Crime Victimization and Public Support for Democracy: Evidence from Latin America

Abstract

Numerous reports suggest that the recent increase in crime poses a profound threat to the stability of newly established electoral democracies in Latin America. This study uses AmericasBarometer survey data from 10 countries to test hypotheses concerning the relationship between crime victimization and two different measures of public support for democracy, satisfaction with the way democracy works (SWD), and preference for democracy as a form of government (PFD). Using hierarchical logistic modeling, we find that people who have been crime victims during the previous year are significantly more likely to express lower levels of SWD but that PFD is not sensitive to crime victimization, net of several individual and country-level control variables. Thus, individuals who experienced crime directly may hold governments responsible for their vulnerability to crime, yet their victimization does not erode endorsing democracy as a preferred form of government. The findings argue strongly in favor of treating public support for democracy as a multifaceted phenomenon and testing for the effects of crime victimization on different measures of support for democracy. The reported results have methodological and substantive implications for the study of the political effects of crime, particularly with respect to Latin American countries. The increase in crime and violence that began in Latin America in the mid-1980s, and which has afflicted nearly every country in the region since then, is reflected in the rising number of homicides recorded per 100,000