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First published online November 19, 2012

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Individual and Contextual Constraints on Ideological Labels in Latin America

Elizabeth J. Zechmeister and Margarita CorralView all authors and affiliations

Volume 46, Issue 6

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414012463880

Abstract
References
Biographies

Abstract

Ideological labels are theoretically useful tools with which individuals comprehend, discuss, and engage in politics. Their actual significance, however, varies. We assess how select individual and contextual factors systematically affect individuals’ use and understandings of the classic left–right dimension in Latin America. Using data from the 2010 AmericasBarometer survey, we show that although education, political interest, and political sophistication help citizens place themselves on the ideological continuum, context also matters such that polarization (positively), fragmentation (negatively), and volatility (negatively) affect left–right response. Our analyses further demonstrate that, generally speaking, placements on the left–right scale are linked to individuals’ stances on economic, democratic, religious, and social issues, but context matters in important ways here as well. In short, ideological labels in Latin America hold important potential for orienting citizens within the political arena, but their utility is constrained in important ways at both the individual and contextual levels.

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Biographies

Elizabeth J. Zechmeister is associate professor of political science and associate director of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on comparative political behavior, in particular in Latin America. Her work includes studies of voting, ideology, political parties, representation, charisma, and crisis. She is currently working on two projects supported by grants from the National Science Foundation; these examine, respectively, the public opinion consequences of the global threat of terrorism and of the 2010 Chile earthquake. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Politics, Electoral Studies, Comparative Political Studies, and Political Behavior, among others. She is coauthor of Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and of Latin American Party Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Margarita Corral is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. She is also an affiliate of and research assistant with the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). Her research interests are political representation and public opinion in Latin America. She has published work on trust in political parties in the Revista de Ciencia Política. She has authored several reports for LAPOP’s AmericasBarometer Insights series and a report for Americas Quarterly.

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