Inequality,Exclusion,and Tolerance for Political Dissent in Latin America

Abstract

Although many countries meet electoral standards of democracy, often these regimes fail to promote social inclusion or meaningful representation. We argue that systems of exclusion have deleterious consequences for how people think about democracy, undermining tolerance for political dissent. Using cross-national public opinion data together with contextual measures of economic and political marginalization along ethnoracial lines, we evaluate the relationships between exclusion and political tolerance across Latin America. Over-time analysis in Bolivia further probes the mechanisms linking exclusion to intolerance. We find that tolerance of dissent is depressed where ethnoracial hierarchies are pronounced. We advance understanding of oft-unexplained society-level differences in political tolerance and emphasize the importance of the macro-structural context in shaping citizens’ commitments to basic democratic rights.

Keywords

democratic values quality of democracy race and ethnicity inequality public opinion

Despite recent democratic erosion, approximately two-thirds of countries still meet basic electoral standards of democracy (Freedom House, 2018). While these democracies permit participation through voting, they often fall short of meaningful political representation and social inclusion. Instead, powerful economic interests dominate levers of political influence, and social and economic exclusion persist along well-known axes of marginalization.

In Latin America, democratic rules are commonplace, but deep structural inequalities remain. Though economic inequality declined across the region in the early 21st century, this trend has plateaued, leaving intact high levels of income concentration and the tight link between socioeconomic status and skin color (Hall & Patrinos, 2012; Morgan & Kelly, 2013; Solt, 2020; Telles, 2014). Latin American parties often neglect the policy interests of marginalized groups in favor of clientelism, and light-skinned elites frequently monopolize political power (Johnson, 2020a; Luna, 2014; Morgan & Meléndez, 2017). Beyond Latin America, inequality continues to rise in many long-standing democracies (Kelly, 2020), racialized patterns of social immobility persist (Bloome, 2014), anti-immigrant sentiment is widespread (McLaren, 2012), and governments frequently help the wealthy more than the poor (Miler, 2018; Witko et al., 2021).

Ideally, democracy would provide citizens a level playing field on which to exercise fundamental rights (Aslam, 2017; Young, 1990). But systems that perpetuate social and political hierarchies fail to deliver on this promise. Instead, exclusionary democracies marginalize certain predictable segments of society. In doing so, they perpetuate the idea that democracy is not meant for everyone—a message not lost on the people embedded in systems of exclusion. In dozens of interviews we conducted across Peru, for instance, Indigenous and Afro-descendant activists frequently expressed frustration at the disjuncture between electoral democracy and persistent marginalization. In one emblematic response, an Indigenous rights advocate lamented: “we have written [democratic] rules but the ethnoracial hierarchy persists.”¹

How do persistent hierarchies shape democratic citizenship for people who live within them? The implications of exclusion for people’s willingness to embrace the principles and practices of democracy are undoubtedly far-reaching and unlikely to be salutary. Here we focus our attention on understanding how systems of marginalization may contribute to intolerance of political dissent.

Political tolerance is essential to the development of democratic societies, especially in less-established democracies where widespread tolerance has the capacity to limit acquiescence to illiberal practices, promote stability, and facilitate free exercise of political rights (Gibson, 1992; Marquart-Pyatt & Paxton, 2007; Peffley & Rohrschneider, 2003; Sullivan et al., 1982). Tolerance of dissent particularly is crucial for those who might hope to level existing hierarchies. In exclusionary contexts, accomplishing meaningful change may require dissent from the status quo, and entrenched elites likely prefer skepticism not tolerance of the rights of dissidents who threaten their power. Despite (and perhaps because of) the role dissent plays in resisting systems of marginalization, dissidents across Latin America have often been denied basic political rights, either explicitly during authoritarianism or more subtly under formal democratic rule. Given the importance of political tolerance generally and for dissent particularly, it is vital to understand whether systemic marginalization may in fact work to perpetuate intolerance toward the very voices questioning extant power structures.

We theorize that entrenched exclusion works to undermine tolerance across societies in two main ways. To begin, political systems that privilege certain groups and marginalize others send signals to citizens that hearing divergent perspectives is unimportant and even threatening. These cues encourage people to devalue political tolerance for dissent. Furthermore, societies that manifest deeply racialized economic divides reinforce difference and undermine solidarity, lending legitimacy to the idea that basic rights need not apply to everyone and thereby sustaining intolerance. Together these logics, which we elaborate further below, suggest that hierarchical political and social systems are likely to be breeding grounds for intolerance among the mass public.

