Poor People’s Participation: Neoliberal Institutions or Left Turn?

Abstract

While comparative political studies of voting and protest abound, little attention has been paid to nonelectoral and noncontentious participation, particularly at the local level. Who participates in local associations and why? We study the individual-level determinants of local civic participation in Bolivia to ask: Does local engagement reproduce the high socioeconomic bias predicted by resource theory? Did the left turn in government change the predictors of participation? Contrary to expectations, we find there is no high-class bias in Bolivia’s local civic engagement. Moreover, the levels and predictors of local civic engagement have not changed after the left turn. We contribute to the comparative politics literature by conceptualizing local programmatic participation and showing that the resource theory does not apply to this type of participation in a developing context. We argue that need—rather than plenty—prompts people to participate. Our findings are relevant to participation studies in developing societies.