Individual Conditioning Factors of Political Protest in Latin America: Effects of Values, Grievance and Resources

Abstract

Theories about political protest point to three sets of variables responsible for promoting engagement in such actions: resources, grievance and values. There is consensus on the importance of resources, but the influence of grievance and values remain inconclusive. Discontent alone is not enough to motivate protest, but in societies at intermediate levels of development, grievance could be an explanatory variable. By contrast, values would have a limited effect, given that value change in developing countries could only be incipient. In view of the new cycle of protest in the region and wishing to contribute to the debate on the subject, we aim to discover what the relationship is between these three sets of variables as regards Latin Americans’ predisposition to protest. Given that these countries find themselves at an intermediate level of economic and social development, it would seem that the primary motivation for protest is discontent, as under such circumstances the relative scarcity of resources presents little obstacle to mobilization. On the other hand, as the societies in question are not advanced industrial societies, the associated low dispersion of emancipatory values would exercise limited effect. To test these hypotheses, we looked at data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey with reference to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. The results suggested that grievance was irrelevant as an explanatory factor. Participation in protests in the region is determined by the mobilization of resources and values.