Different Religions, Different Politics?

Religion and Political Attitudes in Argentina and Chile

ERIC PATTERSON

Various theories attempt to explain political outcomes. One of the most bitterly contested schools of explanation deals with culture, attitudes, and values. In the broadest sense, this tradition argues that political and social outcomes are determined in large part by the shared beliefs and values of the populace or a subgroup thereof. Thus, Stephen White (1984) has dened political culture as historically formed beliefs and behavior, recognizing that ones political attitudes and behavior are usually formed by inherited values as well as life experience. Moreover, scholars of political culture expect continuity of values over time and therefore are intrigued by cases of changing beliefs and attitudes. Thus, the explosive growth of evangelical and Pentecostal Protestantism in Latin America, where Protestants have grown from a handful to 2030 percent of the population in a single generation, provides a unique opportunity for study. This rapid shift to Protestantism and its consequences for democracy have been ercely debated in recent years. Max Webers Protestant ethic thesis suggests that Protestantism may provide a catalyst for the establishment of democratic norms. However, many contemporary scholars argue that evangelical Protestantism is conservative, authoritarian, and politically passive. Do different religions result in different political attitudes? Does religious devotion, as distinguished from denomination, affect ones politics? This article evaluates political attitudes among Protestants and Catholics in Argentina and Chile to examine the claims of recent political culture arguments that modern Latin American Protestantism is resistant to democratic values. Survey data indicate that religious intensity (devout-ness), rather than religious afliation, does inuence political attitudes, and that demographic and political engagement variables also inuence democratic values.

COMPETING THEORIES ON PROTESTANTS AND DEMOCRACY Max Weber and Value Change Explanations that focus on the nexus of religion, culture, and political outcomes often derive from Max Webers The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1934). Weber argued that the cause of capitalism and, ultimately, democracy taking root in northern and western Europe as opposed to the Latin European countries was due to culture. He probed differences in culture, primarily dened in terms of religion, and asserted that Catholicism emphasized passive obedience to authority, fatalism, collectivist values, and wastefulness. These values were reinforced by the Catholic Church and resulted in hierarchical religion, authoritarian government, and mercantilist economics. In contrast, Webers examination of early post-Reformation Protestantism demonstrated that the religious focus on individual faith, the priesthood of all believers, and Calvins emphasis on election and its corresponding material blessings resulted in cultures of thrift, individuality, competition, and equalitythe foundation of capitalist democracy. Weber traced these values through the historic evolution of European Protestantism, nding the same ethic of ascetic, or holy, lifestyle in non-Calvinist movements such as English Methodism. Although Methodism rejected the predestinarian philosophy of Calvinist theology, its ethic for living promoted the values of honesty, industry, thrift, and temperance that were essential to capitalism and democracy. Interestingly, these values are essential to understanding the worldview of contemporary evangelicals and Pentecostals (Swatos 1994; Harrison 1992; Sherman 1992; Martin 1990).

Eric Patterson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vanguard University, 55 Fair Dr., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. E-mail: Epatterson@vanguard.edu Journal for the Scientic Study of Religion 43:3 (2004) 345362

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Other social scholars agree that values are critical to our understanding of democratic norms, including the civic culture tradition (Almond and Verba [1963] 1989) and Robert Putnams (1994) work on efcacy and interpersonal trust. Similarly, Ronald Inglehart (1988) agrees with Webers historical assessment and suggests that populations that develop a political culture characterized by shared values of life satisfaction, political satisfaction, interpersonal trust, and support for the existing social order are the most stable democracies. In sum, the Weberian tradition in social science argues that a civic culture of values epitomizes democratic publics. This set of values is indicative of a political culture that prioritizes equality, tolerance, interpersonal trust, individualism, and a willingness to compromise. Thus one would assume that the Protestant neo-Reformation that is occurring in Latin America might provide similar conditions for the development of democracy. Indeed, Christian Smith, when considering the democratic potential of Protestant congregations, suggests that in the long run Protestants may emerge as a signicant positive force helping to foster genuine democracy (1994:120).1 However, there is a contrasting body of scholarship that argues that contemporary Latin American Protestantism is authoritarian, politically passive, and otherworldly. An Alternate Protestantism: Passive, Otherwordly, and Authoritarian Observers of Latin America have been stunned to see the number of Protestants grow from a handful to 2030 percent of the population in a single generation, and many scholars reect critically on the values of Protestant denominations. The most well-known critique of the optimistic Weberian hypothesis in the Latin American context comes from the inuential work of Swiss sociologist Christian Lalive DEspinay (1969). This scholar evaluated the modest Chilean Pentecostal movement in the 1960s and argued that instead of being a force for social and economic change, Pentecostalism was conservative. Lalive DEspinays qualitative study indicated that in the alienation of industrialization, as people moved from the countryside to the city, they were looking for order and direction. The poor found this in authoritarian Pentecostal pastors who reproduced the hacienda in the city.
Pentecostalism teaches its initiates withdrawal and passivity in political matters, limited only by the commandment to be submissive to authority. In its social forms, it appears as a specialized (since it is purely religious) reincarnation of a moribund society, and as the heir of the past rather than the precursor of emerging society. The components create a force for order rather than an element of progress; a defender of the status quo rather than a promoter of change. (1967:145)

Lalive DEspinay argued that Pentecostals were passive and withdrawn from politics, and contrary to the Puritan ethic of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism . . . the Chilean Protestant ethic does not seem to offer any obvious parallel with the pioneer spirit (1967:153). Several other studies agree with DEspinay that individuals convert to Protestantism under conditions of anomie caused by modernization (Glazier 1980; Stoll 1990; Martin 1990; Schafer 1992). A second critique of Protestantism common in the late 1980s, particularly among Marxist scholars, was the allegation that the growth of Protestantism was initiated by North American missionaries in tandem with funding from the CIA (Diamond 1989; Assman 1997). Therefore, the converts mirrored the conservative political attitudes of the evangelical missionaries, values associated with the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the United States (Bonino, Alvarez, and Craig 1994). Others argued that the millenarian focus on the spiritual resulted in Protestants neglecting real-world issues, and thus being cast as conservative (Mariz 1992; Chesnutt 1997; OShaughnessy 1990; Le Bot 1999). These critiques argued that Protestantism had little positive impact on Latin American value systems because adherents are otherworldly (Stoll 1990). Unlike the scholars above who argue that Protestantism causes political passivity, other critics suggest that the authoritarian culture of Latin America is so potent that it has robbed

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Protestantism of its liberating and egalitarian potential. For example, Jean-Pierre Bastian (1987) says that Protestantism has been Latin Americanized, arguing that contemporary evangelical Protestantism has molded to the authoritarian and corporatist culture of Latin America. Yvon Le Bot agrees that Protestantism is unlikely to dismiss underlying cultural variables (1999). Phillip J. Wellman (1997) and Andrew Chesnutt (1997) agree that Pentecostals engage in participatory authoritarianism, which is clientelistic and conservative. Similarly, others have argued that the political and social and political benets of Protestant conversion are overstated and temporary (Schultze 1994). In sum, Latin Americas contemporary Reformation has generated controversy over its inuence on politics in the region. Is Latin American Protestantism a force promoting democratic attitudes or does it reinforce the status quo? Is the Weberian-democratic thesis correct or DEspinays authoritarian-Protestant hypothesis? Survey comparison of Catholics and Protestants provides us with answers to these questions.