To assess this possibility, we conduct multilevel analysis of political tolerance across Latin America and over time in Bolivia.² The comparative analysis enables us to evaluate the consequences of racialized hierarchies across a group of procedural democracies that feature significant cross-national variation in both political and economic exclusion but share a common logic underpinning that exclusion. We find that citizens situated in countries with deeper hierarchies have significantly lower levels of tolerance overall. At the individual level, white Latin Americans, who often benefit from racialized hierarchies, are typically more intolerant than their neighbors from marginalized ethnoracial groups. But where racialized economic marginalization is deepest, tolerance decay is most pronounced among Indigenous people, who tend to have lower group consciousness and may therefore be especially vulnerable to the damaging consequences of oppression. Leveraging temporal variation in Bolivia offers further evidence of the relationship between systemic marginalization and intolerance and bolsters the claim that strengthening political inclusion has the capacity to increase tolerance.

By considering how racialized systems of exclusion fuel intolerance, we advance understanding of this core democratic value and demonstrate how studies of mass political attitudes can learn from and contribute to literatures on comparative politics of race and ethnicity and democratic citizenship formation. Although scholars have pointed to significant society-level variation in political tolerance and occasionally called for further attention to macro-structural explanations (Gibson, 2006), tolerance studies have largely neglected these kinds of factors in favor of accounts emphasizing individual-level experiences and predispositions. The few previous efforts to consider context in explaining political (in)tolerance have tended to emphasize formal political institutions (Kirchner et al., 2011; Marquart-Pyatt & Paxton, 2007; Peffley & Rohrschneider, 2003) or short-term framing effects (Marcus et al., 1995; Nelson et al., 1997), not the underlying hierarchies that often characterize social and political systems (e.g., Duch & Gibson, 1992). And no prior study has considered how racialized exclusion might undermine general tolerance for dissent, despite a strong theoretical basis for such a possibility. By evaluating how race-based systems of marginalization shape tolerance, we reiterate the importance of citizens’ environments for their tolerance commitments, while also moving beyond previous scholarship in uncovering how political intolerance may be rooted in macro-structural systems of political and economic power.

The argument and evidence presented here also underscore the need to take racialized hierarchies seriously if we are to make sense of Latin American political dynamics. Previous research on racial and ethnic politics in the region has offered important insights into the causes and consequences of Indigenous and Afro-descendant political attitudes and behavior at the individual level and collectively through ethnoracial movements and parties (e.g., Anria, 2018; Clealand, 2017; Contreras, 2016; De Micheli, 2019; Lucero, 2008; Mitchell-Walthour, 2018; Paschel, 2016; Van Cott, 2005; Yashar, 2005). Here we build on this work and demonstrate that racialized hierarchies have weighty consequences for the construction of tolerance across entire societies. In doing so, we illuminate how race-based systems of exclusion are constitutive elements of Latin American polities and pose fundamental challenges to core democratic values.

What’s more, the paper contributes to empirical and theoretical literatures concerning democratic citizenship formation. Theorists of democratic citizenship have emphasized how hierarchical social and political systems distort citizenship formation among those at the bottom and the top of the hierarchy (Cohen, 2009; Cruikshank, 1999; Hooker, 2017; Mettler & Soss, 2004). Extensive empirical evidence has confirmed that oppressive policies, discriminatory experiences, and structural violence have profound consequences for the marginalized, often undermining institutional trust, weakening social cohesion, and provoking alienation (Caldwell, 2007; Cookson, 2018; Correa Aste & Roopnaraine, 2014; Gibson, 2003; Lerman & Weaver, 2014; Levitt, 2015). But less attention has been given to evaluating whether damage from systemic exclusion undermines core democratic principles and whether it ripples across entire societies. Here we test these cautionary predictions from democratic theorists and provide evidence that entrenched hierarchies do indeed enervate democratic citizenship for all. While tolerance of dissent may be of particular significance in places characterized by deep marginalization, our findings suggest building tolerance may be especially challenging in these contexts.

