Presidential Approval, Tolerant Attitudes, and Economic Performance: The Case of Latin America

Abstract

Due to the historical centrality of presidents in Latin America, we argue that presidential approval can be a source of group membership among citizens, creating a division between “ingroups” and “outgroups.” We test the effects of such division on tolerant attitudes toward the rights of system critics to participate in political life in four ways (from the least to the most threatening for the ingroup): voting, giving speeches on television, running for office, and demonstrating peacefully. We further argue that this effect is conditioned by the economic context, and that the ingroup/outgroup divide is activated when an economy performs poorly. Analysis of the AmericasBarometer 2018/2019 survey is consistent with our expectations. Specifically, our results suggest that the main predictor for tolerant attitudes is presidential approval, and that the individual-level effect dissipates in a context of good performance of the economy, which causes the presidential ingroup to not feel threatened by any outgroup.