TESTING THE DIFFERENT RELIGIONS, DIFFERENT POLITICAL ATTITUDES HYPOTHESIS Catholics and Protestants2 differ in a number of basic beliefs and practices regarding their faith, such as levels of church attendance, amount of time spent in prayer and Bible reading, and on a variety of specic items of doctrine such as the authority of scripture, belief in hell and the devil, and the role of clergy (Patterson 2001; Steigenga 2001). Do Protestants and Catholics differ in politics as well? This study differentiates between Catholics and Protestants as well as those who claim to be devout and those who do not.3 In other words, respondents will be classed as devout Protestant, devout Catholic, not devout Protestant, and not devout Catholic based on self-assessment.4 This leads to two questions. Are members of one faith more likely than those of another faith to hold values supportive of democracy? Second, does religious intensity, dened as religious devotion (devout-ness) make a difference in ones support for democracy? In short, this analysis will test religious variables to evaluate whether religion predicts democratic values in Argentina and Chile.5

Case and Data Selection Argentina and Chile share many similarities in that they are examples of Iberian conquest, imposed Catholicism, and enduring Catholic cultures.6 They differ from many of their neighbors due to their relatively small indigenous populations and their distinctive patterns of European immigration. Moreover, there exists a large body of qualitative literature that discusses the Protestant neo-Reformation in these contexts. Both countries have indigenous Pentecostal traditions that go back to the rst decades of the 20th century, but their evangelical Protestant minorities have seen signicant growth only in the past generation. In Chile, the Protestant population has skyrocketed in the past decade to 2025 percent of the population. In Argentina, growth has been more subdued and it is estimated that 1215 percent of the population is now Protestant.7 Finally, Argentina and Chile have many other social and political similarities such as authoritarian experiences and recent transitions to democracy. Consequently, they provide us with two excellent cases to study growing Protestant populations. Data for this study come from the Latinobarometer, an annual survey of more than 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries.8 The Latinobarometer is modeled on the Eurobarometer and World Values Surveys and in many Latin American countries is administered by the same investigators as the latter. The sample population was adults over 18 years of age. For Argentina (n = 1,200), the sample was a probabilistic sample with age, sex, and economic activity quotas. In Chile, the sample was based on aleatory home selection (n = 1,183).9

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Political Attitudes in 2000 In the Latinobarometer sample, 38 percent of Chilean Catholics consider themselves devout compared to 62 percent of Protestants. The same is true for Argentina: only about one-third of Argentine Catholics self-identify as devout compared to 73 percent of Protestants.10 This trend conrms the many reports of the religious intensity of Latin American Protestants. In addition, much of the literature on Latin American religion suggests that Protestants are poorer than Catholicsthis sample of Protestants does report lower levels of education and wealth than Catholics. In both Argentina and Chile, Catholics record nearly two years more education than devout Protestants and about a year and a half more than not devout Protestants.11 Likewise, Protestants tend to be poorer in both countries. For instance, in the Chilean case, Protestants are scored a high 2 (bad economic situation) compared to Catholics middle-range score of good on the Latinobarometers ve-point SES scale.12 Tables 14 compare attitudes toward democracy as theory and as practice. The scores shown are raw percentages followed by chi-square goodness-of-t measures. If the comparison of all four categories of respondents is statistically signicant, it will be indicated with asterisks () next to the chi-square gure. In addition, if the results within a religion (e.g., between devout and not devout Protestants) are signicant, it will be marked as follows: ( ). Results are distinguished by religious afliation and religious intensity (devout). For example, the rst row of percentages in Table 1 indicates that in 2000 18 percent of devout Catholics and 13 percent of not devout Catholics reported that they felt they could trust others.

TABLE 1 ATTITUDES AND ENGAGEMENT: PERCENTAGE OF AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSES (CHILE)

Catholic Devout Feelings about Democracy Interpersonal trust Democracy preferable Satisfaction w/democracy Political Engagement Clean elections Vote inuence Follow politics Interest in politics Civic Culture Demanding rights Conscious of obligations Lawful Honest 18 61 43 72 55 47 37 46 36 32 25 Catholic Not Devout 13 56 33 65 57 46 36 38 34 27 23 Protestant Devout 8 54 31 56 49 37 26 56 35 17 20 Protestant Not Devout 12 51 33 63 59 27 18 43 41 28 29 Chi-Square 11.04 25.98 25.96 20.73 21.63 20.40 29.66 23.58 17.88 29.70 15.94

Sample size = 986. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Indicates that the within-religion ndings (e.g., devout Catholic vs. not devout Catholic) are statistically signicant at p < 0.1. All ndings are for afrmative replies to the question. Full text of the questions available in Appendix A. Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

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TABLE 2 ATTITUDES AND ENGAGEMENT: PERCENTAGE OF AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSES (ARGENTINA)

Catholic Devout Feelings about Democracy Interpersonal trust Democracy preferable Satisfaction w/democracy Political Engagement Clean elections Vote inuence Follow politics Interest in politics Convince others Civic Culture Demanding rights Conscious of obligations Lawful Honest 15 72 46 53 56 53 42 13 57 35 12 29 Catholic Not Devout 10 70 50 50 50 45 36 11 49 30 9 27 Protestant Devout 10 52 40 42 57 30 32 3 55 42 15 28 Chi-Square 32.17 27.31 28.02 14.88 26.07 23.79 18.26 26.66 17.77 15.57 8.87 8.75

Sample size = 1,015. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Indicates that the within-religion ndings (e.g., devout Catholic vs. not devout Catholic) are statistically signicant at p < 0.1. All ndings are for afrmative replies to the question. Full text of the questions available in Appendix A. Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

