Democracy and life satisfaction: evidence from Latin America

DELFINO, G.

Lisboa

Congreso; 42nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP); 2019

International Society of Political Psychology

The primary objective of this paper is to analyse the relation between life satisfaction and satisfaction with democracy in Latin America. Democracy, as an ideological belief system, provides value to democratic individuals, groups, and institutions and thereby grants legitimacy to their actions (Staerkle et al., 2015). People associate democracy with procedural equality and individual autonomy, whereas non-democracy is associated with in-group hierarchy and conformity. The effective functioning of democracy requires a particular kind of individual consciousness that involves a set of psychological values and beliefs including individualism, autonomy, independence and trust (Forgas, Kelemen, & Laszlo, 2015). Support for democracy requires the ability of respecting views and opinions of others. Classic studies associate support for democracy with high self-evaluation, which should assume psychological security plus the ability to trust others (cf. Marchlewska et al., 2018). Using the 2017 Latinobarometro public opinion survey, we analyse representative data from 19 Latin American countries (n=20201). Although Latin American can be seen as a cultural region, there are important differences between countries in terms of life satisfaction levels, satisfaction with democracy and support for democracy. People living in Caribbean countries reported higher life satisfaction levels, while life satisfaction is lower in Southern American ones. In relation with satisfaction with democracy, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Uruguay presented higher scores, while in Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico, and Venezuela people reported less satisfaction. Nevertheless, when support for democracy is analysed, Venezuela, Uruguay, Ecuador, and Argentina declared (about a 65-70%) that democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. Although we found positive relations between life satisfaction and satisfaction with democracy in all countries of the region, the strength of the relations varies from .27 in Chile, followed by Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, to non-significant in Panama or Dominican Republic. The differences found can be explained by people?s evaluation about institutions, interpersonal trust and perception of corruption. In those counties where people perceive full democracy, the relationship between satisfaction with democracy and life satisfaction is stronger