will explain in the conclusion. As the respondent goes

from 1 to 4 on the scale of support for a strong leader the predicted confidence in

NAFTA goes from 2.11 to 2.31. Again, this is part of the distance between not very

much and quite a lot of confidence in NAFTA.

59% of respondents think a strong non-democratic leader would be either fairly

good or very good. Confusion with democracy is also fairly high, with a mean of 5.35

and a standard deviation of 1.90 on a mean scale from 1 (not confused) to 10 (completely

confused). Education, Socio-economic status, and ideology do not explain support for a

strong leader. Nor is it significantly related to confusion with democracy or any other

variable except for the tendency to support institutions. Confusion with democracy is

negatively related to education level.

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Figure 1 shows the relationship between the different variables in my full model,

Model 2. All of the overlapping circles have a statistically significant relationship to

each other. Confidence in NAFTA is related to the tendency to have confidence in

institutions, as well as support for a strong non-democratic leader and interpersonal trust.

All three of these are significantly related to each other. Additionally, confusion about

democracy and North American Identity are both related to NAFTA support, and to

education (though confusion is negatively related) but not to each other.

Figure 1. Potential Causes of Confidence in NAFTA

Tendency to Have Confidence in

Institutions

Confidence in NAFTA

Interpersonal Trust

Support for a Strong Non-democratic leader

North American Identity

Confusion About Democracy

Education

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My initial analysis of the data yielded a number of other surprises regarding the

controls. The measure of Mexican Pride is unrelated to openness to cultural

heterogeneity. We would have expected it to be negatively related because nationalists

will be less tolerant of foreigners and people from other cultural groups. This is

somewhat surprising, but it indicated that the question about pride is really getting at

patriotism rather than nationalism (Kosterman and Feshbach, 1989). The respondents are

very proud to be Mexican. Only about 5% said they were not very proud or not at all

proud, and all but 16% answered the highest possible category, very proud. This high

rate of national pride is not an indication of xenophobia, far from it. Of the four

culturally different potential neighbors used in the measure of openness to cultural

heterogeneity, only 27% mentioned any they would not like to have as neighbors. This

indicates that Mexican patriotism is tolerant.

Openness to cultural heterogeneity is not related to support for NAFTA whether

or not I control for Mexican pride, North American Identity, or the tendency to approve

of institutions. Clearly Mexicans don’t think of NAFTA in exactly the same way as U.S.

Americans and Canadians, since openness to cultural diversity was a significant predictor

of confidence in NAFTA in the two northern members. I did not include openness to

cultural heterogeneity in my model because it doesn’t change any of my coefficients or

relate to any of them, though it is weekly positively related to North American Identity.

Mexican pride was only significantly related before the tendency to approve of

institutions was controlled for. This hints that patriotism may be causally related to

diffuse support for institutions. Citizens of Mexico learn to have pride in their country

from a very young age, so this could be causally prior to support for institutions.

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Alternatively, they could be related to a personality trait such as optimism or agreeability.

In either case, since Mexican pride was swallowed up by the tendency to have confidence

it was left out of the final model.

Identifying with North America was a highly significant positive predictor of

support for NAFTA even when all other controls are present. This is as I expected.

Feeling like you share a common regional citizenship is likely to make a person more apt

to trade freely and cooperate with the co-regional countries. Identifying as a citizen of

North America is not related to support for a strong leader or misunderstanding of

democracy. However, those with higher levels of socio-economic status, education,

tendency to approve, those in states that border the U.S., and men are more likely to

identify as a citizen of North America. Yet, national pride and openness to cultural

heterogeneity do not appear to be strongly related to North American identity.

The tendency to have confidence in institutions has the strongest contribution to

the variance in NAFTA confidence with a coefficient of 0.115 on a scale from 1 to 14

and a p-value of less than 0.000. This is not surprising since support for NAFTA should

be strongly related to diffuse support and agreeability.

Interpersonal trust was also positively related, even after controlling for the

tendency to have confidence in institutions. This confirms what the literature says about

interpersonal trust causing confidence in the political system. It is especially useful to

see that it is still a significant predictor after controlling for confidence in institutions.

Those who trust others are more likely to have confidence in NAFTA independently of

their diffuse support for institutions.

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Interest in politics, ideology, and the demographic variables are all insignificant once

the other concepts are accounted for. Other demographics such as sex and religiosity do

not influence the model.

Implications

My findings have disturbing implications about the proliferation of RTA’s

worldwide. The relationship between support for a strong leader and confusion with

democracy and support for NAFTA indicated that perhaps NAFTA does lack democratic

legitimacy. This is extremely surprising. NAFTA is not a particularly extensive

agreement and it undermines national sovereignty very little compared to other RTA’s.

In future research I hope to test these findings in other RTA’s such as the EU that have

much larger roles in the lives of member state citizens, as well as in the U.S. and Canada.

If all RTAs are more supported by citizens who have yet to fully support or understand

democracy it could mean we can expect lower support when consolidation takes place in

third wave democracies.