The consistent nding reported in Tables 14 is that religious afliation and intensity do matter: self-identifying as Catholic (afliation) and devout (intensity) correspond with somewhat higher levels of support for democratic attitudes. Consequently, devout Argentine and Chilean Catholics are somewhat more likely to support democratic attitudes and be psychologically engaged in politics than nondevout Catholics and all Protestants. Tables 1 and 2 show the results for attitudes toward democracy, political engagement, and civic culture. The rst three questions focus on attitudes that earlier studies have demonstrated as important for democracy, such as interpersonal trust and support for democracy: Can you trust most people most of the time? Is democracy preferable to other forms of government? and How satised are you with democracy? Chileans and Argentines apparently feel low levels of interpersonal trust, with 8095 percent saying that you cannot trust people most of the time. However, devout Catholics tend to be signicantly more trusting of others than are Protestants or nondevout Catholics. In Chile, devout Catholics are signicantly more likely to be satised with democracy and in both countries devout Catholics are signicantly more likely to prefer democracy. Had this nding been recorded in the early 1980s, we would have been concerned that devout Catholics were afraid of retribution or were undemocratic because at that time these countries were ruled by military dictatorships. However, since both Argentina and Chile have undergone not only successful democratic transitions but also peaceful and democratic exchanges of power in the interim, we can view the responses of devout Catholics as supportive of democracy. Nevertheless, the questions about ones preference for democracy is not a dichotomous variable. Respondents could select democracy is preferable, authoritarian government is sometimes

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TABLE 3 PERCENTAGE AFFIRMING CONFIDENCE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

Catholic Devout Chile Church Military Judiciary President Police Congress Parties Argentina Church Military Judiciary President Police Congress Parties 92 61 51 64 67 43 28 87 49 37 65 38 37 22 Catholic Not Devout 78 51 37 52 58 42 25 58 37 26 55 28 25 14 Protestant Devout 81 51 39 54 56 39 14 64 34 26 38 29 28 5 Protestant Not Devout 84 50 37 61 53 31 14 Chi-Square 77.36 24.64 36.54 12.66 28.86 39.07 24.30 84.72 12.14 12.98 20.32 9.20 12.49 13.72

Sample size: Chile = 986, Argentina = 1,015. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Indicates that within-religion differences are signicant at p < 0.1. Notes: Percentages shown are for responses of a lot or some to the following question: How much condence do you have in the following institutions: a lot, some, a little, or no condence? Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

preferable, or people like me have no say whether the government is democratic. In Chile, about 20 percent of all Catholics as well as devout Protestants answered with no say as did almost 40 percent of the not devout Protestants. Moreover, 10 percent of not devout Protestants, 19 percent of not devout Catholics, 25 percent of devout Protestants, and 38 percent of devout Catholics said that authoritarian government was preferable on occasion. The numbers are not dissimilar for Argentina. Thus, although Catholics are statistically more likely to prefer democracy, a sizable minority, including a disproportionate number of Protestants, feel that they have no voice whatsoever in political outcomes. Furthermore, a large minority of those who are devout prefer an authoritarian government at times. The results in Tables 1 and 2 also indicate that religious afliation and religious intensity inuence political engagement. The tables show four indicators of political engagement that assess how one feels about election honesty, how inuential ones vote is, whether one follows political news regularly, and political interest. Overall, Catholics tend to be more engaged in politics than are Protestants, and the devout Catholics tend to be signicantly more engaged than any other group. In Chile, on three of the four indicators (vote inuence, interest in politics, follow politics) there is virtually no difference in the response of Catholics, regardless of religious devotion.13 In the Argentine case, those who are devout feel more efcacious than those who are not devout, and devout Catholics are the most likely to follow and be interested in politics. Devout Protestants are signicantly more likely than nondevout Protestants to be interested in and follow politics. Finally, Tables 1 and 2 also record the respondents answer to the following question: Do you think that the Chileans are very, quite, a little, or not at all [lawful, honest, conscious of

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TABLE 4 PERCENTAGES FOR PARTY IDENTIFICATION AND LEFT/RIGHT SCALE

Catholic Devout (%) Chile Party ID Government Opposition None+ Left/Right Left Middle Right None Argentina Party ID Government Opposition None Left/Right Left Middle Right None Catholic Not Devout (%) Protestant Devout (%) Protestant Not Devout (%)

Chi-Square

21 10 30 16 34 36 14

15 10 34 22 26 38 14

18 7 43 14 22 41 23

10 20 33 27 13 42 18

53.08

49.04

24 18 27 5 42 31 22

26 17 30 8 47 19 26

15 22 38 3 38 26 33

23.45

66.71

Sample size: Chile = 986, Argentina = 1,015. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. +Includes none, dont know, and dont reply. Indicates that within-religion differences (e.g., devout Catholic vs. not devout Catholic) are signicant at p < 0.1. Notes: Party ID: Respondents were asked if there were an election tomorrow, what party would they vote for. The Government category for Chile is made up of supporters of the DC, PS, and PPD. The Opposition category consists of supporters of the UDI, RN, and UCCP. In Argentina, the Government category is made up of Alianza, UCR, and FREPASO. The Opposition category is made up of PJ, Acci n por la o Rep blica, and Nueva Dirigencia. The Left Right scale is an 11-point index from 0 (Left) to 10 (Right). For u this analysis, Left consists of 03, Middle of 46, and Right of 710. Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

duties and obligations, willing to demand their rights]. These questions are explicitly linked to the civic culture tradition (Almond and Verba [1963] 1989; Inglehart 1988) because they imply that certain values such as honesty and consciousness of ones obligations and duties to and within society are important for social cohesion and interpersonal trust. Again, in Chile it is the devout Catholics who tend to rate the country as having more civic culture than the other respondents. Interestingly, nondevout Protestants are more likely than devout Protestants to feel that Chileans are dutiful and lawful. Indeed, on three of the indicators (demanding rights, honest, lawful) the differences between devout and not devout Protestants are statistically signicant. These ndings appear to conrm the arguments of various scholars that devout Protestants seem to set a higher standard for moral accountability (Galilea 1987; Tennekes 1985; Martin 1990). Thus, it would

