Religious Commitment, Subjective Income, and Satisfaction towards the Functioning of Democracy in Latin America. A Mediation Analysis Model Based on Latinobarómetro

Abstract

Religion and politics in Latin America maintain a close relation that, along with a historical background in European colonization, remains in force through both being institutionalized in some political parties or ideologies, and diluted in the societies that make up this region. This paper examines the relation between three variables: religious commitment, subjective income, and satisfaction toward the functioning of Latin American democracies. To do so, we have constructed a hypothetical model based on a mediation analysis of 20,204 surveys that were collected by Latinobarómetro in 2016. The results confirm the existence of an indirect positive effect that is motivated by religious commitment, and mediates between perceived income and being satisfied with democracy in Latin America. In other words, as the respondents recognize that they have a greater subjective income and a greater religious commitment, they will probably manifest greater satisfaction toward the functioning of democracy. Such behavior highlights the referential nature of the religious experience by contributing to the emotional reinforcement of the social context perceived by Latin Americans.

Social media and support for democracy in 18 Latin American countries: A comparative analysis of moderated mediation (2018–2020)

“…This means that the contribution of social networks to democracy in the Latin American countries examined – and possibly other parts of the world – cannot be linked merely to use. Instead, the socio-economic aspects determine and encourage the suitability of the democratic system in the imaginaries of the networks’ users, with different levels of appropriation depending on people’s age and their type of account, as has been proposed in other studies on the macroeconomic approach (Carlin, 2006), the link between poverty and democracy (Valdés Gutiérrez, 2015) or subjective income (Barredo Ibáñez, 2018).…”

“…This non-governmental organization has been conducting periodic surveys since 1995 related to assessing and evaluating issues of interest to Latin Americans. Its freely accessible data have been used in some studies that have focussed on a regional-scale assessment (Barredo Ibáñez, 2018; Ergun et al, 2016; Monsiváis, 2017), similar to the one proposed.…”

“…In general, the previous literature focuses on two general ideas (Carlin, 2006). From the macroeconomic point of view, development and growth promote democratic stability and a belief in institutionality; second, education and wealth generate support for democracy (Barredo Ibáñez, 2018), whereas inequality and poverty have negative effects. Several studies have been conducted along these lines, pointing specifically to poverty (and not so much inequality) as the most important variable: ‘lower poverty rates coincide with higher levels of citizen support for democracy’ (Valdés Gutiérrez, 2015: 220).…”

La influencia de la formación recibida en la realización y la difusión de contenidos audiovisuales en los adolescentes de Iberoamérica

“…Tras la construcción y validación de este en 2016 y 2017, dicho instrumento fue operacionalizado en papel, en español y en portugués, durante 2017, en centros de secundaria de España, Perú, Colombia, México, Brasil y Portugal. Los 6 países que conforman la muestra poseen un perfil cultural y educacional similar, de manera que los datos recogidos se han analizado de manera conjunta, tal y como se ha hecho en otros estudios previos (Aguaded, Marín & Caldeiro, 2018;Barredo, 2018;Barredo et al, 2018).…”

Predicting satisfaction with democracy in Brazil considering data form an opinion survey

“…Marek (2021) applied statistical techniques to Latinobarómetro data from 2002 to 2010 to explore the correlation between the population's perception of police and national government corruption. Overall, there is a wide diversity in the use of this research data in academic literature (Power & Jamison, 2005;Ateca-Amestoy et al, 2014;Barredo Ibáñez, 2018;Saravia & Marroquín, 2023), but there are few studies that focus on the application of machine learning techniques and studies exclusively data from Brazil.…”