The Threat of Ethnoracial Exclusion

Exclusion may take many forms. But systemic exclusion, as opposed to individual discriminatory acts or temporary power asymmetries, is especially inimical to democracy because it extends across spheres, reinforces established hierarchies, and impedes opportunities for entire groups of people (Mills, 1997; Shapiro, 1999; Tilly, 1998). Bearing this in mind, we are particularly concerned with ethnoracial hierarchies because they are difficult to traverse, reflect deep power inequalities, and infiltrate multiple facets of life (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Mills, 1997).³

Empirical studies have identified important ethnoracial differences in the levels and origins of democratic values like political tolerance and regime legitimacy across Latin America and elsewhere (Booth & Seligson, 2009; Silver & Dowley, 2000; Sullivan et al., 1982), and theoretical literatures concerning democratic citizenship formation and inter-group relations, which we elaborate on below, clearly anticipate how racialized patterns of political and social exclusion may influence whether people adhere to democratic values. But to our knowledge no previous study has examined how ethnoracial hierarchies shape political tolerance, and studies that analyze other democratic values as a function of racialized social or political structures are quite rare (but see Aberbach & Walker, 1970; Gibson, 2003). Thus, while previous scholarship implies that ethnoracial hierarchies should be taken seriously in understanding democratic values generally and tolerance particularly, existing work has not done so. Our work here begins to rectify this.

Considering the consequences of exclusion for political tolerance through the lens of ethnoracial hierarchies also helps bolster our confidence in causal ordering. There are several reasons to see systems of ethnoracial exclusion as preceding and predicting people’s willingness to tolerate dissent, not the reverse. First, people are not born with democratic values like tolerance (Easton & Dennis, 1969), but they are born into systems of inequality, learning about these hierarchies and where they fit in at an early age (Calarco, 2014). There are thus good individual developmental reasons to think that tolerance in the mass public is shaped by the hierarchies in which people are embedded and not the reverse. Second, with respect to social exclusion, extant research indicates that ethnoracial hierarchies have long-run origins tied to economic structures, policy decisions, and systemic discrimination. In Latin America, the structural exclusion encountered by Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations has deep roots, with racialized hierarchies most evident in the portions of the region that relied more heavily on forced Indigenous labor or chattel slavery (Acemoglu et al., 2012). Current ethnoracial inequalities reflect structural patterns with historical origins and long staying power, which precede the formation of individual-level democratic values, and are not a product of intolerance in the mass public that we seek to explain (Barrón, 2008). Third, regarding political marginalization specifically, previous research in Latin America points out that social acceptance of marginalized groups has had little role in fostering ethnic representation (Madrid, 2012), that systems of representation often exist quite independently from the interests of the citizenry (Kitschelt et al., 2010), and that elite behavior shapes mass values not the reverse (Carlin et al., 2015). Thus, general scholarship on the construction of individual-level values as well as work focused on the origins of ethnoracial inequalities and the logic of political representation in Latin America support the view that racialized exclusion is temporally and causally prior to the formation of tolerance commitments among ordinary citizens.

Our general theoretical framework is thus informed by the understanding that (1) the social and political structures in which people are embedded have profound potential for shaping their political values, (2) these structures are often racialized, and (3) these racialized systems of exclusion precede and predict variation in political tolerance in the mass public. Below we elaborate precisely how we expect tolerance for dissent to be shaped by the political and social systems of ethnoracial exclusion in which people are situated as well as their individual ethnoracial identities.

Consequences of Systemic Exclusion for Tolerance

Our core argument is that tolerance for dissent is undermined by entrenched systems of exclusion that exist despite the presence of formal democratic rule. Exclusionary democracies essentially create and preserve tiers of citizens, allocating power and agency differentially across groups (Cruikshank, 1999). Democratic theorists have stressed how systems that marginalize some for the benefit of others are unjust in their expression and likely to be damaging in their consequences (Aslam, 2017; Douglass, 1955; Mills, 1997). Entrenched hierarchies are “embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules” (Young, 1990, p. 41). As a result, the collective consciousness that stems from being immersed in oppressive social and political systems not only harms the marginalized, but also has the capacity to distort the “moral capacities” of those situated at the top of the hierarchy (Hooker, 2017, p. 35).

Empirical research aiming to evaluate the consequences of exclusion for democratic citizenship has understandably focused on the ramifications for marginalized groups who suffer the most profound and personal consequences of oppression (e.g., Cookson, 2018; Lerman & Weaver, 2014; Levitt, 2015). Consequently, however, this work often overlooks how hierarchies may have deleterious consequences across entire societies as democratic theorists have posited. Here we elaborate and then test an argument that takes seriously the theoretical idea that pervasive hierarchies have significant ramifications for democratic citizenship that extend to everyone in the system. To do so, we consider how both exclusionary political systems and hierarchical social orders shape tolerance for dissent across society as a whole and among the marginalized in particular.