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not be surprising that they would be more likely to rate their fellow Chileans as unlawful and dishonest. However, in the Argentine case there are no statistically signicant differences in how Catholics and Protestants rate the civic culture of their neighbors. For a democracy to achieve long-term stability it must enjoy the support and trust of its citizenry. Table 3 indicates that although a majority of Chileans support most of the institutions of government, devout Catholics are signicantly more likely to trust political institutions such as the Congress, political parties, the military, and the judiciary than are nondevout Catholics and Protestants. Finally, what of political preferences? Two-thirds of Chileans indicated no party identication or chose not to answer the question when asked. Most Chileans hug the political center or are slightly right of center. For instance, on an 11-point Left/Right scale, the mean score for Protestants is 5.03 (SD 2.45) and the mean for Catholics is 5.02 (SD 2.34). In Argentina, citizens are equally ambivalent about political parties: about a third of the Argentines in the sample claimed no partisan afliation and about 40 percent located themselves in the political center. Those who are devout in Argentina tend to lean to the Right of the political center. It is probably not surprising that, in the aftermath of Argentinas and Chiles military dictatorships and the oppression of the Left, less than 7 percent of the Argentine and 20 percent of the Chilean publics considers themselves on the Left; however, it is interesting that those who are not devout are signicantly more likely to sympathize with the Left than are those who are devout. These data on partisanship may clear up the authoritarian misperceptions about Protestants. We saw above that Protestants only slightly lag behind Catholics in holding democratic values, but the data for both countries also demonstrate that devout Protestants in particular are chary of political ideologiesthey are less likely than Catholics to identify with a party and less likely to place themselves on the Left/Right scale. For instance, in Argentina, Protestants are half again as likely as Catholics to claim no political ideology as compared to just over 20 percent of Catholics; the ndings are similar for Chile. This supports the ndings of Talavera and Beyer (1998) that although Protestants in general support democracy and perhaps even participate politically by voting, they are skeptical of political parties and ideologies. TESTING THE EXPLANATORY POWER OF RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION AND RELIGIOUS INTENSITY The evidence thus far suggests that there are differences in a variety of political attitudes based on religion. We have seen that those who are devout, regardless of religious afliation, differ from those who are not devout on various political indicators such as preference for and satisfaction with democracy. This leads to the fundamental question: Do religious afliation and/or religious intensity cause differences in political attitudes, or are the contrasts noted above attributable to other variables? To answer this question we must examine whether religious afliation, religious intensity, or other variables best explain democratic attitudes and political engagement. To do this I have run OLS regression models on a variety of the political attitude variables. The religious explanatory variables include religious afliation (Catholic = 0, Protestant = 1) and a four-point religious intensity or devout-ness scale (1 = low, 4 = high). The analysis also includes demographic (age, SES, sex, and education) and political engagement (interest, efcacy) explanations for political attitudes. Tables 57 report regression coefcients, standard errors, and beta weights from OLS analysis of these explanations for democratic attitudes.14 Religion and Political Attitudes in Chile The data in Table 5 are evidence conrming the argument that religious intensity predicts political attitudes in Chile. The positive, statistically signicant coefcients for religious intensity

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TABLE 5 OLS REGRESSION ANALYSIS EXPLAINING DEMOCRACY ATTITUDES (CHILE)

Satisfaction with Democracy B Protestant Devout Sex Age Education SES Efcacy Interest Constant Adjusted R2 0.09 (0.09) 0.06 (0.04) 0.11 (0.06) 0.04 (0.03) 0.02 (0.03) 0.01 (0.04) 0.00 (0.03) 0.02 (0.03) 1.78 (0.21) 0.00 0.04 0.06 0.07 0.06 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.02 Interpersonal Trust B 0.08 (0.03) 0.04 (0.01) 0.01 (0.02) 0.01 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.06 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.05 (0.01) 1.83 (0.05) 0.03 0.06 0.08 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.13 0.02 0.11 Electoral Corruption B 0.15 (0.06) 0.08 (0.02) 0.04 (0.03) 0.10 (0.02) 0.10 (0.02) 0.07 (0.02) 0.15 (0.02) 0.00 (0.02) 1.24 (0.12) 0.07

Prefer Democracy B 0.05 (0.05) 0.03 (0.02) 0.04 (0.03) 0.10 (0.01) 0.12 (0.02) 0.04 (0.02) 0.05 (0.01) 0.10 (0.02) 1.33 (0.10) 0.08 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.13 0.17 0.05 0.07 0.12

0.05 0.07 0.02 0.11 0.12 0.06 0.17 0.01

Sample size = 986. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Note: Results show OLS unstandardized coefcients (B) with standard errors in parentheses and beta weights (). Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

(0.06) and gender (0.11) mean that being devout, as well as male, make one more likely to be satised with democracy in Chile. Religious intensity predicts several other democratic attitudes in Chile, including interpersonal trust, assessment of electoral corruption, and perceptions of civic culture in Chilean society (Tables 5 and 6). For instance, when asked about interpersonal trust, respondents could answer either one can trust others most of the time or you can never be too careful when dealing with others. Table 5 also presents the results of OLS regression for explanations of interpersonal trust. There is a negative relationship between being devout and believing that you can trust others most of the time. Moreover, political interest has a positive effect on interpersonal trust. Interestingly, higher levels of wealth correspond to lower levels of trust. What predicts preference for democracy? The data in Table 5 indicate that religious intensity does have explanatory power: the signicant, negative coefcient (0.03) means that those who are devout are less likely to prefer democracy than those who are not devout in Chile.15 In addition, demographic variables are positively related to preference for democracy. Those who are older, better educated, and better off nancially are more likely to prefer democracy. Political engagement has a similar effect. Those who are interested in politics and those who feel that their vote has an inuence on political outcomes are more likely to prefer democracy. Religious intensity

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TABLE 6 OLS REGRESSION ANALYSIS EXPLAINING CIVIC CULTURE ATTITUDES (CHILE)

Citizens Lawfulness B Protestant Devout Sex Age Education SES Efcacy Interest Constant Adjusted R2 0.12 (0.07) 0.06 (0.03) 0.14 (0.05) 0.06 (0.02) 0.04 (0.03) 0.09 (0.03) 0.04 (0.02) 0.06 (0.03) 1.06 (0.17) 0.07

Demand Rights B 0.07 (0.09) 0.13 (0.04) 0.09 (0.06) 0.07 (0.03) 0.08 (0.04) 0.06 (0.04) 0.01 (0.03) 0.01 (0.03) 2.28 (0.22) 0.01 0.03 0.13 0.05 0.09 0.10 0.06 0.01 0.01 B

Sense of Obligations 0.01 0.03 0.08 0.02 0.08 0.04 0.02 0.07

0.06 0.08 0.11 0.10 0.06 0.12 0.06 0.09

0.01 (0.08) 0.03 (0.03) 0.12 (0.05) 0.01 (0.03) 0.06 (0.03) 0.04 (0.04) 0.01 (0.03) 0.05 (0.03) 2.17 (0.19) 0.01

