7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 1/27
http://jcr.sagepub.com/ Journal of Conflict Resolution
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/55/3/340The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0022002711400864
2011 55: 340 originally published online 24 April 2011Journal of Conflict Resolution
Fabiana Machado, Carlos Scartascini and Mariano TommasiPolitical Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Peace Science Society (International)
can be found at:Journal of Conflict Resolution Additional services and information for
http://jcr.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://jcr.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/55/3/340.refs.htmlCitations:
What is This?
- Apr 24, 2011OnlineFirst Version of Record
- May 30, 2011Version of Record>>
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 2/27
Political Institutionsand Street Protests inLatin America
Fabiana Machado1, Carlos Scartascini1, and
Mariano Tommasi2
Abstract
In this article, the authors argue that where institutions are strong, actors are more
likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while
where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation
become more appealing. The authors explore this relationship empirically by
combining country-level measures of institutional strength with individual-level
information on protest participation in seventeen Latin American countries. Theauthors find evidence that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher
propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest.
Keywords
political institutions, public policies, institutional strength, protests, alternative
political technologies, political party representation, Latin America
Institutional systems differ significantly in their capacity to absorb and processconflict. In some countries, for example Argentina, almost every contentious issue
finds thousands of people on the Plaza de Mayo, tractors blocking roads, and pickets
cutting a bridge in Neuquen. Yet in other countries, say Costa Rica, almost all
conflicts are disciplined by political parties and processed through the Congress, the
Presidency, or the Courts. Przeworski (2009, 2).
1Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, USA2Departamento de Economıa, Universidad de San Andres, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Corresponding Author:
Fabiana Machado, 1300 New York Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC, USA
Email: [email protected]
Journal of Conflict Resolution
55(3) 340-365
ª The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0022002711400864
http://jcr.sagepub.com
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 3/27
Most countries in Latin America democratized in the 1980s. After a few decades
of uninterrupted democratic rule, many of them share an intermediate level of dem-
ocratic maturity and of institutional development. Yet, the study of policymaking incontemporary Latin America reveals important variation across countries and over
time in the strength and relevance of specific institutions such as the congress, the
judiciary, and the bureaucracy. Chile, for instance, is a country in which policies are
debated extensively both among the members of the executive branch and in Con-
gress, with rich input from the bureaucracy, advisory bodies, and think tanks, usually
affiliated with political parties. Once agreements are reached, both within and across
parties, policies are implemented by a technically competent bureaucracy, and
enforced by an independent judiciary.
Things could not be more different in its neighbor across the Andes. Argentinashares many cultural and structural similarities with Chile, however, its political
institutions are weaker. Placed in comparative perspective, Saiegh (2010), for exam-
ple, finds that the Argentinean congress ranks among the lowest in Latin America in
terms of the level of experience and qualification of legislators and the strength and
degree of specialization of committees. Moreover, Magaldi de Sousa (2010) argues
that Argentina ranks thirteenth out of eighteen Latin American countries on the
degree of judicial independence, measured as the extent to which judicial rulings are
respected and enforced, and the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the judiciary branch
both in terms of resources and insulation from political influence. Finally, Zuvanic,Iacoviello, and Gusta (2010) find that the Chilean bureaucracy is much stronger than
the Argentinean in its capacity to manage personnel performance and implement a
merit-based approach to career building.
Democracy offers a variety of channels and instruments for citizens to participate
in the political process. Through voting, one of the most basic democratic tools,
citizens select their representatives to public office and convey their preferences
over policy. In addition to such conventional channels, citizens have at their disposal
other means to affect political decisions. Protests and demonstrations, ranging
from simple marches to road blockades and even violence, are some prominentexamples.
The question we address in this article is that of the relationship between individ-
ual choices of channels to affect political decisions and the quality of political insti-
tutions. We argue that, in democracies, the workings of formal political institutions
and the use of violent means of expressing political demands are related phenomena.
As the opening caption by Adam Przeworski suggests, countries vary substantially
in the degree to which policy is made mainly through deliberation and bargaining in
institutionalized arenas, or by using alternative means such as violence. In some
countries policymaking through formalized arenas such as congress is central.In such cases, the political process is approximated reasonably well by standard
models of elections and bargaining that take place within formal political institu-
tions.1 In other cases, however, the making of policy is far less orderly, involving
a considerable amount of actions taken outside formal institutions.
Machado et al. 341
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 4/27
In Latin America, protests and other contentious strategies were common and
played an important role during democratization, declining somewhat afterwards
(Eckstein 2001; Hipsher 1996). The last decade, however, has witnessed a resur-gence of protest activity but to varying degrees of intensity and political relevance
across countries. In places like Argentina (Urbiztondo et al. 2009), Bolivia (Jemio,
Candia, and Evio 2009), Ecuador (Mejıa Acosta et al. 2008), and Peru, street protests
have become a very salient and meaningful way to achieve certain political objec-
tives and to express policy demands. In other cases, like Chile and Brazil, protests
are more sporadic and far less relevant to policymaking in general.
In Argentina, decisions are made as often in Congress as in the streets. Routinely,
the main arteries of Buenos Aires and some of the main highways connecting stra-
tegic locations in the countryside are shut down by protestors. The issues theyraise range from the distribution of social benefits, to fiscal and trade policy,
down to the country stance on foreign affairs.2 Protests and road blockades have also
become a popular means of affecting public policy in Bolivia and other countries in
the region.
Our claim is that the strength and relevance of formal political institutions are key
determinants of the individual and collective choice of channels of political partic-
ipation. When institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate through
institutionalized arenas. When they are weak, however, protests and other unconven-
tional means or participation become more appealing.Considering our sample of seventeen Latin American countries, we find a strong
relationship between a measure of the strength of political institutions—considering
Congress, Courts, and the bureaucracy (explained in detail below)—and the percent-
age of respondents to the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP; 2008)
reporting protest participation in the past twelve months. We observe a clear nega-
tive relationship between the two, shown in Figure 1 online. Unconventional forms
of political participation tend to be chosen more often where institutions are of lower
quality.
The trade-offs between choosing institutionalized versus noninstitutionalized venues to affect political outcomes is also apparent when we consider the option
of contacting representatives in Congress. Still based on the LAPOP data for
2008, we notice that in those countries where people tend to contact a member
of Congress, they also tend to participate less in protests. In other words, in
countries where people choose alternative channels for influencing policies, they
tend to downplay the use of more institutionalized means (shown in Figure 23
online).
The remaining of the article is organized as follows. In the next section, we sum-
marize our theoretical framework to explore the relationship between protest and institutional strength. We go beyond mainstream models of policymaking within
formal institutions—dominant in the international literature—to consider the possi-
ble use of alternative political technologies such as protests. We outline a number of
propositions relating individual decisions to the degree of institutionalization of the
342 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 5/27
policymaking process. In the following section, we explore some of these proposi-
tions empirically by combining country-level measures of institutional strength with
individual-level information on protest participation in seventeen Latin American
countries. We find evidence that lower institutional strength is associated with a
higher propensity to protest, even after controlling for a number of individual-level determinants. Moreover, we find that, in countries with weaker institu-
tions—where even government parties tend to foment protest—individuals who feel
parties represent their constituencies better are more likely to protest. We then conclude
with a brief summary and discussion.
