Are They All the Same? The Distribution of Personal Wealth Between the Left and the Right in Latin America

Nordin Lazreg,Alejandro Angel,Denis Saint-Martin

doi:10.1177/1866802x20975036

Abstract

Conventional wisdom indicates that politicians in Latin America are all wealthy. However, the literature on both political elites and social origins of political parties indicates that we should expect differences in the capital accumulation of politicians depending on their ideological position. This study seeks to explore that question using financial disclosure forms made available in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. We calculate the median wealth of the main political parties in each country and compared them according to their ideological position on the left–right continuum. We consistently find that the most right-leaning party in each country had a higher median wealth than the most left-leaning one. This relation is non-linear since centrist parties often represent anomalies in the distribution of wealth. When there are no ideological differences, we do not observe significant wealth differences either.

Highlights

In Latin America, corruption scandals, current global debates about socio-economic inequalities, and a succession of wealthy presidents feed people’s fantasies about politicians’ wealth, entrenching the idea that elected officials of all stripes are all very rich. This idea that politicians form a homogeneous group of wealthy individuals deserves to be put under scrutiny, as we do in this exploratory analysis, because it challenges previous research on the social origins of Latin American political parties and sociological studies of Latin America political elites
We examined the distribution of personal wealth among politicians in six Latin American countries to verify whether politicians of all stripes are very well-o ff people
We constantly found that the most right-leaning parties were wealthier than the most left-leaning ones

Summary

Introduction

In Latin America, corruption scandals, current global debates about socio-economic inequalities, and a succession of wealthy presidents feed people’s fantasies about politicians’ wealth, entrenching the idea that elected officials of all stripes are all very rich. When only a summary of the declarations is available, as in Bolivia and Peru, we only consider the total value of assets disclosed by parliamentarians.

Results

Conclusion