Julio F. Carrión

Political Support, Political Skepticism, and Political Stability in New Democracies: An Empirical Examination of Mass Support for Coups d’Etat in Peru

Conventional wisdom holds that high levels of system support serve as an attitudinal barrier to democratic breakdown. In unconsolidated democracies, however, where democratic norms are regularly violated, the authors hypothesize that a healthy dose of political skepticism toward the political system, neither extreme rejection nor uncritical support of the system, would be associated with greater attitudinal resistance to breakdown in the form of a military coup. Using survey data from Peru, the authors confirm this expectation, showing that the relationship between system support and approval of military coups follows a V-curve pattern. This research fails to find support for the contention that a greater involvement in associational life or a greater degree of interpersonal trust predispose people to reject coups. The authors found other factors, such as rejection of the use of direct tactics for political purposes, support for the incumbent, and age, that are better predictors of coup support and rejection.

Public opinion and the end of apartheid

Why did whites in South Africa come to support the dismantling of the apartheid system that gave them a monopoly of political power? We use a reformulated version of symbolic politics to address this puzzle, showing that white attitudes toward political change were primarily driven by symbolic predispositions regarding race, ideology, party, and specific leaders, as well as various sorts of threat perceptions. Strong attachments to the National Party and de Klerk, low perceptions of threat, more tolerant racial attitudes, and more socially and politically liberal values increased the likelihood of whites supporting policies consistent with the ending of apartheid. We also find that assessments of the economy, both personal and national, have no influence on this attitude. We use South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council data collected during the crucial 1991–1992 period.