Sample size = 986. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Note: Results show OLS unstandardized coefcients (B) with standard errors in parentheses and beta weights (). Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

also has a signicant association with perception of electoral corruption. The dependent variable, electoral corruption, is a ve-point scale of citizens perceptions that elections are clean (5) or rigged (1). The results in Table 5 report that there is a strong, negative association between being devout and considering elections to be clean. In other words, those who are devout are more likely to perceive corruption in elections than those who are not devout. However, the coefcient for Protestant is signicant and positive, indicating that Protestants are more likely to view elections as clean. However, keeping in mind that two-thirds of Protestants in the sample are devout, when we compare the beta weight for Protestant ( = 0.07) to that for devout ( = 0.05) we see that those who are devout Protestants are still less likely than other Chileans to consider elections clean. Respondents were also asked to rate their fellow citizens on a variety of civic culture indicators. The purpose of these questions was to see if Chileans embrace a civic culture of honesty, civic obligations, and lawfulness. Table 6 provides OLS analysis of these assessments of civic culture. Respondents were asked to use a four-point scale (1 = low, 4 = high) to rate whether their fellow citizens are lawful, conscious of their duties and obligations, and willing to demand

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TABLE 7 OLS REGRESSION ANALYSIS EXPLAINING POLITICAL ATTITUDES (ARGENTINA)

Satisfaction with Democracy B Protestant Devout Sex Age Education SES Efcacy Interest Constant Adjusted R2 0.03 (0.06) 0.01 (0.01) 0.04 (0.03) 0.03 (0.02) 0.04 (0.02) 0.01 (0.02) 0.03 (0.02) 0.02 (0.03) 0.18 (0.12) 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.07 0.08 0.02 0.07 0.02 Interpersonal Trust B 0.01 (0.04) 0.01 (0.01) 0.04 (0.02) 0.02 (0.01) 0.02 (0.01) 0.00 (0.02) 0.00 (0.01) 0.02 (0.02) 2.11 (0.08) 0.02 0.01 0.07 0.06 0.08 0.07 0.00 0.00 0.03 B 0.01 (0.08) 0.03 (0.03) 0.12 (0.05) 0.01 (0.03) 0.06 (0.03) 0.04 (0.04) 0.01 (0.03) 0.05 (0.03) 2.17 (0.19) 0.01 Demand Rights 0.01 0.03 0.08 0.02 0.08 0.04 0.02 0.07 Prefer Democracy B 0.01 (0.00) 0.09 (0.12) 0.02 (0.01) 0.04 (0.03) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.02 (0.02) 0.04 (0.01) 1.55 (0.25) 0.04

0.01 0.07 0.03 0.06 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.04

Sample size = 1,015. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Note: Results show OLS unstandardized coefcients (B) with standard errors in parentheses and beta weights (). Source: Latinobarometer 2000.

their rights.16 Once again, religious intensity predicts variation in political attitudes. Those who are devout are more likely than those who are not to consider their fellow citizens to be lawful and willing to demand their rights. The data also indicate the value of demographic indicators and political interest as explanatory variables. Political interest has a positive relationship with both the lawfulness and obligation variables, suggesting that those who are interested in politics are more likely to consider Chileans to be lawful and conscious of their duties as citizens. Similarly, gender, age, education, and SES all have positive associations with the evaluation that Chileans are lawful. In short, the data demonstrate that religious afliation and religious intensity do affect political attitudes in Chile. Those who are devout, regardless of being Catholic or Protestant, are more likely to trust others, be satised with democracy, and look positively on the civic culture of their fellow citizens. Nevertheless, despite the explanatory power of religious intensity, these data also demonstrate that demographics and political engagement better predict democratic attitudes. This latter point is important particularly when considering Protestants because they tend to be more devout yet poorer and less well educated than their Catholic neighbors.

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Religion and Political Attitudes in Argentina The data linking religion to political attitudes is less straightforward in the Argentine case. Religious variables do provide weak but statistically signicant explanations for some political attitudes but overall they are less powerful explanations than are demographic and engagement variables. For example, as in the Chilean case, religious intensity has a relationship with variables such as perceptions of willingness to demand rights and interpersonal trust. In Chile, religious intensity corresponds to lower levels of trust and higher levels of civic culture; likewise for Argentina. Table 7 shows that those who are devout are less likely to trust others and that religious intensity predicts the sentiment that Argentines are willing to demand their rights. Nevertheless, in Table 7 one sees the salience of nonreligious explanations. Indeed, demographic and engagement variables are generally more powerful than religious intensity or religious afliation in predicting political attitudes in Argentina. In the case of satisfaction with democracy, age, education, and efcacy are the only statistically signicant explanatory variables. This is also true for some of the other political attitude variables, including electoral corruption and perceptions of citizen lawfulness, honesty, and sense of duty.17 Interestingly, on preference for democracy, the Protestant variable is statistically signicant, although its explanatory power is rather small and weak ( = 0.01). This indicates that Protestants are slightly less likely than their Catholic neighbors to prefer democracy to other forms of government. In short, in Argentina it seems that religious variables are not the powerful predictors of democratic attitudes that they are in Chile. Religious variables do help explain some democratic attitudes, such as interpersonal trust and preference for democracy. However, even with the modest but signicant negative nding on prefer democracy, there is little systematic evidence to suggest that, like Lalive DEspinays authoritarian-Protestant hypothesis, Protestants are far less supportive of democratic values than their Catholic neighbors. The evidence suggests that although devout Catholics do report slightly higher raw scores on various democratic attitudes, it is not religious afliation or religious intensity that consistently explains those differences. In addition to religion, variables such as efcacy, education, age, and SES are signicant predictors of democratic attitudes. Thus it is not surprising that when it comes to the raw data on political attitudes, those who are better of educationally and nancially report slightly higher levels of democratic attitudes. In short, it seems that there is a relationship between demographics and religious afliation that plays a role in the political attitudes of Argentines.