Institutional strength index
A v e r a g e
p r o t e s t p a
r t i c i p a t i o n
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
MEX
GUA
ELS
HON
NIC
CRI
PAN
COL
ECU
BOL
PER
PAR
URU
BRA
VEN
ARG
DOMX
NH
CRICOL
CU
AR
UR
N
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Figure 1. Strength of political institutions and protest participation
Note: Institutional strength index varies from 0 (weakest) to 4 (strongest). Line indicates the fit of a bivari-ate ordinary least squares regression. Average protest participation corresponds to the percentage of respondents to the LAPOP surveys in 2008 reporting participation in protest during the past twelvemonths.
Machado et al. 343
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 6/27
Analytical Framework: Institutions and Alternative
Political Technologies
Political actors, be they groups—for example, political parties—or individuals, face
various alternatives when deciding how to engage in the collective processes leadingto public decisions. One set of alternatives that we call ‘‘the institutionalized road’’
includes, among other things, voting in elections, writing to representatives, design-
ing platforms, forming political parties, bargaining in Congress, and funding think
tanks. A different set of alternatives, which we have dubbed alternative political
Percentage who contacted member of congress
A v e r a g e
p r o t e s t p a r t i c
i p a t i o n
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
MEX
GUA
ELS
HON
NIC
CRI
PAN
COL
ECU
BOL
PER
PAR
URU
BRA
VEN
ARG
DOMX
UA
IC
CU
BR
VEN
DOM
0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08
Figure 2. Contacting representatives and protest participation
Note: Line indicates the fit of a bivariate ordinary least squares regression. Average protest participationcorresponds to the percentage of respondents to the LAPOP surveys in 2008 reporting participation inprotest during the past twelve months. Percentage who contacted member of Congress is the percentageof respondents to the LAPOP surveys in 2008 reporting having contacted a member of congress in orderto solve a problem.
344 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 7/27
technologies, or APT for short (Scartascini and Tommasi 2009), includes actions
such as blocking roads, burning tires, picketing, and threatening violent action.
These two sets of actions are commonly studied in isolation. On one side, most political analyses of decision-making focus on negotiations that happen within insti-
tutionalized settings and under the assumption that actors abide by the formal rules.
In those studies, political institutions are important because they define the rules of
the game. They have clear bearings on the number of actors and their incentives
while delineating the formal arenas in which action takes place. On the other side,
most empirical studies of protest focus on individual-level determinants, such as
motivational attitudes, dissatisfaction with policies, and grievances that encourage
this kind of participation.
We combine both perspectives. Controlling for the individual-level determinants,we explore the link between institutions and people’s decisions to take part in pro-
tests. The set of constraints and opportunities to participate in politics that different
institutional systems afford citizens and groups have been widely investigated. Some
political systems, especially the decentralized ones, offer a number of institutional
venues for citizens to influence decisions. Individuals can contact their local repre-
sentatives or those at the national legislature or even resort to the courts to safeguard
their interests. In fact, institutions that promote inclusion are usually associated with
a greater variety of political participation by individuals other than the crucial act of
voting (Dalton 2008; Norris 2002; Verba, Nie, and Kim 1978).In this study, we draw attention to an aspect of institutions that goes beyond the
set of formal rules. Our focus is on how well these institutions fulfill their prescribed
roles in the policymaking process. While the constitutional design of countries in our
sample tend to be similar, they differ considerably on the degree of expertise and
level of education of members of congress, on the degree of the de facto autonomy
of the judiciary from the executive branch both in matters of budget allocations and
appointment of judges, and also on the capacity of the bureaucracy to implement a
merit-based system to manage personnel.
To see why these are important issues, consider the case of legislatures. Both theArgentine and the U.S. Congress are guided by very similar constitutional structures
(Jones et al. 2002). While the U.S. Congress plays a central role in policymaking4
and in the oversight of the public bureaucracy, the Argentine legislature is often sub-
dued by the whims of the president. We would probably not predict such disparity
based on rules alone but would expect it considering the capabilities of both institu-
tions. The U.S. Congress is characterized by representatives serving multiple terms
in office, who have an incentive to acquire expertise in certain policy areas through
long-term assignments to specific policy committees. In the Argentine legislature,
reelection rates are lower, as are the educational attainment of representatives and their levels of policy expertise.5 Our claim is that the more institutions lack the
means to perform their duties well, the higher the incentives for citizens and groups
to try to affect the policymaking process through more direct (and less institutionalized)
channels, such as protests and demonstrations.
Machado et al. 345
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 8/27
When institutions are strong and capable, citizens expect decisions to be well
thought of, to have longer term horizons, and to follow more transparent negotiation
processes. They expect their input, conveyed through traditional institutional chan-nels, to matter. Citizens in developed democracies know that by appealing to a court,
for example, the constitutionality of a law will be considered (in cases where judicial
review is present) and that their rights, if affected by a certain policy, will be safe-
guarded. Moreover, they know that if they bring their plights to their representatives
there are good chances that these delegates, if willing, are able to do something about
their concerns.
When we move to an environment where institutions are weak, however, the
prospects are bleaker. Complaints brought to the judiciary might drag for years and
biases might arise. Representatives in the legislature will often lack the expertise and the ability to make good decisions and to effectively advocate for their constituen-
cies. Under such circumstances, people’s expectations of influencing policy through
institutional venues decline. Moreover, systems characterized by such weaknesses
tend to be more vulnerable to independent influences on the decision process.6 This,
in turn, increases the expected payoff of protests and other group actions that can
impose costs on decision makers if they fail to comply with the demands being
made.
This argument has been formalized in Scartascini and Tommasi (2009) based on a
setup, where individuals (or groups) are given the option to affect political decisionsthrough two distinct arenas: an institutionalized one, similar to those modeled in the
mainstream literature on policymaking within formal institutions (Persson and
Tabellini 2000), and an alternative arena characterized by unconventional forms
of participation. More specifically, citizens are given the option to pursue their pre-
ferred policy outcomes through Congress or directly through the threat of imposing
costs on society, such as road blockades.7
Individuals and groups decide the arena in which they will participate by compar-
ing the likelihood of obtaining their desired policy in each of these arenas. If they
decide to go through the street (the noninstitutionalized arena), their expected payoff is a function of the number of other people taking that same route—which deter-
mines the size of the threat imposed on decision makers—and the costs of participa-
tion. On one hand, the more people participate in protest, the bigger the threat and
the higher the expected benefit of joining it. On the other hand, the higher the costs
of organizing a protest, the lower the expected payoffs.8 If they choose
the institutional route through Congress, their probability of affecting the outcome
of the decision process is modeled following the legislative bargaining model of
Baron and Ferejohn (1989). That is, each individual has a positive probability of
becoming the agenda setter and thus to propose their preferred policy.Two scenarios are explored with respect to the institutionalized arena. In the first,
it is assumed that citizens have equal probabilities of being the agenda setter. Under
this assumption, the noninstitutionalized equilibrium occurs only if enough players
choose that route but no single player has a higher (or lower) incentive to do so.
346 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 9/27
In the second, it is assumed that some citizens are better able to secure their preferred
outcomes through Congress than others. Under such circumstances, some players
have a stronger incentive to engage in protest than others. Actors who see little or no chance of having their interests taken into account in the formal decision-making
process are more likely to take their plights to the streets.
The model thus recognizes and explores an important feature of the policymaking
process: that political decisions can take place outside formal institutions. Moreover,
the model draws our attention to the workings of political institutions as a relevant
factor in citizen’s choice of channels of political participation and to the collective
nature of political mobilization.
