Keywords
Political regime
Support for democracy
Legitimacy
Work of the executive
How to Cite
Abstract
Central America is plagued with poverty, corruption, weak institutions, and illegitimate states. Experts tell us that negative views of political outcomes should invariably produce negative evaluations of democracy as a political regime. This negative image would inevitably generate dissatisfaction and disaffection. These, in turn, under extreme conditions, could lead to coups d'état, because unscrupulous politicians continually scan the environment to detect potential opportunities to reverse democratic processes. This view of the relationship between policy outcomes and citizen support for democracy predicts a unidirectional and inversely proportional movement between these two constructs. However, there is sufficient evidence showing that support for democracy has shown substantial variations in directions opposite to those expected. Increases in support for democracy have been verified in contexts of high levels of corruption, institutional inefficiency, and poverty. We show in this article that the determinants of support for democracy are not structural, nor do they depend on institutional outcomes. The data analyzed between 2004 and 2023 shows that variations may be merely temporary, depending on the assessment of the executive branch's work.
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