CONCLUSION In recent decades some have rejected the democratic implications of Webers Protestant ethic thesis in the context of Latin America. The region seems to provide excellent opportunities to test Webers ideas because of its neo-Reformationthe conversion of millions from Catholicism to Pentecostal and evangelical Protestantism. More specically, Webers thesis seems to argue that Protestantism can change a collectivist, hierarchical, authoritarian political culture to one that is tolerant, trusting, and egalitarian. However, scholars such as Christian Smith, Lalive DEspinay, Sara Diamond, and Jean Pierre Bastian have argued that contemporary Latin American Protestantism is otherworldly, politically passive, and structurally authoritarian. This study has used recent survey data to compare the political attitudes of Catholics and Protestants in two cases: Argentina and Chile. The ndings suggest three general conclusions. The rst is that religious intensity matters. Devout believers tend to be more supportive of government institutions and the current democratic

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system and are usually about as politically engaged as the general population. Such support is critical to long-term democratic stability. Moreover, Protestants are far more likely to be devout than Catholics, so as this segment of the population grows it should have positive consequences for regime stability. Second, the fact that the political attitudes toward democracy of Protestants were often similar or lagged slightly behind those of Catholics in Argentina and Chile is important. Protestants tend to be much poorer in nancial and educational resources than Catholics and yet for the most part hold nearly similar levels of political engagement and support for democracy. In other words, low socioeconomic status, not religion, accounts for lower levels of democratic attitudes. Consequently, it may actually be that their religious values are catching them up to the levels of Catholics. In any event, the ndings are also important because they provide no evidence for the passive- or authoritarian-Protestant perspectives. Third, political engagement, specically ones interest in politics (Chile) and ones feeling of efcacy (Argentina), matters more than demographics or religious intensity in explaining support for democratic attitudes. This suggests that those who are not politically engaged are more likely to settle for the status quo, not trust their fellow citizens, and despair that their government can improve their lot in life. In the end, these ndings do not suggest that Protestants are necessarily more democratic than Catholics, but they do demonstrate that Protestants are not entirely disengaged, otherworldly, politically passive, or prone to authoritarianism. In other words, the growing Protestant segments of these populations appear to be composed of common citizens, albeit poor ones, not obstacles to democracy. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the annual meetings of the Western Political Science Association (2002) and the American Political Science Association (2002). I am grateful to Kathleen Bruhn, Cynthia S. Kaplan, Pericles Leon, Eric R. A. N. Smith, the editors of the journal, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on this manuscript. I appreciate nancial support from the Department of Political Science at University of California, Santa Barbara and a private agency that made acquisition of Latinobarometer data possible.

NOTES
1. Smiths (1994) article suggests that in the short-term, Catholic CEBs may have the potential to invest members with democratic skills and attitudes. In contrast, he has more modest expectations for Protestants in the short term, but foresees tremendous democratic potential in the future. 2. By denition, Protest-antsthose who protesthave never been a cohesive whole. There are a variety of ways to study Protestantism, such as by denomination (Corten 1999), historic waves of when they entered the country, or by the decade in which a denomination began signicant growth (Drogus 2000; Marostica 1999; Freston 1995). A helpful and simpler method used by Samuel Escobar (1994) categorizes Protestants into three groups. Transplanted Protestants describes European immigrants to the region who brought their Protestantism with them such as Lutherans and Moravians. Missionary Protestants describes the handful of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists who came purposefully as missionaries to various Latin American countries in the second half of the 19th century. By 1900, these groups were still miniscule in number. Today, we tend to call many of the Missionary and Transplanted Protestants who have not accepted Pentecostalism mainline or traditional denominations and they make up only a small fraction of the Protestant population. Escobars third group is Pentecostals. Pentecostalism began in many Latin American countries prior to World War I as a result of the edgling missionary efforts of individuals in the wake of Pentecostal revivals in Los Angeles and Wales. Escobar reports that Pentecostalism quickly indigenized and grew slowly until about 1960 when several countries began to see signicant growth. Between 7590 percent of Protestants in Latin America today identify as Pentecostals. Consequently, for this study, Protestant refers to any individual from the historic or Pentecostal traditions who self-identies as Protestant, regardless of denominational afliation. In Latin America, unlike the United States

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

where the appellation evangelical evokes political images of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the term evangelical (evangelico) is used in its original sense of sharing the Gospel and therefore is applied to all Protestants. This work will follow the convention of using the terms interchangeably. For more details, please see Appendix A. The problem of accurately measuring religious adherents is not a new one. For example, scholars have moved from simple self-identication by respondents, to using church attendance as a proxy variable for religiosity (Hougland and Christenson 1982; Smidt and Penning 1982; Camp 1996; Talavera and Beyer 1998), to developing indices of orthodoxy such as religious dogmatism (Fagan and Breed 1965) and religiosity (Perkins 1992) that better distinguish those who are observant believers from those who self-select as religious but have little practical contact with the sect to which they claim membership. These characterizations are based on two variables, one that asked for the respondents religious afliation and one that asked whether the respondent was devout. Regarding the latter questions, if respondents classied themselves as very or quite devout, they have been labeled here as devout. Respondents who identied as Catholic or Protestant but characterized themselves as not very or not devout are labeled not devout. This analysis will include tests of the usual demographic and engagement indicators. The demographic indicators will include sex, age, education, and SES. Because much of the scholarly literature links political engagement to democratic attitudes (e.g., Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995b), the model includes measures of ones psychological orientation to politics. Political interest and efcacy are the engagement variables used in this study. Unlike Mexico, Colombia, and Peru, both Argentina and Chile are well known in Latin America for their nominally religious Catholic laity (Cleary and Sepulveda 1997; Freston 2001). Moreover, neither country experienced the proliferation of liberation theology and ecclesial base communities (CEBs) to the extent of places such as Brazil and parts of Central America. With this in mind, it is true that during the authoritarian regimes that characterized both countries in the 1980s, the Catholic Church hierarchies took divergent paths. In the Argentine case, with its much shorter-lived military regime, Church authorities tended to support the government against perceived Marxist (atheist) threats. However, the story in Chile is much more complicated. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Catholic clergy were divided in their support of the political Left and Right, especially in the wake of Vatican II. However, the violent and enduring nature of the Pinochet revolution turned most of the Chilean bishops against the state, at least by the late 1970s. From about 1977 on, the Chilean Church hierarchy played the leading domestic role against the states authoritarian policies, even though many practicing Catholic lay people tended to be conservative in political orientation. Cleary and Sepulveda (1997) estimate that the Chilean Protestant population was about 5 percent in 1960 and national census data from 1992 indicates that Chile was then 16 percent. Talavera and Beyer (1998) and Cleary and Sepulveda (1997) suggest that by 2000 the population will be 2025 percent Protestant. In Argentina, the national government does not ask about religious identication in the national census, so these numbers are estimates. For a discussion, see Mguez (1998) and Wilkie (1997). The Latinobarometer is administered by MORI, a private research rm based in Santiago, Chile. The complete data set included over a dozen Latin American countries. Because data from the survey are extremely expensive, it was unfortunately necessary to limit the scope of this study. I am grateful that the signicant cost of purchasing data was offset by grants from a private agency and the Department of Political Science at Santa Barbara. For those interested in similar results elsewhere in Latin America, see Patterson (2001, 2002). Additional survey details are available in Appendix A. The sample numbers in the data section will be somewhat less than these due to ltering out other religions, atheists, and agnostics. In this survey, no religious group other than Catholics and Protestants has a large enough sample to be used in statistical analysis. The sample for Chile is as follows: devout Catholic = 328, devout Protestant = 84, not devout Catholic = 527, not devout Protestant = 51. For Argentina: devout Catholic = 310, devout Protestant = 58, not devout Catholic = 626, not devout Protestant = 21. The numbers for nondevout Protestants are not included in the analysis. All other respondents were coded system missing. Catholics record almost 12 years of schooling compared to about 10 years for Protestants. The same is true for Argentinathey tend to score about 10 percent lower on the SES scale. There is little difference in the average age of respondents (early 40s) for either country. In Chile, the higher scores of devout Catholics on both the clean elections and vote inuence categories are at the borderline of statistical signicance (p < 0.15). Ordinary least squares (OLS) is a well-known statistical tool. It is possible that bias can enter the equation when OLS is used with ordinal data; however, this is generally not a problem with large sample populations (Tabracnik and Fidell 2001:13839). Moreover, the use of OLS throughout this work has the benet of providing consistency of analysis rather than changing types of regression with different kinds of variables (Berry 1993:4647). It is important to remember the discussion of raw percentages for prefer democracy discussed above (Table 5). We found that devout Catholics are the most likely to support democratic governance, and that there were large minorities of devout Catholics and devout Protestants who favored authoritarian government at times. Similarly, there were large minorities of not devout Catholics and not devout Protestants who felt they had no say in regime type.