Democracies are representative governments, and the link between citizens’
interests and the outcomes of the policymaking process is mediated primarilythrough parties. The way in which they fulfill this role can have an important impact
on individuals’ decision to protest, as studies have pointed out.9 Parties are not
constrained to representing the preferences of their constituencies through institutio-
nalized means—for example, via their representatives in congress. As noted in
Eckstein (2001) this trend is not new. In earlier decades in Latin America, when
institutionalization was weak and most countries shifted regularly between demo-
cratic and autocratic rule parties played a fundamental role fomenting protests.
This nurturing relationship between parties and social protest movements declined,
however, once parties got ‘‘the upper hand’’ on political decisions (2001, 398).
10
Thus, parties, as organized groups of individuals, also have two types of mechan-
isms to attempt to achieve their constituents’ goals. They can place their bets in the
institutionalized channels of election, legislative debate, and technical discussions
or they can use their organizational capabilities to mobilize collective action in the
streets. When political decisions are made mainly through a well-functioning institu-
tionalized process, protests are likely to have a lower impact on decisions and the for-
mer strategy might prevail. When, on the other hand, institutions are weaker, protest
can be an effective way to affect decisions and the latter strategy more profitable.
Parties’ strategies should thus have important implications for the individual propensity to participate in protests. If representation is achieved primarily through for-
mal channels, citizens with stronger linkages to parties would be less likely to protest. If,
on the other hand, parties represent their constituencies’ interests primarily through
direct means, such as protest, then those closer to parties would be more likely to protest.
To summarize, we advance a number of empirical connections between the char-
acteristics of institutions and the decision of political actors to take part in protests.
First, we expect a negative correlation between institutional strength and the propen-
sity of individuals and groups to use alternative political technologies such as
protests. Protest should be more prevalent under weaker institutions, where individ-uals do not expect to obtain their desired political goals through the regular institu-
tional means. At the individual level, we would expect those for whom the collective
action costs of participation are lower and the expected benefits of more direct
means of political action are higher to be more likely to engage in protest.
Machado et al. 347
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 10/27
Protests in Latin America: Empirical Analysis
In this section, we estimate empirical models of protest participation that draw on the
theoretical framework just described. Our main data source is the LAPOP (2008)surveys conducted in seventeen Latin American countries.11 These surveys,
designed to be representative of the voting-age population in each of the countries,
cover a broad spectrum of topics ranging from assessments of the economic situation
to respondents’ engagement in different forms of political participation.
Our dependent variable is respondents’ answer to a question about how often they
have joined a demonstration or public protest during the past twelve months.
Possible answers included ‘‘never,’’ ‘‘almost never,’’ and ‘‘sometimes.’’ For the
purposes of our analysis, we collapse the categories ‘‘sometimes’’ and ‘‘almost never’’
and work with a dummy variable indicating whether an individual participated or not.12
As it is clear from Figure 1 in the Introduction, countries differ considerably on
the number of citizens drawn to the streets. While more than 25 percent of the
people surveyed reported protest participation in Argentina and Bolivia, less than
10 percent did so in countries like Brazil and Mexico. Even though the broader
literature on protest participation has found that some individuals are more likely
to protest than others—based on personal traits and predispositions—individual
characteristics alone cannot account for much of the observed variation. Thus, our
claim that, in addition to such basic personal characteristics, there exists a relevant
relationship between protest participation and the strength of political institutions.
Variables
We begin by introducing the individual-level measures. Drawing from the international
literature on protest participation, we include in the analysis a number of personal
features found to affect the probability of joining protests and demonstrations.
These include individuals’ perceptions of the workings of political institutions,
satisfaction with the current government, motivational attitudes, and basic socioeco-nomic attributes. These are all taken from the LAPOP survey.
On respondents’ perception of the workings of political institutions we consider
two variables. First, we include respondents’ reported levels of respect for political
institutions in their country (respect institutions). Countries vary in their institutional
strength, and so do individuals within countries on their perceptions about such
strength and relevance. Thus, we expect this measure to be negatively correlated
with protest participation. Second, we employ an item on the extent respondents feel
their interests are being represented by political parties ( parties represent ).
And, moreover, to gauge the levels of satisfaction with the current government,we use the reported intention to vote for the opposition candidate if elections were
to be held soon (vote opponent ).
A common group of variables found in the literature are those capturing general
political motivational attitudes. That is, individual factors and traits which affect
348 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 11/27
their propensity to participate in politics in general and protest in particular.
These include the intensity of political interest ( political interest ), the degree of
(self-reported) understanding of politics (understand politics), and the level of trustin other people (interpersonal trust ). Interpersonal trust is also directly related to the
collective nature of protests. Protests and demonstrations tend to be more successful
the greater the number of participants. Thus, the incentive to join such a group action
is positively correlated with the extent to which an individual believes that other
members will not defect on her.13
Equally relevant to the collective action issue faced by protesters are individuals’
propensity to engage in group activities in general. It is often argued that members of
unions, churchgoers, and those who engage in community activities are more likely
to participate in protests because these existing networks reduce the costs of organi-zation.14 Thus, we also control for such levels of civic engagement. We build an
index for each individual based on their attendance of religious ceremonies, local
community meetings, professional associations, labor union, and political party
rallies ( group meeting ).
Another factor receiving increased attention in the literature is the relationship
between individuals’ experience with corruption (corruption experience) and protest
engagement. Previous studies have found that perceptions of public corruption
increase the individual likelihood of participating in protests. Authors such as
Gingerich (2009) and Kiewiet de Jonge (2009) argue that corruption victimizationmay be a grievance that lowers the collective action cost of protest due to the manner
in which it affects the attribution process.
Finally, we include a set of sociodemographic controls. The belief that the rich
and more educated are more likely to engage in political participation in general, and
in demonstrations in particular, is widespread, at least in the developed-country
literature (Anderson and Mendes 2005; Booth and Seligson 2008). First, organizing
and participating in protests are costly enterprises that not everyone is able to afford.
Thus, material resources should matter. Second, it is commonly believed that such
forms of political participation presuppose some degree of awareness and under-standing of the political process that the well educated are more likely to possess.
In this view, the better educated are seen as better informed, more critical, and more
engaged individuals. Thus, we control for level of education (measured as last-grade
completed), income (measured in log form), and for age (a continuous variable) and
gender (a dummy variable where 1 denotes male).15
As country-level covariates, we use indicators of the workings of the legislature,
the judicial branch, and the bureaucracy, compiled by research organizations.
These are three important institutions that we believe can affect individuals’
decisions of arenas of political participation. We draw our measure of CongressCapabilities from the Global Competitiveness Report, which focus on the effective-
ness of a country’s lawmaking body. We take the average of this measure over the
years 2003–2005. The degree of Judicial Independence, that is, the extent to which
the judicial branch is not subject to interference by the government and parties to the
Machado et al. 349
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 12/27
disputes, is drawn from the Fraser Institute of Economic Freedom Report (averaged
over the years 2000–2007). Finally, Bureaucratic Quality ratings are taken from the
International Country Risk Guide and averaged over the years 2000–2005.
16
Each of these measures captures both the specificities associated with the partic-
ular institution they portray and some general characteristics of the institutional
environment. In order to compute a summary indicator of institutional strength,
we use factor analysis. Results indicate that these three measures display a strong
common element that we take as a proxy for institutional strength.
