Political Participation and Quality of Life

Theoretical literatures on procedural utility and the psychological benefits of political participation suggest that people who participate in political activities will be more satisfied with their lives because of the resulting feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Individual-level data from Latin America show—in one dataset under study but not in another—a positive and statistically significant relationship between voting and life satisfaction. Variation in desire to vote as measured in Costa Rica, however, suggests that the causal arrow may run from happiness to voting. The use of multilevel models further reveals a consistent—but untheorized—cross-country negative relationship between enforced compulsory voting and happiness. Only preliminary results are found regarding the relationship between some other forms of political participation and life satisfaction.

Political Participation and Quality of Life

Theoretical literatures on procedural utility and the psychological benefits of political participation suggest that people who participate in political activities will be more satisfied with their lives because of the resulting feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Individual-level data from Latin America showin one dataset under study but not in anothera positive and statistically significant relationship between voting and life satisfaction. Variation in desire to vote as measured in Costa Rica, however, suggests that the causal arrow may run from happiness to voting. The use of multilevel models further reveals a consistentbut untheorizedcross-country negative relationship between enforced compulsory voting and happiness. Only preliminary results are found regarding the relationship between some other forms of political participation and life satisfaction

The Brazilian experience shows that voters are more forgiving of incompetence than they are of corruption

Corruption in the UK is perceived as being on the rise, with recent research showing that British citizens are increasingly concerned about the relationship between private financial interests and politicians. But are voters willing to forgive corrupt politicians if they are competent? New research which looks at the Brazilian case by Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro and Matthew S. Winters shows that voters are merciless when it comes to forgiving corrupt officials and politicians, and that their electoral success is usually a result of lower voter information

Replication Data for: Information Credibility and Responses to Corruption: A Replication and Extension in Argentina

Existing research shows that survey respondents are sensitive to the source of information about political corruption and respond more strongly to information from more credible sources. This behavior occurs more frequently among the politically sophisticated. In a nationwide survey in Argentina, we successfully replicate results originally found in a study in Brazil. In addition, we examine whether citizens process information about corruption differently depending on their partisan identities. At odds with our initial expectations, we find that copartisans, opposition partisans, and other/non-partisans distinguish between information sources in very similar ways. These results suggest that even though partisanship affects baseline assessments of political candidates, citizens of all types are sensitive to the credibility of information they receive about political corruption

Replication Data for: "Can Citizens Discern? Information Credibility, Political Sophistication, and the Punishment of Corruption in Brazil"

Dataset, Stata .do file for most analyses, and .R file for simulation-based p-values on tests for differences between conditional average treatment effects

Manifestantes partidários e manifestações apartidárias no Brasil

In young democracies with weak parties, there is some evidence that partisan identification may shift in response to short-term government performance. The massive protests that erupted in Brazil in June 2013 sharply increased the salience of, and public attention to, poor government performance and took most observers by surprise. They were also widely depicted as nonpartisan or even antipartisan. We use two well-timed surveys to examine the effects of the protests on mass partisanship. We find that the protests led to increased nonpartisanship and decreased attachment to the governing Partido dos Tra-balhadores (Workers’ Party, PT) among the public as a whole. We also show that small leftist parties were more broadly represented among protesters than has been previously recognized.Evidências sugerem que, em jovens democracias dotadas de um sistema partidário enfraquecido, a identificação partidária pode se modificar em resposta à performance do governo no curto prazo. Os numerosos protestos que explodiram no Brasil em junho de 2013 trouxeram à tona uma maior preocupação da população com o fraco desempenho do governo, surpreendendo a maior parte dos observadores. Além disso, as manifestações de junho foram amplamente descritas como apartidárias e, até mesmo, como “anti-partidárias”. Nós utilizamos duas pesquisas, realizadas em momentos oportunos, para examinar os efeitos dos protestos sobre a partidarização em massa. Nós encontramos evidências de que as manifestações levaram a um aumento do apartidarismo, bem como a uma diminuição de identificação do público em geral com o partido governista – Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Por fim, nós observamos que pequenos partidos de esquerda possuíam maior representatividade entres os manifestantes do que se especulara previamente

Manifestantes partidários e manifestações apartidárias no Brasil

In young democracies with weak parties, there is some evidence that partisan identification may shift in response to short-term government performance. The massive protests that erupted in Brazil in June 2013 sharply increased the salience of, and public attention to, poor government performance and took most observers by surprise. They were also widely depicted as nonpartisan or even antipartisan. We use two well-timed surveys to examine the effects of the protests on mass partisanship. We find that the protests led to increased nonpartisanship and decreased attachment to the governing Partido dos Tra-balhadores (Workers’ Party, PT) among the public as a whole. We also show that small leftist parties were more broadly represented among protesters than has been previously recognized.Evidências sugerem que, em jovens democracias dotadas de um sistema partidário enfraquecido, a identificação partidária pode se modificar em resposta à performance do governo no curto prazo. Os numerosos protestos que explodiram no Brasil em junho de 2013 trouxeram à tona uma maior preocupação da população com o fraco desempenho do governo, surpreendendo a maior parte dos observadores. Além disso, as manifestações de junho foram amplamente descritas como apartidárias e, até mesmo, como “anti-partidárias”. Nós utilizamos duas pesquisas, realizadas em momentos oportunos, para examinar os efeitos dos protestos sobre a partidarização em massa. Nós encontramos evidências de que as manifestações levaram a um aumento do apartidarismo, bem como a uma diminuição de identificação do público em geral com o partido governista – Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Por fim, nós observamos que pequenos partidos de esquerda possuíam maior representatividade entres os manifestantes do que se especulara previamente