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16. A fourth question was whether respondents felt that fellow citizens were honest. None of the indicators in this analysis, religious or otherwise, were signicant in predicting honesty. 17. Neither religious afliation nor religious intensity are statistically signicant for lawfulness, sense of obligation, honesty, or corruption. Consequently, these OLS models are not included in the main text, but can be found in Appendix B.

REFERENCES
Almond, G. and S. Verba. [1963] 1989. The civic culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Assman, H. 1997. La iglesia electronica y sus impacto en America Latina. San Jose, Costa Rica: Editorial Departamento Ecumenico de Investigaciones. Bastian, J.-P. 1987. Protestantismo y modernidad latinoamericana: Historia de unas minorias religiosas activas en Am rica Latina. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econ mica. e o Chesnut, A. R. 1997. Born again in Brazil: The Pentecostal boom and the pathogens of poverty. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cleary, E. and J. Sepulveda. 1997. Chilean Pentecostalism: Coming of age. In Power, politics, and Pentecostals in Latin America, edited by E. L. Cleary and H. W. Stewart-Gambino. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Diamond, S. 1989. Spiritual warfare: The politics of the Christian right. Boston, MA: South End Press. Escobar, S. 1994. A historical perspective on Latin American Pentecostalism. In Coming of age: Protestantism in contemporary Latin America, edited by D. R. Miller. Lanham, MD: University of America Press. Glazier, S., editor. 1980. Perspectives on Pentecostalism: Case studies from the Caribbean and Latin America. Washington, DC: University Press of America. Inglehart, R. 1988. The renaissance of political culture. American Political Science Review 82(4). Lalive DEspinay, C. 1969. Haven of the masses: A study of the Pentecostal movement in Chile, translated by M. Sandle. London: Lutterworth Press. Latinobarometro, Opinion Publica Latinoamericana. 19952000. Computer le. M. Lagos, Principal Investigator. Mariz, C. 1992. Religion and poverty in Brazil: A comparison of Catholic and Pentecostal communities. Sociological Analysis 53(1):35771. Martin, D. 1990. Tongues of re: The explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford: Blackwell. Mguez, D. 1998. Spiritual bonre in Argentina: Confronting current theories with an ethnographic account of Pentecostal growth in a Buenos Aires suburb. Amsterdam: Center for Latin American Studies. Patterson, E. 2001. Religious change and politics: Comparing Protestants in Brazil and Chile. Iberoamericana: Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 31(1):83100. . 2002. The invasion of sects: Protestantism and politics in Brazil. Ethnos Brasil 1(1):5774. . Forthcoming. Latin Americas neo-reformation: Religion and politics. New York: Routledge. Putnam, R. 1994. Making democracy work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schafer, H. 1992. Protestantismo y crisis social en America Central. San Jose, Costa Rica: Universidad Luterana Salvadore a. n Schultze, Q. J. 1994. Orality and power in Latin American Protestantism. In Coming of age: Protestantism in contemporary Latin America, edited by D. R. Miller. Lanham, MD: University of America Press. Sherman, A. 1992. Preferential option: A Christian and neoliberal strategy for Latin Americas poor. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Smith, C. 1994. The spirit and democracy: Base communities, Protestantism, and democratization in Latin America. Sociology of Religion 55(2):11943. Steigenga, T. 2001. The politics of the spirit: The political implications of Pentecostalized religion in Costa Rica and Guatemala. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Stoll, D. 1990. Is Latin America turning Protestant? Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Swatos, W. H. 1994. On Latin American Protestantism. Sociology of Religion 55(2). Talavera, A. F. and H. Beyer. 1998. The evangelical movement in Chile. Grand Rapids, MI: Acton Institute Press. Verba, S., K. L. Schlozman, and H. Brady. 1995. Voice and equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weber, M. 1934. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, translated by G. Allen. New York: Charles Scribners & Sons. White, S. 1984. Political culture in communist states: Some problems of theory and method. Comparative Politics 16(3):20118. Wilkie, J. W., editor. 1997. Statistical abstract of Latin America, vol. 34. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Latin America Center Publications.