Estimation
As is clear from the previous discussion, we believe protest is associated with a
number of factors. First, protests are determined by individual-level factors, which
might affect protest participation differently in different countries.17 Second, the
likelihood of protest participation may be related to country characteristics that
might be associated with protests both directly and through their relationships with
individual-level covariates. Given the complexity of these relationships and to better
understand the multilevel structure of the data we perform several exercises.
We begin exploring these relationships by running simple regressions containing
both the country-level covariates—our index and each of its components—and the
individual-level characteristics. A rich debate currently exists on the best strategy
to analyze multiple country survey data given that panel data methods were found
to be inappropriate.18 Following the discussion in Gelman and Hill (2006) and
results in Leoni (2009), we estimate these first regressions in two ways. First, we run
a pooled specification, using the jackknife procedure clustering by country to calcu-
late the standard errors. We run a logit specification given the dichotomous nature of
the dependent variable, as follows:
Pr y j i½ ¼ 1À Á
¼ logitÀ1 a þ X j i½ b1 þ U j b2
À Á; for i ¼ 1; . . . ; n j and j ¼ 1; . . . ; 17; ð1Þ
where i indexes individuals, j [i] means individual i belongs to country j , y j [i] ¼ 1
means individual i reported participation in protest in the past twelve months, X is
a matrix containing all individual-level covariates, and U is a matrix containing the
country-level covariates. n j is the number of individuals in country j .
This specification relies, however, on assumptions that might be too strong.
First, we are assuming that all country-level variation is explained by our aggregate
measures. Second, unless the individual-level variables are interacted with the
aggregate measures they are assumed fixed across countries. To relax somewhat
these assumptions, we also run a semipooling specification where we allow for randomcountry intercepts, as follows:
Pr y j i½ ¼ 1À Á
¼ log itÀ1 a j þ X j i½ b1 þ U j b2
À Á; for i ¼ 1; . . . ; n j and j ¼ 1; . . . ; 17 ð2Þ
a j $ N ma;s2a
À Á; for j ¼ 1; . . . ; 17:
350 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 13/27
In the next step, we estimate regressions by country to explore possible variations
in the estimated effects of individual-level characteristics on the likelihood to protest.
Following the estimation of these seventeen regressions, we look at simple correla-tions between the estimated coefficients—on individual characteristics—and the
institutional features of the countries. This provides us with preliminary evidence
on the degree to which country characteristics explained the fact that respondents
with the same individual traits have different propensities to protest.
Based on these results, we specify the full model, which includes both the
country-level covariates and its interaction with the individual-level variables of
interest. This model is also run based on both specifications discussed above.19
Results
Both the random intercepts and the clustered jackknife specifications yield very
similar results. Given these similarities, in Table 1 we present just the results of the
random intercepts logit estimations, following equation (2). We note the differences
in results where applicable. Except for ratings of the quality of the bureaucracy, all
proxies of the functioning of institutions have a negative and significant estimated
effect on the likelihood of protest participation. That is, in countries where these
institutions work better the propensity of individuals to take it to the streets, controlling
for individual-level factors is significantly lower. We also find that individual reported levels of respect for institutions is negatively related to the propensity to protest.
Regarding individual motivational attitudes, with the exception of self-declared
understanding of politics, the estimated effects are positive and significant, corrobor-
ating the claims usually found in the literature. Personal experience with corruption,
as highlighted in many recent accounts of protest participation that focuses on grie-
vances as an important motivator, is also estimated as positive and significant.
Lastly in this set, individuals’ engagement in group activities—such as those pro-
moted by churches, unions, and community groups—seem to exert a strong positive
effect. This is compatible with accounts of group activism as a means of decreasingorganizational costs, thus vouching for the importance of collective action issues on
the individual decision to protest.
Individual’s intention to vote for the opponent if elections were to take place soon
appears to have a strong and significant effect on protest participation. This corro-
borates the view that dissatisfaction with the performance of the current government
can encourage citizens to engage in demonstrations. With respect to socioeconomic
controls, based on the random-intercepts specification, the better educated, more
resourceful, and younger individuals are more likely to protest. Based on the jackknife
estimation, however, both age and income fail to attain statistical significance.Gender, in both models, is not significant.
While interpersonal trust appears to be positively and significantly associated
with protest participation under the random-intercepts specification, it is not under
the alternative jackknife estimation. Furthermore, whether or not parties are
Machado et al. 351
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 14/27
T a b l e 1 .
L o
g i t E s t i m a t i o n R e s u l t s f o r P r o
t e s t P a r t i c i p a t i o n B a s e d o n R a n d o m - I n t e r c e p t s S p e c i f i c a t i o n s
( 1 )
( 2 )
( 3 )
( 4 )
( 5 )
L e g i s l a t u r e e f f i c i e n c y
– 0 . 6
5 * * ( . 2 8 )
B u r e a u c r a c y i n d e x
0 . 1
7 ( . 2 3 )
J u d i c i a l i n d e p e n d e n c e
– 0 . 1
6 * * ( . 0 7 )
I n s t i t u t i o n a l s t r e n g t h i n d e x
– 0 . 3
8 * * ( . 1 7 )
– 0 . 0 9
( . 1 9 )
R e s p e c t i n s t i t
u t i o n s
– 0 . 0
6 * ( . 0 1 )
– 0 . 0
6 * ( . 0 1 )
– 0 . 0
5 * ( . 0 1 )
– 0 . 0
5 * ( . 0 1 )
– 0 . 0 6 *
( . 0 1 )
P a r t i e s r e p r e s e n t
0 . 0
1 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
1 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
1 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
1 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 1 0 *
( . 0 3 )
I n s t i t u t i o n s Â
p a r t i e s r e p r e s e n t
– 0 . 0 8 *
( . 0 2 )
E x p e r i e n c e w
i t h c o r r u p t i o n
0 . 2
1 * ( . 0 4 )
0 . 2
1 * ( . 0 4 )
0 . 2
1 * ( . 0 4 )
0 . 2
1 * ( . 0 4 )
0 . 2 1 *
( . 0 4 )
I n t e r p e r s o n a l
t r u s t
0 . 0
8 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 0
8 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 0
8 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 0
8 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 0 8 *
( . 0 3 )
V o t e f o r o p p o n e n t
0 . 3
2 * ( . 0 6 )
0 . 3
2 * ( . 0 6 )
0 . 3
2 * ( . 0 6 )
0 . 3
2 * ( . 0 6 )
0 . 3 2 *
( . 0 6 )
I n t e r e s t i n p o
l i t i c s
0 . 3
3 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 3
3 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 3
3 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 3
3 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 3 3 *
( . 0 3 )
U n d e r s t a n d p
o l i t i c s
0 . 0
2 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
2 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
3 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
3 ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0 3 *
* * ( . 0 2 )
P a r t i c i p a t i o n i n g r o u p m e e t i n g s
0 . 6
6 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 6
6 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 6
5 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 6
5 * ( . 0 3 )
0 . 6 6 *
( . 0 3 )
A g e
– 0 . 0
0 * * ( . 0 0 )
– 0 . 0
0 * * ( . 0 0 )
– 0 . 0
0 * * ( . 0 0 )
– 0 . 0
0 * * ( . 0 0 )
– 0 . 0 0 *
* ( . 0 0 )
M a l e
0 . 0
5 ( . 0 5 )
0 . 0
6 ( . 0 5 )
0 . 0
7 ( . 0 5 )
0 . 0
8 ( . 0 5 )
0 . 0 5
( . 0 5 )
E d u c a t i o n
0 . 0
5 * ( . 0 1 )
0 . 0
5 * ( . 0 1 )
0 . 0
5 * ( . 0 1 )
0 . 0
5 * ( . 0 1 )
0 . 0 5 *
( . 0 1 )
L o g ( i n c o m e )
0 . 0
7 * ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
7 * ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
7 * ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0
7 * ( . 0 2 )
0 . 0 7 *
( . 0 2 )
C o n s t a n t
– 2 . 7
5 * ( . 6 3 )
– 4 . 4
4 * ( . 4 9 )
– 3 . 6
6 * ( . 3 0 )
– 3 . 6
7 * ( . 2 9 )
– 3 . 9 8 *
( . 3 1 )
O b s e r v a t i o n s
1 6 , 0
2 2
1 6 , 0
2 2
1 6 , 0
2 2
1 6 , 0
2 2
1 6
, 0 2 2
N u m b e r o f c o u n t r i e s
1 7
1 7
1 7
1 7
1 7
N o t e : S t a n d a r d
e r r o r s i n p a r e n t h e s e s .
