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 The Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin America
Political Support and Democracy in Eight Nations

Political scientists for more than two decades have worried about declining levels of
citizens’ support for their regimes (legitimacy) but have failed to empirically link this
decline to the survival or breakdown of democracy. This apparent paradox is the
‘‘legitimacy puzzle,’’ which this book addresses by examining political legitimacy’s
structure, sources, and effects. With exhaustive empirical analysis of high-quality
survey data from eight Latin American nations, it confirms that legitimacy exists as
multiple, distinct dimensions. It finds that one’s position in society, education, knowl-
edge, information, and experiences shape legitimacy norms. Contrary to expecta-
tions, however, citizens who are unhappy with their government’s performance do
not drop out of politics or resort mainly to destabilizing protest. Rather, the disaf-
fected citizens of these Latin American democracies participate at high rates in con-
ventional politics and in such alternative arenas as communal improvement and civil
society. And despite regime performance problems, citizen support for democracy
remains high. These findings resolve the puzzle – citizen actions and values, even
among the disaffected, likely strengthen rather than weaken democratic governments.

John A. Booth is Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of North

Texas. In addition to his four coedited volumes and fourteen articles and chapters with
this study’s coauthor, Mitchell A. Seligson, he is the author of Understanding Central
America: Global Forces, Rebellion, and Change (fourth edition 2006, coauthored
with Christine J. Wade and Thomas W. Walker); Costa Rica: Quest for Democracy
(1998); and The End and the Beginning: The Nicaraguan Revolution (second edition
1985). He has published articles in a wide array of scholarly journals in the United
States and Latin America, was an associate editor of International Studies Quarterly
(2003–2008), and serves on the editorial board of Latin American Politics and Society.

Mitchell A. Seligson is the Centennial Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt

University and a Fellow of the Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies. He founded
and directs the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), which conducts the
AmericasBarometer surveys that currently cover 23 countries in the Americas. He has
been a Fulbright Fellow and been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the
Rockefeller Foundation, and others and has published more than 140 articles, 14
books, and dozens of monographs. His most recent book is Development and Under-
development: The Politics of Global Inequality (fourth edition 2008, with John Passé
Smith). He serves on the editorial board of the European Political Science Review.
 For our grandchildren,
Andrew Cruz Lara
and
Maya Rahel, Dalia Ella, and Tamar Marta Levanon
May they grow up in a world of peace and democracy
The Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin America
Political Support and Democracy
in Eight Nations

JOHN A. BOOTH
University of North Texas

MITCHELL A. SELIGSON
Vanderbilt University
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521515894

© John A. Booth and Mitchell A. Seligson 2009

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the

provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2009

ISBN-13 978-0-511-50663-5 eBook (EBL)

ISBN-13 978-0-521-51589-4 hardback

ISBN-13 978-0-521-73420-2 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

List of Figures page ix

List of Tables xi
Preface xv
The Latin American Public Opinion Project xvi
Background to the 2004 Survey xvii
Acknowledgments xix

1. The Legitimacy Puzzles 1

Prior Research on Legitimacy 6
Legitimacy’s Structure 8
Legitimacy’s Sources 14
Legitimacy’s Effects 19
Legitimacy in Costa Rica 24
A Pilot Research Project: The 2002 Survey 28
Discussion and Plan of This Book 34
2. The Structure of Legitimacy 38
The Data: The 2004 Eight-Nation Survey 43
Variable Selection 47
Findings: The Structure of Legitimacy 49
Dimensional Structure 56
Relationships among Dimensions 58
Relative Levels of Support 59
National Patterns of Legitimacy 62

v
vi Contents

Conclusions and Measurement Decisions: Our

Key Variables 64
3. Countries in the Study 66
The Eight Nations – Common Features 69
Key Differences among the Eight Countries 73
The Eight Nations – Variations on a Theme 78
Mexico 78
Guatemala 80
El Salvador 84
Honduras 87
Nicaragua 89
Costa Rica 92
Panama 95
Colombia 99
The Central Research Question 102
4. The Sources of Political Legitimacy 105
Macrosocial Sources of Legitimacy 108
Microsocial Sources of Legitimacy 113
Demographic Variables 113
Personal Experiences and Attitudes 116
Results 118
Political Community 119
Support for Regime Principles 121
Support for Regime Institutions 125
Evaluation of Regime Performance 129
Support for Political Actors 133
Support for Local Government 135
Discussion and Conclusions 138
5. Legitimacy and Political Participation 144
Theories about Legitimacy and Political Participation 146
The Measures of Participation 151
Analysis and Results: Legitimacy’s Effects on
Participation 153
Voting and Registration 158
Partisan and Campaign Activism 158
 Contents vii

Contacting Public Officials 162

Communal Activism 165
Civil Society Activism 166
Protest Participation 167
Discussion and Conclusions 170
6. Legitimacy and Negative Political Capital 177
Measuring Negative Political Capital 178
Analysis and Results 182
Willingness to Accept the Violent Overthrow of an
Elected Government 182
Support for a Coup d’Etat 185
Approval of Confrontational Political Tactics 189
Vigilantism 190
Discussion and Conclusions 195
7. Legitimacy and Democratic Values 201
Legitimacy and Opposition to Authoritarian Rule 203
The Perceived Supply of Democracy and Legitimacy 207
The Democracy Demand-Supply Gap 213
Huntington’s Question: Legitimacy, Participation,
and Democracy 215
Conclusions 218
8. The Sky Is Not Falling: The Puzzle Solved 221
Summary of Findings 225
The Structure of Legitimacy 225
Comparative Levels of Legitimacy 227
Sources of Legitimacy 231
Consequences of Legitimacy: Its Impact on Political
Participation 234
Consequences of Legitimacy: Its Impact on Negative
Political Capital 236
Consequences of Legitimacy: Its Impact on Support
for Democracy 239
Implications for the Eight Countries 240
What Proportion of Citizens Is Triply Dissatisfied? 245
How Do the Triply Dissatisfied Behave and What Are
Their Attitudes? 249
viii Contents

