Indigenous people, redistribution, and support for the political regime in Latin America

Abstract

Political scientists agree that inequality harms the consolidation of democracy, raising fears that the erosion of public support for the political regime could lead to political instability, particularly when the distributive conflict is reinforced by ethnicity. Focussing on Latin America, the region with the world’s largest indigenous population and most unequal income distribution, this paper analyses to what extend socioeconomic inequalities lessen levels of support for the political regime, especially among indigenous people. We found—by applying multilevel regression analyses to Latinobarometro survey databases for the years 2007–2017—that socioeconomic inequalities do affect citizens’ levels of regime support. However, indigenous people are no less likely to be supportive of the political regime than non-indigenous people, even in those countries that are more unequal according to the Gini coefficient or the poverty rate. Furthermore, indigenous people tend to express levels of regime support that are similar to the rest of society’s inclusive among those of lower socioeconomic status. These findings highlight the importance of moving towards a better understanding of how indigenous people see the political regime and its implications for democratic consolidation.