* p < . 0
1 .
* * p <
. 0 5 .
* * * p < . 1 .
352 at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 15/27
perceived to fulfill their representative duties turn out to be insignificant in both
cases. That being said, constraining the estimated effects to be the same across coun-
tries can conceal important cross-country differences. We investigate these next.
Results displayed in Figure 3 suggest there can be significant variation in the
estimated effect of individual-level variables. The usual controls capturing individ-
uals’ motivational attitudes tend indeed to have a positive and significant effecton the likelihood of protest participation. The results on socioeconomic variables,
however, are less straightforward. While education tends to have a positive effect,
income, gender, and age display very different estimated effects depending on the
country. In Panama, for example, it seems like the poorer were more likely to report
protest participation, while the opposite is true in Venezuela, Uruguay, and Bolivia.
With respect to the belief that parties represent their constituencies’ interests, we
observe contrasting effects across countries. In Ecuador and Venezuela the effect is posi-
tive and significant, but in Uruguay and Brazil it is negative and significant. Based on the
accounts of party involvement in protests discussed in the previous section these results arenot surprising. Nor is the factthat this variation can be in part accounted for by the quality of
institutions. As shown in Figure 4 online, in countries where institutions are stronger, those
who believe that parties represent their constituencies were less likely to protest. Conver-
sely, under weaker institutions, those holding similar beliefs were more likely to protest.
Countries
V a r i a b l e s
Log income
Education
Male
Age
Understand politics
Interest politics
Group meeting
Vote opponent
Interpersonal trust
Experience corruption
Parties represent
Respect institutions
ARG BOL BRA COL CRI DOMECU ELS GUAHON MEX NIC PAN PAR PER URU VEN
Coefficients
Positive, significant
Positive
Negative
Negative, significant
Figure 3. Country-by-country regression results.Note: Each column corresponds to one of the seventeen countries, which are labeled on the x -axis. Each
row reports the sign and significance of the estimated coefficients on each of the independent variables.The threshold used to establish the significance of the estimated coefficients was a z score of 1.69 ormore, corresponding to a 90 percent confidence interval around the estimate not including zero.
Machado et al. 353
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 16/27
This finding is consistent with our proposition that in a well-functioning institu-
tional setting, parties are able to fulfill their primary role as representatives through
conventional political institutions, thus reducing their (and their constituencies’)
expected benefits from participating in protest is low. When institutions are weaker,
however, the best way for parties to represent their constituencies’ interests might
indeed be to voice them through unconventional means. While the percentage of
respondents reporting that parties represent them well is substantially lower in
weaker institutional environments, these fewer individuals tend to be those more
likely to take part in demonstrations.An alternative interpretation of these results, not inconsistent with our general
argument, is that clientelistic parties, more common under weak institutions, might
explain both participation in protest and feelings of representation. This is because of
the gifts doled out by clientelistic parties to protesters in exchange for their
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
–0.3
–0.2
–0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
Institutional strength index
C o e f f i c i e n t s o f p a r t i e s r e p r e s e n t c o n s t i t u e n c i e s
Figure 4. The relationship between estimated coefficients by country and institutionalstrengthNote: Points in the figure represent the estimated coefficients and bars represent + the estimated stan-dard error. The gray line is the fitted line of a simple bivariate ordinary least squares regression of theestimated coefficients on the institutional strength index.
354 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 17/27
participation. We found, however, no preliminary evidence of this relationship.
Using a measure of the extent to which parties are programmatic rather than cliente-
listic, from Jones (2010), we found no significant relationship between participationin protest and feeling represented by parties. In fact, if we replicate our estimations
with this measure in place of our institutional index, both the individual coefficient
on level of clientelism and its interaction with parties represent are not significant.
Moreover, looking within countries, we found that in Chile—the only country
with a question on experience with clientelism—receiving material gifts from par-
ties is negatively and significantly associated with agreeing that parties represent
their constituencies. That is, the higher the exposure to clientelism, the lower the
feeling of party representing their constituencies well.
While suggestive, the result presented in Figure 4 (online) should be taken with agrain of salt, however, since we are not correcting for the fact that the dependent
variable in this exercise—that is, the coefficients by country—is estimated. We now
move on to consider a specification where we include this interaction between
institutional strength and parties represent .20 Results are presented in column 5 of
Table 1. Again, we get very similar results from both the jackknife and the
random-intercepts specifications (save for the same factors mentioned earlier: age,
income, and interpersonal trust). We thus decide to report just the latter.21
In general, the results obtained in the previous exercises continue to hold under
the full specification, including the relationship depicted on Figure 4 (online). Asshown in Table 1 column 5, the estimated coefficient on whether a respondent
believes parties represent their constituencies’ interests is positive but that effect is
dampened as institutional strength increases (negative sign of the interaction term).
While the results reported in Table 1 column 5 provide us with information on the
sign and significance of the coefficients of interest, their scope and actual effects are
difficult to grasp just by looking at these numbers. The nonlinearity of the specifica-
tion and the use of interaction terms complicate their interpretation. For clarity of
exposition, we discuss the results through the use of predicted probabilities calcu-
lated for meaningful profiles of individuals. We perform these calculations based on the random-intercepts specification.
Given the homogeneity of results with respect to personal motivational attitudes,
we set the individual profiles in the exercise that follows to one corresponding to a
‘‘highly motivated individual,’’ while letting the variables of interest vary. A highly
motivated individual is one that is interested in politics (value set at 3 on a 1–4
scale), would vote for the opponent if elections were to be held soon (dummy set
to 1), trusts people (set to 3 on a 1–4 scale), and displays a high degree of understand-
ing of the main issues in politics (set to 5 on a 1–7 scale). Since experience with cor-
ruption and levels of respect for institutions also turned out to be uniformly relevantin all countries, we set these variables to their sample mean values. The same is
done with the socioeconomic characteristics—education (set to nine years), income
(US 164 PPP) and age (set to thirty years old). It is worth noting that we replicated
the exercise shown below with average motivational attitudes with very similar results.