Political Marginalization Cues Intolerance

The structure of political power in a society sends messages about the (un)importance of robust competition that incorporates diverse voices, and we argue that these messages influence tolerance of dissent in the mass public. Experimental studies manipulating the immediate information environment demonstrate that specific cues from the informational context have the capacity to influence political tolerance (Marcus et al., 1995; Nelson et al., 1997). But the tolerance literature has often overlooked how political structures could be sources of such messages—just a handful of studies have considered how the political system itself might shape tolerance commitments. These studies indicate that democratic rules as well as more frequent and more proportional electoral processes promote tolerance, while less democratic contexts do not (Hadler, 2012; Kirchner et al., 2011; Peffley & Rohrschneider, 2003; Zhang & Brym, 2019). The essential argument underpinning this work is that people are more likely to learn the value of tolerance when political rules and procedures create space for competition among those with differing views (Duch & Gibson, 1992). In these contexts, political difference is not threatening but normal, and people come to accept (i.e., tolerate) the rights of others.

We concur with the core idea in these studies—that the nature of political competition influences whether people embrace political tolerance. But we move beyond the formal institutions that have been the focus of this previous work and argue that who has political representation and influence is a powerful contextual cue. The degree to which democracy has enabled historically marginalized groups to gain access to power tells citizens whether or not everyone should be permitted to exercise fundamental political rights. When diverse groups obtain political influence, their incorporation signals the importance of hearing different perspectives and highlights how inclusion may not be as risky or damaging as some might conceive. As a result, when marginalized groups have access to power, this teaches tolerance for different kinds of people and ideas, validating the rights of others (Duch & Gibson, 1992; Weldon, 2006). Conversely, democratic systems that continue to marginalize historically excluded groups send the opposite message—democracy is not for everyone. If the marginalized are able to access political power and representation, people living in these contexts are more likely to develop tolerance for dissent, while more exclusionary political systems are likely to breed intolerance.

Social Hierarchies Perpetuate Assent to Unequal Rights

The kinds of exclusionary structures that socialize people toward intolerance are likely to extend beyond the political realm—social hierarchies carry important consequences for political learning as well. In many ways, the social structures in which people are embedded are more tangible than political power systems. And scholarship on the psychology of intergroup relations suggests that inequalities between ethnoracial groups are particularly consequential for how people think about many facets of social and political life because racialized divides tend to reinforce difference and limit solidarity across society (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006).

The social dominance theory of intergroup relations offers particularly useful insights as we consider how group-based social exclusion may promote and perpetuate intolerance. At its core, social dominance theory argues that group-based inequalities are behaviorally consequential features of human societies, with more exclusionary societies tending to propagate hierarchy-enhancing myths that legitimate and perpetuate inequality (Levin et al., 1998; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). The hierarchy-enhancing messages prevalent in exclusionary contexts influence individuals to see structural inequality as justifiable, which enables maintenance of the hierarchical status quo. An extensive body of work has provided evidence concerning the ways these psychological processes operate at the individual level to shape a variety of outcomes including political values and policy positions (Pratto et al., 1994, 1999; Sidanius et al., 2004). However, little work has considered the implications for entire societies, even though social dominance theory clearly anticipates society-level consequences (but see Fischer et al., 2012). Applying these insights from social dominance theory to our understanding of the relationship between systemic hierarchies and intolerance in the mass public, we argue that exposure to the hierarchy-legitimizing messages that exclusionary social structures perpetuate makes people more willing to accept inegalitarian outcomes like the unequal distribution of political rights. If people are accepting of an inegalitarian status quo and not committed to equal rights for all, they are less likely to be tolerant of dissent.

We most often think about the inegalitarian consequences of group-based hierarchies in material terms—where group inequalities are pronounced people tend to oppose policies that could redistribute well-being to the marginalized. Previous research has shown that opposition to redistribution is especially strong in contexts where economic inequalities reinforce other axes of difference like ethnoracial divides (Alesina et al., 1999; Baldwin & Huber, 2010; Houle, 2017; Morgan & Kelly, 2017). Group-based hierarchy is, thus, increasingly recognized as relevant for understanding distributional attitudes and outcomes when the goods are finite and material.