APPENDIX A The Latinobarometer is a well-known survey instrument produced by MORI in Santiago, Chile that reects the beliefs of citizens throughout Latin America. The survey is based on and is

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extremely similar to the Eurobarometer and World Values Surveys. The sample population was adults over 18 years of age. The Latinobarometer has grown from a survey of a half-dozen countries a decade ago to including nearly 20 today. However, the instrument is owned by a private company and is extremely expensive to obtain. Cost limited the scope of this work, but it is likely that future scholarship will provide similar analyses of larger samples of Central and South American countries. The Latinobarometer distinguishes between various types of Protestant groups. Variable 76 asks: What is your religion? and provides numerous categories for Protestants: evangelical without-specifying, evangelical-Baptist, evangelical-Methodist, evangelical-Pentecostal, and Protestant. For the purposes of this research, these respondents have been collapsed into Protestant and the terms Protestant, evangelical, and Pentecostal are used throughout the article. Most Latin American Protestants would consider themselves evangelical for the term does not carry the political connotations that it does in the United States. Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehovahs Witnesses have been excluded from the sample as have atheists, agnostics, and other religious groups. In the end, it is doubtful whether the ne distinctions among Protestants, excluding the sects, are helpful to the student of politics. Latin American Protestantism is made up of multiple groups who tend to argue over the esoterics of practice more than doctrine and there are at least two durable bonds uniting most Protestants. The rst is pragmatic: because Protestants are confronted daily with pervasive Catholic culture, they tend to feel a shared identity. In other words, as members of the out-group, Protestants tend to identify Protestants of other denominations as being on the same side. A second commonality shared by most Protestants has already been addressedPentecostalism. Protestants made up only 23 percent of the population of Latin American countries in 1960, but today make up 1520 percent of many a countrys populationand it is estimated that up to 90 percent of those adherents are Pentecostal in practice and belief, regardless of the churchs ofcial denominational afliation, or lack thereof. The 2000 Latinobarometer national samples were: Argentina: 936 Catholics, 79 Protestants Chile: 853 Catholics, 133 Protestants Because most of the analysis of this study is based on the 2000 Latinobarometer Survey, the survey technical details are important. Chile MORI Chile conducted the Chilean survey March 312, 2000. Aleatory home selection with interviewee selection by last birthday was used. The sample size is 1,183 cases. Eighty percent of Chiles population lives in urban areas; this sample is representative of 70 percent of the population with a 3 percent margin of error. In the Chilean sample, the country was divided geographically into the metropolitan region (600 cases) and 10 other regions (583 cases total). The number of response rates from various Chilean cities range from 7 to 600 cases. Argentina MORI Argentina conducted the Argentine survey January 26 through February 21, 2000. Probabilistic home selection was employed and interviewees were selected based on age and sex quotas. The sample size is 1,200 cases and is representative of 75 percent of the total population with a 2.8 percent margin of error.

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Questionnaire (17) [Interpersonal Trust] Generally speaking, would you say that you can trust most people, or that you can never be too careful when dealing with others? [You can trust most people, You can never be too careful when dealing with others] (29) [Prefer Democracy] Which of the following do you agree with most? Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government, In certain situations, an authoritarian government can be preferable to a democratic one, It doesnt matter to people like me whether we have a democratic government or a non-democratic government. (30) [Satisfaction with Democracy] In general, would you say that you are very satised, fairly satised, not very satised, or not at all satised with the way democracy works in [country]? (32) [Clean Elections] In some countries people think that elections are clean; in other countries people think that elections are rigged. Thinking of the last elections, where would you place them in a 5 step ladder, where 1 is clean and 5 is rigged? (33) [Efcacy/Vote Inuence] Some people think the way you vote has no inuence over events; other people think the way you vote has a strong inuence over events. Using the scale in this card where 5 means the way that you vote has no inuence and 1 means the way that you vote has a strong inuence over events, where do you stand? (35) [Condence in Institutions] Please look at this card and tell me how much condence you have in each of the following groups, institutions, or persons mentioned on the list: a lot, some, little, or no condence? [Church, Armed Forces, etc.] (52) [Left/Right Scale] In politics, people speak of left and right. On a scale where 0 is left and 10 is right, where would you place yourself? (54) [Party Identication] If there were an election tomorrow, which party would you vote for? (58) [Follow Politics] How often do you do one of the following [follow the political news, try to convince others of your political opinion]? Very frequently, fairly frequently, occasionally, or never? (63) [Interest] How interested would you say you are in politics? Very interested, fairly interested, a little interested, or not interested? (66) [Civic Culture] How would you answer the following the question: The Chilean people are [very, quite, a little, not at all] lawful? [conscious of duties and obligations, honest, demanding of their rights] (76) What is your religion? (77) [Devout] How would you describe yourself? Very devout, devout, not very devout, not devout at all. The measurements of the demographic indicators are as follows: sex (female = 0, male = 1), SES (5 = very good, 4 = good, 3 = average, 2 = bad, 1 = very bad), age (given in years by respondent), education (1 = 06 years, 2 = 79 years, 3 = 1012 years, 4 = more than 12 years of education (includes incomplete and complete university or technical school)).
This is a change from the original Latinobarometer format, which reversed this scale. The same is true for the measure of political interest. For all regression analysis in this study, scales have been modied to go from low to high numerically. Hence, very might be scored 4 and not at all scored 1.

APPENDIX B Below are the OLS models for Argentina not presented above.

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OLS REGRESSION ANALYSIS EXPLANNING POLITICAL ATTITUDES (ARGENTINA)

Lawfulness B Protestant Devout Sex Age Education SES Efcacy Interest Constant Adjusted R2 0.07 (0.08) 0.00 (0.01) 0.01 (0.04) 0.05 (0.02) 0.02 (0.03) 0.01 (0.03) 0.06 (0.02) 0.05 (0.04) 1.46 (0.15) 0.02

Sense of Obligations B 0.02 (0.10) 0.01 (0.01) 0.00 (0.05) 0.00 (0.03) 0.10 (0.03) 0.08 (0.04) 0.04 (0.03) 0.00 (0.06) 2.56 (0.19) 0.03

Honesty B 0.02 (0.10) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.05) 0.13 (0.03) 0.02 (0.03) 0.03 (0.04) 0.06 (0.04) 0.10 (0.05) 1.64 (0.18) 0.04 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.19 0.03 0.04 0.07 0.06

Corruption B 0.05 (0.11) 0.01 (0.01) 0.11 (0.06) 0.01 (0.03) 0.14 (0.04) 0.06 (0.04) 0.18 (0.03) 0.02 (0.06) 0.95 (0.21) 0.08 0.02 0.02 0.06 0.12 0.16 0.05 0.18 0.02 0.02

0.03 0.02 0.01 0.09 0.03 0.01 0.08 0.04

0.01 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.08 0.05 0.02

Sample size = 1,015. p < 0.1; p < 0.05; p < 0.01. Note: Results show OLS unstandardized coefcients (B) with standard errors in parentheses and beta weights (). Source: Latinobarometer 2000.