Machado et al. 355
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 18/27
The objective is to explore how these motivated individuals are led to take actual part in protest depending on their perceptions of parties’ as representatives and the
strength of institutions in their countries. Figure 5 displays evidence of both a direct
and an indirect (through parties’ strategies) effect of institutional strength on the
individual propensity to protest. The results thus suggest that the same logic leading
individuals to circumvent weak institutions and take it to the streets seems to hold for
parties as well.
In Figure 5, we compute the predicted probabilities of two profiles of individuals.
The first corresponds to an individual who agrees that parties represent constituen-
cies well—we set this item to the value of 6. The second represents an individualwho believes the opposite—we set the answer to 1. All other variables are assigned
the values specified earlier. Additionally, we compare these two profiles of individ-
uals at varying levels of our institutional strength index. The panel on the left dis-
plays, for each value of the institutional strength index, the pair of predicted
probabilities corresponding to the individual who agrees and to the individual who
disagrees with the party statement. On the panel on the right, we plot the differences
between these pairs of predicted probabilities with their standard errors, in order to
know in which cases they are significantly different.
Regarding the direct effect of the institutional strength index, it is particularly
strong in the case of individuals who rate parties as doing a good job representing
their interests. This individual has an estimated probability of engaging in protest
of around 37 percent if he or she lives in a country with weak institutions. The same
individual in a country with stronger institutions has an estimated probability of
Institutional strength index
P
r e d i c t e d
p r o b a b i l i t i e s : p r o t e s t p a r t i c i p a t i o n
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0 1 2 3 4
Institutional strength index
0 1 2 3 4
F i r s t d i f f e r e n c e s : a g r e e
–
d i s a g
r e e
–0.2
–0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
Figure 5. The effect of believing parties represent constituencies well under institutions of varying strengthNote: Vertical bars represent 90 percent confidence intervals. Triangles represent the profile of anindividual who agrees with the statement that parties represent constituents well (Answer Category 6).Circles represent the profile of an individual who disagrees (Answer Category 1) with the statement.
356 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 19/27
protesting that falls well below 10 percent. We also observe a drop in the case of
individuals more dissatisfied with the actions of parties but a less abrupt one. Those
believing parties do not represent constituencies well have an estimated likelihood of engaging in protest of around 30 percent under weak institutions and of 12 percent
under better institutions.
Inspection of the data shows that the number of respondents agreeing with the
statement about parties is much lower under weaker institutions than under stronger
ones. Thus, it seems that as institutions improve, so does the ability of parties to
convey a sense of truly representing the interests of their constituencies. Conceivably,
in weak institutional settings it is easier for parties to affect political decisions through
more direct actions. As discussed before, this strategy has been adopted even by the
president’s party (or faction) in Argentina.
Conclusion
Different features of political institutions have been used to explain political and
policy outcomes. Most of this literature relies on the proper functioning of institu-
tions, assuming that all outcomes are produced in a fully institutionalized manner.
While countries at distinct stages of development might share political processes
characterized by very similar rules and procedures, their actual functioning can
differ considerably.In this article, we explore the consequences of this fundamental contrast, in
particular how it affects individuals’ choices of channels of political participation.
We argued that when institutions of policymaking function well, actors are more
likely to participate through institutionalized arenas, whereas when they are weak
more direct channels of participation might be chosen.
We explored this relationship empirically with a particular focus on one promi-
nent type of direct participation: street protests. We thus combined country-level
measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest
participation in seventeen Latin American countries. Our results suggest that insti-tutional strength is indeed associated with lower protest participation by groups of
individuals. We also uncovered an interesting interaction between individual features
and institutional strength. In particular, we find that those who believe that political
parties represent their constituencies well are less likely to participate in protest in
countries where institutions are relatively strong but more likely to do so in countries
with weak institutions. We interpret this result as an indication that, just like individ-
uals, parties also choose between the more institutionalized versus the less institutio-
nalized channels in representing the interests of their constituencies.
In countries where political actors are more likely to ‘‘play by the book,’’ bargainingand decision making tend to be fairly institutionalized. This, in turn, generates incen-
tives for individuals to invest in the strengthening of these institutions and on their capa-
cities to affect decisions from within them. If, on the other hand, most actors believe the
best way to affect decisions is through alternative means such as protests, the incentives
Machado et al. 357
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 20/27
to develop strong and well-functioning institutions will be much lower. Given this
feedback effect, investing in the proper functioning of institutions can create a vir-
tuous cycle.
Appendix: Description of Variables Employed
Institutional strength index: this measure is scaled to the interval 0— low quality and
3.5— high quality. It was computed based on factor analysis of four indicators:
Effectiveness of lawmaking bodies (1 ¼ very ineffective to 7 ¼ very effective)
from the GCR (average over 2003–2005);
Fraser index of independence of the judiciary (average over 1995–2003); International Country Risk Guide ‘‘Bureaucracy Quality’’ rating (average over
1984–2001). High points are given to countries where the bureaucracy has the
strength and expertise to govern without drastic changes in policy or interrup-
tions in government services. In these low-risk countries, the bureaucracy tends
to be somewhat autonomous from political pressure and to have an established
mechanism for recruitment and training.
Parties represent voters: ‘‘To what extent political parties represent their voters
well? 1—not at all, 7—to a great extent.’’Respect institutions: ‘‘To what extent do you respect the political institutions of
(country)?’’ 1—not at all, 7—a lot.
Political interest: ‘‘How interested are you in politics? 1—a lot, 2—somewhat, 3—
a little, 4—not at all.’’ We reverse the scale of this variable for estimation.
Understand politics: ‘‘I feel I have a good understanding of the most important
political issues in this country. 1—strongly disagree, 7—strongly agree.’’
Interpersonal trust: ‘‘How much do you trust people you meet for the first time? 1—
trust completely, 2—trust somewhat, 3—trust a little, 4—don’t trust at all.’’ We
reverse the scale of this variable for estimation.Would vote for opponent: ‘‘If presidential elections were to be held this weekend
who would you vote for? 1—would not vote, 2—would vote for the incumbent, 3—
would vote for the challenger, 4—would vote blank.’’ This variable was employed as
dummies for each category setting the second as a baseline (not included in the
specification).
Corruption experience: In this index, we add the number of reported times a
respondent was asked to pay a bribe by either a public servant, a police officer, or
to keep services like electricity going.
Group meeting: Factor analysis of the following items: ‘‘I am going to read a list of groups and organizations. Please tell me if you attend their meetings at least once a
week, once or twice a month, once or twice a year, or never: (a) meetings of any reli-
gious organization; (b) meetings of a committee or association for community
improvement; (c) meetings of an association of professionals, traders, or farmers;
358 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 21/27
(d) meetings of a labor union; and (e) meetings of a political party or political
movement?’’