Solving the Puzzle 257

A Final Word 260

Appendix A: Supporting Data and Analyses for

Chapters 1–5 265
Appendix B: Variables Used in the Analyses 291
Appendix C: System-level Performance Measures 299
Appendix D: Nonsampling Errors, Sampling Errors, and
Design Effects for the Eight-Nation Survey 301
Appendix E: Method of Constructing the Legitimacy
Factor Scores 305
References 309
About the Authors 331
Index 333
 List of Figures

1.1 Costa Rican system support trends page 27

1.2 Voting and system support in Costa Rica, 1999 28
1.3 Confirmatory factor analysis of legitimacy items,
Costa Rica, 2002 31
2.1 Sample countries 45
2.2 Structure of legitimacy, 8 nations 55
2.3 Comparison of levels of dimensions of legitimacy 60
4.1 Survey respondents’ self-reported victimization
by crime 129
4.2 Survey respondents’ self-reported victimization
by corruption 130
5.1 Support for regime principles and partisan
and campaign activism 159
5.2 Support for regime performance and partisan
and campaign activism 160
5.3 Support for political actors and partisan and
campaign activism 160
5.4 Support for local government and partisan and
campaign activism 161
5.5 Support for local government and contacting public
officials 162
5.6 Support for regime institutions and contacting
public officials 163

ix
x List of Figures

5.7 Support for local government and

communal activism 166
5.8 Support for regime principles and protest
participation 169
5.9 Support for regime performance and protest
participation 169
6.1 Approve of participation in a group using arms
to overthrow the government 182
6.2 Circumstances in which a coup d’etat might
be justified 186
6.3 Percent who could ever justify a coup d’etat 187
6.4 Support for confrontational political tactics 190
6.5 Approval of vigilantism 192
7.1 Preference for electoral democracy over
unelected strongman 204
7.2 Impact of legitimacy on satisfaction with
democracy 208
7.3 Impact of legitimacy on level of democracy
in the country 209
7.4 Impact of legitimacy on direction in which
democracy is heading 210
7.5 Supply of democracy 211
7.6 Gap between the demand for and supply
of democracy 214
8.1 Variation in legitimacy scores across six
dimensions 228
8.2 Support for the political system 229
8.3 Political participation and attitudes by
combined legitimacy norms 250
8.4 Civil society activism among triply
dissatisfied and triply satisfied 252
8.5 Partisan and campaign activism among triply
dissatisfied and triply satisfied 253
8.6 Protest activism among triply dissatisfied
and triply satisfied 254
 List of Tables

2.1 Unweighted sample size, by nation page 45

2.2 Variables and expected dimensions of political
legitimacy 50
3.1 Population characteristics 74
3.2 Economic performance 74
3.3 Social development performance 75
3.4 Political performance 77
3.5 Mean legitimacy score (and rank) 81
4.1 System-level performance measures 110
4.2 Sources of a perception of the existence of a
political community 120
4.3 Sources of support for regime principles 122
4.4 Sources of support for regime institutions 126
4.5 Sources of support for regime performance
legitimacy 131
4.6 Sources of support for political actors 134
4.7 Sources of support for local government 136
4.8 Summary of sources of legitimacy 139
5.1 Summary of legitimacy effects on political
participation 155
6.1 Predictors of willingness to accept armed
overthrow 183
6.2 Predictors of approval of coups d’etat 188

xi
xii List of Tables

6.3 Predictors of approval of confrontational political

tactics 191
6.4 Predictors of vigilantism 194
6.5 Summary of effects on negative political capital 196
7.1 Predictors of preference for elected leaders 205
7.2 Predictors of supply of democracy 212
7.3 Participation, legitimacy, and supply of democracy 216
8.1 Summary of legitimacy’s effects 235
8.2 Triply dissatisfied and triply satisfied and regime
principles, regime performance, and institutional
support 247
A.1 Variables and dimensions of political legitimacy,
Costa Rica, 2002 265
A.2 Varimax rotated principle components solution for
legitimacy variables, pooled eight-nation sample 268
A.3A Oblimin rotated principle components solution for
legitimacy variables, pooled eight-nation sample
structure matrix, with factor correlation matrix 271
A.3B Factor correlation matrix, eight-nation pooled
sample oblimin rotation (for solution in
Table A.3A) 274
A.4A Oblimin rotated principle components solution for
legitimacy variables, Guatemala (structure matrix),
with factor correlation matrix 275
A.4B Component correlation matrix, Guatemala
oblimin rotation (for solution in Table A.4A) 278
A.5A Oblimin rotated principle components solution for
legitimacy variables, Colombia (structure matrix),
with factor correlation matrix 279
A.5B Component correlation matrix, Colombia
oblimin rotation (for solution in Table A.5A) 282
A.6 Mean legitimacy scores by dimension and country,
2004 283
A.7 Legitimacy effects on voting and
registration – ordinary least squares model 284
A.8 Legitimacy effects on partisan and campaign
activism – OLS model 285
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