Here we suggest a similar process is at play in thinking about the distribution of more abstract benefits like access to democratic rights. Tolerating dissent means opening the political system to outsiders and potentially allowing the redistribution not only of resources but of power (Huber & Stephens, 2012; Rousseau & Ewig, 2017). If the group-based dynamic at work in the realm of material resource distribution is also relevant for understanding the distribution of political rights, then people in more exclusionary contexts are more likely to see basic civil liberties not as universal but as selective benefits only available to some. As social dominance theory has shown, systems of group-based exclusion send messages that some groups are worth less than others and that any equality-promoting reform is threatening. As a result, where ethnoracial inequalities are deep, people are likely to be more willing to circumscribe the rights of others, making them less tolerant (Cohen, 2009).

Considering these processes through which political and social hierarchies may undermine tolerance, we advance two core contextual-level hypotheses. First, we expect intolerance to be more prevalent in contexts where political power remains concentrated in the hands of traditional elites. Second, we hypothesize that people will be less tolerant in societies characterized by deeper group-based inequality. Thus, we expect systemic exclusion in both the political and social realms to limit tolerance among all citizens.

Consequences of Exclusion for the Marginalized

In addition to the ways racialized patterns of exclusion may depress democratic values across society as a whole, we are particularly concerned with the effects of exclusion for those from marginalized groups who may be most influenced by experiences of oppression. In general, we expect people from non-dominant ethnoracial groups to be more tolerant because the promise of equal political rights for all, if fulfilled, offers the most benefit to the marginalized (Van Doorn, 2014). Thus, our baseline hypothesis at the individual level is that Indigenous and Afro-descendant Latin Americans will generally tend to express more tolerance than those from the dominant ethnoracial group.

But the broader structural context of exclusion may also shape how individuals in non-dominant groups formulate democratic values. We consider two competing mechanisms that may condition the link between ethnoracial exclusion and tolerance among the marginalized. On the one hand, those belonging to marginalized groups—groups with pasts marked by exclusion, exploitation, and repression under non-democratic regimes—may care more deeply about tolerating the democratic rights of others if they are situated in more exclusionary contexts. If those facing deep marginalization see tolerance as a path toward gaining the rights and protections they themselves may be denied, then people from marginalized groups may have even stronger tolerance commitments in contexts characterized by deeper economic and political exclusion. More exclusion means the marginalized have more to gain, which could make Indigenous and Afro-Latin Americans’ tolerance commitments even stronger in contexts of deeper marginalization. Thus, while our general society-wide prediction is that entrenched hierarchies will undermine tolerance across society as a whole, it is possible that deep exclusion will have the opposite effect among the marginalized.

On the other hand, while democracy in theory promises the same rights of participation and expression to everyone, reality frequently falls short of this ideal. And those who experience marginalization are often more skeptical about the transformative capacity of democratic processes (Lerman & Weaver, 2014; Morgan & Kelly, 2017). Through this lens, individuals from historically marginalized groups, who should stand to benefit most from democracy’s potential equalizing effects, may also be more disillusioned (Aslam, 2017; Shapiro, 1999). If disillusionment is the predominant response to exclusion, contexts of deeper economic and political hierarchies may make those from marginalized groups less invested in protecting the right to dissent. Or, putting this logic differently, where racialized hierarchies are less pronounced and people from historically excluded groups find greater political and economic equality, the marginalized may be especially committed to the idea that everyone deserves the same rights because their reality more accurately reflects this ideal. Indeed, previous studies have often demonstrated that experiences of inclusion tend to make individuals from historically marginalized groups feel more empowered and more committed to democratic institutions and processes (Bobo & Gilliam, 1990; Hunter & Sugiyama, 2014; Madrid, 2012). Here we suggest that experiencing inclusion may also make those from marginalized groups more committed to basic democratic rights, while greater exclusion may weaken their tolerance for such rights.

These arguments posit rival views of the way ethnoracial exclusion may condition political tolerance among individuals situated near the bottom of entrenched hierarchies. The first expects greater marginalization to be associated with more tolerance among the most vulnerable groups. Combined with the baseline hypothesis concerning marginalized groups above, the empirical expectations under this view are: (1) individuals from marginalized groups will be more tolerant than whites overall and (2) their tolerance commitments will become even stronger and more positively differentiated from whites in contexts of deep ethnoracial marginalization. The second perspective suggests that persistent hierarchies will exert particularly negative effects on tolerance among those at the bottom of the hierarchy, while inclusion may deepen their democratic commitments. The empirical expectations here are: (1) those from marginalized groups will be more tolerant than whites overall and especially so in contexts of greater inclusion and (2) the generally negative effect we expect exclusion to have on tolerance across society as a whole will be particularly pronounced among the marginalized.