Acknowledgments
We thank the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and its major supporters
(the United Stated Agency for International Development, the United Nations Development
Program, the Inter-American Development Bank, and Vanderbilt University) for making the
data available. We are grateful to Eduardo Aleman, Rafael Di-Tella, Thad Dunning, panel
participants at the LACEA and the MPSA annual meetings, seminar participants at the
University of Rochester and the Yale Conference on Fighting and Voting, and two anonymous
referees for valuable comments and suggestions. We are also indebted to Natasha Falcao and
Melisa Ioranni for their research assistance. The views and interpretations in this documentare those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank
or to any individual acting on its behalf. All the material necessary to replicate the data anal-
ysis are available for download at the journal’s website.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
Mariano Tommasi acknowledges the financial support and hospitality of the Research Depart-
ment at the Inter-American Development Bank
Notes
1. There are various reasons to expect more institutionalized collective decision-making
arenas to lead to better policies and better outcomes. According to Pierson (2004, 107),
‘‘political institutions can serve to coordinate the behavior and expectations of decentra-
lized actors (Carey 2000) and to facilitate bargaining by creating monitoring bodies, issuelinkages, and mechanisms for making credible commitments (Kehoane 1984; Weingast
2002).’’ Scartascini, Stein, and Tommasi (2009) shows that more institutionalized
policymaking environments lead to policies that are more stable, (yet) more adaptable to
changing circumstances, more coordinated and coherent, and better implemented.
2. Between June 2009 and April 2010 there were 2,303 road blockades in Argentina. These
blockades have taken place across the country, involving different groups, and a variety
of topics. Monthly reports and more disaggregated information are available at http://
diagnosticopolitico.com.ar.
3. All figures in the article were produced using ggplot by Wickham (2009) in R statistical package.
4. It tends tobe the focus of and the mainentry point for the political influence of interest groups.
See, for instance, Weingast and Marshall (1988); Shepsle and Weingast (1995); Diermeier,
Keane, and Merlo (2005); and Grossman and Helpman (2001) and references there.
Machado et al. 359
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 22/27
5. See Jones et al. (2002) and Spiller and Tommasi (2008) for details on the Argentine
Congress. Saiegh (2010) and Stein and Tommasi (2007) provide wider cross-country
comparisons. Such analyses constitute the background for the empirical measures of insti-tutional strength we use in this article. Similar analyses and data-building efforts to those
focused on Congress have been performed for the Judiciary (Inter-American Development
Bank [IADB] 2005; Magaldi de Sousa 2010), political party systems (IADB 2005; Jones
2010), and bureaucracies (IADB 2005; Zuvanic, Iacoviello, and Gusta 2010).
6. In some cases, protest indeed impacts policy decisions in important ways. Just to cite
a few examples, in Bolivia, teachers and police officers got substantial raises and benefits
after they took their claims to the streets. A very influential protest that opposed the
attempt of the government of Bolivia to change the tax system ended with the reform and
ultimately with the government of President Sanchez de Lozada. Three other presidentsin the region were forced to step down as a result of popular protests just a few years apart
(Mihaly 2006). Protests by the rural sector in Argentina forced Congress to decide against
a proposal by the executive to raise taxes on agricultural exports and ignited a political
conflict that has weakened the popularity and power of the Kirchner administration (a
chronology of events can be followed in http://www.clarin.com/diario/2008/07/21/
elpais/p-01719603.htm).
7. Costs incurred because of a road blockade can be substantial. For example, they may
create shortages in certain products which would increase prices—for example,
blockades in Peru made prices raise substantially—34 percent for carrots—in the capitalof Peru. (http://gestion. pe/impresa/noticia/bloqueo-carreteras-afecta-abastecimiento-
alimentos-lima/2009-06-24/5655). They may also restrict certain industries to operate
normally—for example, road blockades in Argentina had an impact in the tourism sector,
where demand for bus tickets fell more than 60 percent. (http://www.lagaceta.com.ar/
nota/276263/Argentina/Se_agrava_desabastecimiento_piquetes_rut as.html).
8. Protest activity is undoubtedly subject to the usual collective action problems. In sev-
eral of the countries in our sample in the year of analysis, there were some dominant
types of protesters (agricultural producers and unemployed piqueteros in Argentina,
indigenous organizations in Bolivia), each with its own organizational issues. Givenour emphasis on the ‘‘contextual’’ variables relating to the institutional environment
(that might encourage any of these ‘‘collectivities’’ to protest), we do not enter into
much detail about how these collective action issues are resolved. For a recent survey
of the subject, we refer the reader to Oliver, Cadena-Roa, and Strawn (2003).
9. In Argentina, even the late former president and leader of the government party had no
quandaries to declare that he was not concerned about the opposition party gaining con-
trol of the legislative committees in congress because the government party still con-
trolled the street (‘‘Si nos quieren echar de todas las comisiones, que lo hagan;
tenemos las calles del pueblo’’ available at http://m.lanacion.com.ar/1204204-kirchner-
si-nos-quieren-echar-de-todas-las-comisiones-que-lo-hagan-tenemos-las-calles-del-pueblo).
Moreover, when analyzing our survey data we have found that, in many countries, individuals
that declared being represented by parties and who reported protest participation in the last
twelve months tended to also report being close to the party of the president.
360 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 23/27
10. This kind of strategic thinking is noted by Hipsher with respect to Chile and Spain.
As argued by the author, ‘‘Political parties in Chile and Spain, which had once actively sup-
ported insurgent activities by movements and had defined democracy in terms of grassroots participation and fundamental political and economic reforms, abandoned these stra-
tegies and goals to support a limited democracy, defined as the absence of military
rule. In an attempt to preserve democratic stability and not provoke the Right, the
parties discouraged protest and encouraged institutionalized forms of political participation’’
(273, 1996).
11. The countries and respective number of observations are: Mexico (1560), Guatemala
(1538), El Salvador (1549), Honduras (1522), Nicaragua (1540), Costa Rica (1500),
Panama (1536), Colombia (1503), Ecuador (3000), Bolivia (3003), Peru (1500), Paraguay
(1166), Uruguay (1500), Brazil (1497), Venezuela (1500), Argentina (1486), and theDominican Republic (1507). Chile was also surveyed, but unfortunately no question
on protest participation was asked.
12. These data gathered from survey responses are consistent with data on actual number of
protests in the countries. For example, the correlation between the average responses per
country and the data on riots and demonstrations compiled by the Cross-National Time
Series Archive is 0.54 for 2008.
13. Variables in this group have been explored by other authors as well. Bernhagen and
Marsh (2007), for example, find that interest in politics—captured by a question on
whether the person follows politics in the media—tends to show significant and substantiveeffect on protest participation. In turn, Smith (2009) and Benson and Rochon (2004) control
for interpersonal trust under the assumption it makes it easier to take part in protests.
14. Finkel and Opp (1991) find that social network rewards account in part for individual
participation in collective political action. They analyze group membership and whether
it encourages protest.
15. Income was made comparable following Gasparini et al. (2008), where local currencies
were converted into PPP dollars of 2007.
16. The different years used for each component are due to data availability. We have tried to
take relatively long averages in order to reduce the impact of year-specific events and potential endogeneity problems in the generation of these data, which are mostly based
on expert opinions.
17. For econometric purposes, we treat at the individual level some variables that capture
collective action issues.
18. See the 2005 special issue of the Political Analysis journal (volume 13, number 4) on
multilevel analysis of large clusters survey data.
19. Ideally, we would have fit a full hierarchical model allowing for both random intercepts
and slopes. However, these specifications are computationally complex and in most cases
the maximum likelihood estimator does not converge.
20. It would be possible to estimate a two-stage regression where on the second stage the
individual-level coefficients are regressed on the aggregate-level covariates. Hanushek
(1974), Borjas (1982), and Lewis and Linzer (2005) have all proposed weighting schemes
to take care of the heteroskedasticity resulting from the fact that the dependent variable in
Machado et al. 361
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 24/27
the second stage is estimated. We chose, however, not to implement the two-step
approach for two reasons. First, we have a relatively small sample of countries limiting
the degrees of freedom available for the second stage estimation. Second, these modelsare very cumbersome to interpret.