This study also raises questions about development in new democracies. Those

who fully support democracy, in all of its gruesome complexity, are not the same as those

who hope to improve development through free trade agreements. Neo-liberal economic

policies have assumed free trade and democracy accompanied one another (Duggen,

2003 xiii). My findings show otherwise. If anything, I’d speculate that the proliferation

of ETAs is part of a global trend toward efficient, rather than democratic, leadership

styles.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2001) found that the American public doesn’t actually

appreciate democratic deliberation. Rather, the public, they found wanted democracy

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that they didn’t have to see or be involved in. This is in one of the oldest democracies in

the world. Globally, third wave democratizing countries have frequently fallen back into

strongman regimes. In the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin is extremely popular

despite having thrown the country back into authoritarianism. Russia is not the only

country where this has happened. Several Central and Eastern European states follow

this trend while maintaining free and fair elections (Freedom House). Competitive

Authoritarianism has become the most common form of government in the world, and it

has done so with a fair amount of public support (Levitsky and Way, 2002).

Today in the United States, Donald Trump continues to campaign for president

with support, despite a clear lack of respect for basic civil liberties like freedom of

religion (Sinykin, 2005). The supporters of his campaign, according to recent interviews

at campaign events in Iowa, want a president who is “a proven success, someone who

gets things done” (Sinykin, 2005). This suggests that support for a strong non-

democratic leader may be popular in the United States as well. The global trend is very

concerning for democracies worldwide. Conceptualizing RTA support as an aspect of

this trend only makes it more so.

My findings also build on the literature about democratic consolidation in

Mexico. This data and my analysis generally confirm and build the findings of Inglehart

(2003) and Schedler and Sarsfield (2007), who find that Mexicans frequently hold

abstract support for democracy but do not support specific essential aspects of

democracy. Schedler and Sarsdield found non-democratic attitudes regarding civil

liberties, especially when political enemies would be able to express views publically.

Respondents in their study on average supported inclusion of minority groups like

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indigenous people and homosexuals in politics, but did not support those they disagreed

with speaking about their political beliefs on TV (Schedler and Sarsfield, 2007). This

complements my findings because people abstractly support civil liberties and democratic

institutions but do not in reality want to hear about contradicting views or see democratic

deliberation.

Like Inglehart (2003), I find that many respondents may not even prefer having

free elections and legislatures to a strong leader. This alone shows that democracy in

Mexico is not consolidated, as Inglehart (2003) commented. I find that respondents also

believe many erroneous things about democracy, such as that religious leaders

interpreting the laws and the army taking over in times of crisis are essential for

democracy. This is very concerning for Mexican democracy. We would also expect a

larger negative relationship between education and confusion with democracy than what

we find.

CaveatsOne problem with this study is that I have no real way of measuring and

controlling for efficacy, political knowledge or knowledge of NAFTA. The World

Values Survey does not ask these things. In my model I attempted to use interest in

politics as a proxy for these, but it is imperfect. Since ideology has no impact, it is

possible that confidence in NAFTA is not a real opinion in Mexico. In this case, people

are just answering somewhat randomly, without much knowledge of NAFTA. Further

research should attempt to control for knowledge of NAFTA and knowledge of politics in

order to see if the relationship between support for a strong leader and confusion about

democracy with NAFTA really exist. Efficacy could also play a role, because those with

efficacy will not be as likely to favor a strong non-democratic leader.

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I believe I have done a reasonably good job of including potentially necessary

controls, but there could still be omitted variable bias. Political knowledge and efficacy

are the two that seem most necessary and it is possible they could account for the

significance of one or both of my independent variables.

Mexico might be the most likely case to observe support for a strong leader

corresponding with support for the RTA. Mexico is in a particular position of weakness

in NAFTA compared even to most developing new democracies in other RTA’s. Most

countries are not the only country in their RTA that isn’t a developed established

democracy. It is possible that I will not see this relationship when I run the model with

other countries and other RTAs. However, the relationship might still exist even in

developed countries and established democracies, because support for a strong non-

democracy leader and confusion about democracy are not confined to new democracies

(Inglehart, 2003, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2001). It will be interesting to see which

other countries and RTAs have these relationships.

Measurement error is another problem in this paper. Several of my concepts,

such as confidence in NAFTA and support for a strong non-democratic leader, were

measured with just one question. This is due to a lack of other available questions that

can be used to measure these concepts. These concepts are open to a high degree of

measurement error. Neither the independent variable nor dependent variable was fixed

and free of error. This could mean that my regression line lacks accuracy. On the other

hand, I do feel that my questions were asked in a way that corresponds with the concept

very well and that the face validity of my measures is good.

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Concluding thoughts

I began this investigation wanting to understand what causes support for

globalization, with the normative motivation that those who view themselves as losers of

globalization are likely to cause violence or social unrest. My answer, it turns out, looks

undesirable from a normative standpoint as well. We could advocate trying to boost

support for globalization by increasing confusion about democracy and support for a

strong non-democratic leader, but that would have even more disastrous ramifications for

democratic consolidation.

Through my investigation I have seen that though Mexicans in general do not

have a high level of confidence in NAFTA, they are not necessarily opposed to other

cultures or regional integration. About half of respondents identified as a citizen of North

America, and openness to other cultures was extremely high. If Mexicans don’t like

NAFTA it is not because of a dislike of other cultures.

It does seem though that maybe North America’s leaders should reexamine the

agreement and make sure it helps Mexico continue to consolidate democracy and develop

economically. Of course it is possible that citizens are not accurately representing their

real opinions on NAFTA, but it seems likely that NAFTA really is very unpopular. More

policy research should be done to understand why that is the case and what, if anything,

can be done to make NAFTA better in Mexico’s interests.

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