Entrenched Hierarchies in Latin American Democracies

The features of exclusionary democracy are widespread and diverse, affecting long-standing and more nascent democracies alike, but the degree to which societies are plagued by the intersecting challenges of economic, social, and political marginalization varies substantially. As a region, Latin America manifests significant cross-national differences in racialized exclusion. In some countries, profound ethnoracial inequalities persist (e.g., Peru), while others have comparatively less hierarchical baggage (e.g., Uruguay). This variation offers analytical leverage, enabling us to evaluate how differences in racialized political and social exclusion produce different patterns of tolerance commitments across the region. At the same time, because relevant racial identities and their meanings often vary significantly across contexts, focusing on one region that shares similar, although certainly not identical, ethnoracial hierarchies based on Indigenous and Black exclusion allows us to develop consistent concepts and measures and to conduct reliable cross-national analysis. Moreover, because most Latin American countries now have some track record of democratic rules, the marginalization we continue to observe reflects enduring features of society, not the fleeting turmoil of transitions. Thus, the region offers an opportunity to analyze the consequences of entrenched hierarchies in countries where the formal practice of democracy has become routine.

Additionally, the persistence of ethnoracial hierarchies in many Latin American countries makes the challenges associated with exclusionary democracy especially relevant for understanding social and political dynamics there. National ideologies, such as racial democracy in Brazil and mestizaje in Spanish Latin America, have often endeavored to construct the myth that these societies are racially egalitarian, but empirical evidence reveals deeply racialized hierarchies (Clealand 2017; Loveman 2014).

When democratization swept the region beginning in the late 1970s, marginalized groups seem poised to gain equal rights and representation. Many Indigenous people were finally enfranchised, electoral systems introduced provisions promoting descriptive representation (Htun, 2016), and legal reforms extended rights to prior consultation (Kröger & Lalander, 2016). But these rules have been inconsistently implemented and rarely challenge structural inequalities (Alberti, 2019; Hale, 2002; West, 2015). Despite the end of authoritarian regimes that often targeted Afro-descendant and Indigenous people and the recognition of basic rights, ethnoracial hierarchies remain deeply embedded. Indigenous and Afro-Latin Americans continue to face significant barriers to education, employment, healthcare, housing, and political influence (Gandelman et al., 2011; Paredes, 2015; Valdivia et al., 2007). Racialized inequalities characterize social investment, infrastructure access, and state violence (González, 2020; Machinea et al., 2005; Ponce, 2006). Some Indigenous and Afro-Latin Americans have found political or social advancement (Anria, 2018; De Micheli, 2019), but such experiences are the exception as descriptive representation has infrequently produced meaningful policy change (Madrid, 2012; Paschel, 2016). While the depth of marginalization varies, ethnoracial hierarchies remain, and we expect these hierarchies to shape tolerance across societies and among specific ethnoracial groups.

Empirical Strategy

To evaluate our arguments concerning the consequences of political and social exclusion for political tolerance, we analyze individual-level public opinion data from seven waves of the AmericasBarometer surveys conducted between 2004 and 2017, which we combine with country-level data to measure contextual variables as detailed below.⁴ Because the depth of racialized hierarchy is often slow to change within societies but can vary significantly across countries, this component of our analysis leverages cross-national variation to assess whether people living in contexts of deeper exclusion show less tolerance for dissent as we expect. We supplement the region-wide analysis by examining temporal variation in Bolivia, which experienced a significant shift toward political inclusion for Indigenous communities. Although dramatic changes in systems of exclusion are rare, Bolivia underwent such a change when a pro-indigenous party gained control of government in 2005. Analyzing how tolerance commitments changed in Bolivia following this shift offers an additional test of our expectation that more inclusive contexts will facilitate greater tolerance.