21. Results for the pooled clustered jackknife standard errors are available in a working paper
by the authors. The working paper can be accessed from http://www.iadb.org/research/
pub_desc.cfm?pub_id=IDB-WP-110
References
Anderson, Christopher J., and Silvia Mendes. 2005. ‘‘Learning to Lose: Election Outcomes,
Democratic Experience and Political Protest Potential.’’ British Journal of Political Science 36:91–111.
Baron, David, and John Ferejohn. 1989. ‘‘Bargaining in Legislatures.’’ American Political
Science Review 83:1181–206.
Benson, Michelle, and Thomas R. Rochon. 2004. ‘‘Interpersonal Trust and the Magnitude of
Protest. A Micro and Macro Level Approach.’’ Comparative Political Studies 37:435–57.
Bernhagen, Patrick, and Michael Marsh. 2007. ‘‘Voting and Protesting: Explaining Citizen
Participation in Old and New European Democracies.’’ Democratization 14:44–72.
Booth, John A., and Mitchell A. Seligson. 2008. ‘‘Inequality and Democracy in Latin
America: Individual and Contextual Effects of Wealth on Political Participation.’’In Poverty, Participation, and Democracy: A Global Perspective, edited by Anirudh
Krishna, 94–124. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Borjas, George J. 1982. ‘‘On Regressing Regression Coefficients.’’ Journal of Statistical
Planning and Inference 7:131–7.
Carey, John M. 2000. ‘‘Parchment, Equilibria, and Institutions.’’ Comparative Political
Studies 33:735–61.
Dalton, Russel. 2008. Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced
Industrial Democracies. 5th ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
Diermeier, Daniel, Michael P. Keane, and Antonio M. Merlo. 2005. ‘‘A Political EconomyModel of Congressional Careers.’’ American Economic Review 95:347–73.
Eckstein, Susan. 2001. Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements
(2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Finkel, Steven E., and Karl-Dieter Opp. 1991. ‘‘Party Identification and Participation in
Collective Political Action.’’ Journal of Politics 53:339–71.
Gasparini, Leonardo, Walter Sosa Escudero, Mariana Marchionni, and Sergio Olivieri. 2008.
Income, Deprivation, and Perceptions in Latin America and the Caribbean: New Evidence
From the Gallup World Poll . Mimeographed document. Universidad de La Plata.
Accessed http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_desc.cfm?pub_id ¼s-890.Gelman, Andrew, and Jennifer Hill. 2006. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/
Hierarchical Models. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Gingerich, Daniel W. 2009. ‘‘Corruption and Political Decay: Evidence From Bolivia.’’
Quarterly Journal of Political Science 4:1–34.
362 Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(3)
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 25/27
Grossman, Gene, and Elhanan Helpman. 2001. Special Interest Politics. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Hanushek, Eric A. 1974. ‘‘Efficient Estimators for Regressing Regression Coefficients.’’ American Statistician 28:66–7.
Hipsher, Patricia L. 1996. ‘‘Democratization and the Decline of Urban Social Movements in
Chile and Spain.’’ Comparative Politics 28:273–97.
Inter-American Development Bank. 2005. The Politics of Policies. Economic and Social
Progress in Latin America and the Caribbean 2006 Report. Washington, DC. Accessed
http://www.iadb.org/res/ipes/2006/index.cfm?language¼english.
Jemio, Luis Carlos, Fernando Candia, and Jose Luis Evio. 2009. ‘‘Reforms and Counterre-
forms in Bolivia.’’ IDB Working Paper Series, n.105, Inter-American Development Bank
Washington, DC.Jones, Mark P. 2010. ‘‘Beyond the Electoral Connection: The Effect of Political Parties on the
Policymaking Process.’’ In How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors and Are-
nas in Latin American Policymaking , edited by C. Scartascini, E. Stein, and M. Tommasi,
19–46. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and David Rockefeller
Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
Jones, Mark P., Sebastian M. Saiegh, Pablo T. Spiller, and Mariano Tommasi. 2002. ‘‘Amateur
Legislators-Professional Politicians: The Consequences of Party-Centered Electoral Rules in
Federal Systems.’’ American Journal of Political Science 46:656–69.
Kehoane, Robert. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kiewiet de Jonge, Chad. 2009. ‘‘Corruption as a Mobilizing Grievance.’’ Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National
Conference, April 2, Chicago.
Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). 2008. The Americas Barometer Survey.
Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University. Accessed http://www.LapopSurveys.org.
Leoni, Eduardo L. 2009. ‘‘Analyzing Multi-country Survey Data: Results from Monte Carlo
Experiments’’. Mimeo. Available at: http://eduardoleoni.com/workingpapers/multilevel.pdf
Lewis, Jeffrey B., and Drew A. Linzer. 2005. ‘‘Estimating Regression Models in Which theDependent Variable is Based on Estimates.’’ Political Analysis 13:345–64.
Magaldi de Sousa, Mariana. 2010. ‘‘How Courts Engage in the Policymaking Process in
Latin America: The Different Functions of the Judiciary.’’ In How Democracy Works:
Political Institutions, Actors and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking , edited by
C. Scartascini, E. Stein, and M. Tommasi, 77–117. Washington, DC: Inter-American
Development Bank and David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard
University.
Mejıa Acosta, Andres, Caridad Araujo, Anıbal Perez Linan, and Sebastian Saiegh. 2008.
‘‘Veto Players, Fickle Institutions and Low Quality Policies: The Policymaking Process
in Ecuador.’’ In Policymaking in Latin America: How Politics Shapes Policies, edited
by Ernesto Stein and Mariano Tommasi, with Pablo T. Spiller and Carlos Scartascini,
243–85. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and David Rockefeller
Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
Machado et al. 363
at PONTIFICIA UNIV CATOLICA on May 13, 2013 jcr.sagepub.comDownloaded from
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 26/27
7/29/2019 14.08 - Machado (2011) - Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1408-machado-2011-political-institutions-and-street-protests-in-latin 27/27
Urbiztondo, Santiago, Marcela Cristini, Cynthia Moskovitz, and Sebastian Saiegh. 2009.
‘‘The Political Economy of Productivity in Argentina: Interpretation and Illustration.’’
IDB Working Paper Series, n.102, Inter-American Development Bank Washington, DC.Verba, Sidney, Norma H. Nie, and Jae-on Kim. 1978. Participation and Political Equality.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Weingast, Barry R. 2002. ‘‘Rational Choice Institutionalism.’’ In Political Science: The
State of the Discipline, edited by I. Katznelson and H. Milner, 660–92. New York:
W.W. Norton.
Weingast, B., and W. Marshall. 1988. ‘‘The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why
Legislatures, Like Firms, are not Organized as Markets?’’ Journal of Political Economy
96:132–63.
Wickham, Hadley. 2009. Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag.Zuvanic, Laura, Mercedes Iacoviello, and Ana Laura Rodriguez Gusta. 2010. ‘‘The Weakest
Ling: The Bureaucracy and Civil Service Systems in Latin America.’’ In How Democracy
Works: Political Institutions, Actors and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking , edited
by C. Scartascini, E. Stein, and M. Tommasi, 147–75. Washington, DC: Inter-American
Development Bank and David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard
University.
Machado et al. 365
Top Related