Citizen engagement and political trust in LAC
Date
2022-07
Authors
Pecorari, Natalia
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Sosa Escudero, Walter
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía
Abstract
By examining responses to the Latinobarometro 2020 survey, this paper advances the
understanding of the linkage between trust in government and citizen participation in Latin-
America and the Caribbean (LAC). Conflicting theories address this linkage: stealth
democracy proponents argue that an inverse relationship exist between political trust and
citizen engagement, whilst deliberative democracy theorists claim that the opposite is true. In
light of this opposing views, we seek to determine which theory most accurately describes this
relationship in LAC. We rely on both traditional econometrics and more sophisticated
machine learning techniques to identify the key factors driving the linkage between trust in
government and citizen involvement in LAC. We find that socioeconomic status drives
participation and that whether deliberative or stealth democracy is more effective in
explaining engagement depends on the type of participation forum. Importantly, intricate
non-linear patterns affect citizen participation.
Keywords: Citizen participation; political trust; Stealth democracy; Latin-America and Caribbean; Machine learning; Lasso; Random Forest.
Keywords: Citizen participation; political trust; Stealth democracy; Latin-America and Caribbean; Machine learning; Lasso; Random Forest.
Description
Fil: Pecorari, Natalia. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina.
Keywords
Citation
Pecorari, N. (2022). Citizen engagement and political trust in LAC. [Tesis de maestría, Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía]. Repositorio Digital San Andrés. http://hdl.handle.net/10908/22795