The Social Underpinnings of Political Discontent in Latin America

The Moynihan Institutes' Program on Latin America and the Caribbean is proud to host María Victoria Murillo from Columbia University. 

In the aftermath of the commodity boom, declining fiscal windfalls forced Latin American governments to implement economic adjustments amid stagnant growth, shattering citizens’ expectations of social improvement. This situation exposed the weakness of state capacity and the inability of democracies to fulfill their promises, sparking a wave of protests and anti-incumbent votes across the region.

We propose a framework to understand the temporal emergence of political discontent, highlighting two distinct patterns in how that discontent is expressed across countries. In particular, feelings of relative deprivation—rooted in the social expectations fostered by democracy combined with redistributive policies during the commodity boom—are key to understanding this surge in political dissatisfaction.

María Victoria Murillo is professor of political science and international affairs and director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University. She received a B.A. at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and an M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University.

She has published widely in the U.S. and Latin America. Her most recent books include Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voter, Poorer Voter and the Diversification of Parties Electoral Strategies with Ernesto Calvo (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Understanding Institutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions with Daniel Brinks and Steven Levitsky (Cambridge University Press 2019).