We assess the degree to which ethnoracial inequalities undermine the democratic value of political tolerance, which we define as support for the rights of outsiders to compete for political power (Golebiowska, 1999). We measure tolerance using an additive index constructed from four survey items asking respondents about support for the rights of dissidents. The questions measure tolerance for people exercising their rights to vote, carry out peaceful protests, run for office, and give a televised speech. The index ranges from zero to nine, and Cronbach’s alpha scores for the index and each item individually exceed 0.75, indicating strong scale reliability.⁵

Operationalizing tolerance this way is sensible for several reasons. Tolerance for dissent is especially salient across Latin America given legacies of authoritarian regimes that systematically repressed dissidents, and it is substantively valuable because altering the entrenched hierarchies at the center of our theoretical argument will almost surely require dissent. Additionally, previous research has shown that individuals’ tolerance commitments are remarkably stable regardless of the target group and that focusing on a consistent object of tolerance across respondents and countries promotes reliable measurement (Duch & Gibson, 1992; Gibson, 1992; Sniderman et al., 1989). We control for the possibility that tolerating dissent may be more challenging for individuals who voted for the sitting president, but our findings are robust to including or excluding this variable from the analysis. Together these features of our tolerance measure make it both substantively relevant and methodologically appropriate particularly in our cross-national analysis.

Tolerance for dissent varies considerably across Latin America. In 2014 for instance, Uruguayans had an average tolerance score nearly double that found in Guatemala. Our region-wide analysis aims to explain this variation. Due to the cross-national, multi-year structure of the data, we fit three-level models with individuals nested in country-years, nested in countries. Three-level models account for clustering in the error term that commonly occurs when combining individual-level data from different countries and years. This approach addresses the threat of biased standard errors more effectively than fixed effects and attributes variation in individual-level responses to the proper level of analysis (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002; Steenbergen & Jones, 2002). Multilevel modeling also allows us to assess our central hypotheses about the ways systems of exclusion shape tolerance across society and interact with individuals’ positions in the ethnoracial hierarchy to influence their tolerance commitments.

We have argued that racialized systems of exclusion undermine tolerance for dissent, and at the society-wide level we expect tolerance to be lowest in contexts where political marginalization is greatest and where inequalities between ethnoracial groups are most pronounced. To evaluate these arguments, the cross-national analysis includes two measures of exclusion—one political and one economic.

To measure political marginalization, we utilize V-Dem’s “power distributed by social group” index. This measure is based on a segment of the V-Dem survey in which country experts rate the extent to which political power is distributed equally or unequally across social groups identified along contextually relevant axes traditionally associated with ethnoracial categories.⁶ Experts responded on an ordinal scale originally coded from zero to four, with zero representing the monopolization of power by one group and four representing roughly equal power distribution across groups (Coppedge et al., 2020). V-Dem researchers then used a measurement model to convert this ordinal scale into an index that essentially adjusts for variation across experts (Pemstein et al., 2020). For our purposes we reversed the coding on this variable so that higher values mean political power is more concentrated in the hands of the dominant group. The measure captures significant cross-national variation in political exclusion as well as smaller over-time changes within countries—the most politically exclusionary country in the data was Guatemala and the least exclusionary were Costa Rica and Uruguay.

To capture the degree to which societies are stratified along ethnoracial lines, we measure between-group inequality (BGI). BGI reflects differences in material well-being between major ethnoracial groups within a country, weighted according to their size. BGI is based on inequality decomposition methods developed by economists (Mancini et al., 2008; Pyatt, 1976) and calculated by assigning individuals within an ethnoracial group the mean well-being for the group and then proceeding with calculating a Gini coefficient in the usual way.⁷ This calculation produces a weighted, country-level estimate of inequality between groups, similar to the way the Gini estimates inequality between individuals. If each ethnoracial group has the same mean well-being, BGI equals zero. The indicator gains value as between-group differences widen.

This measure allows us to capture the degree to which prosperity and poverty accrue disproportionately to different ethnoracial groups. BGI reflects the complexity of group-based inequalities in multiethnic Latin American societies by incorporating all group-based disparities in a single indicator, which contrasts with group-level measures that separately compare each ethnoracial group to some reference point like the country’s mean income. Because BGI is a society-wide measure, it allows us to assess whether the context of exclusion shapes tolerance and also enables us to evaluate how this context interacts with individual ethnoracial identity to influence tolerance commitments. BGI varies significantly across Latin America; it is particularly high in places like Peru and Mexico and much lower in Costa Rica and Paraguay. As with political exclusion, variance within countries over time is more limited than cross-national differences.

We also consider how ethnoracial identity shapes tolerance. We generally expect individuals from non-dominant groups, namely Indigenous and Afro-descendant Latin Americans, to be more tolerant. We include a series of dichotomous variables that capture respondents’ ethnoracial self-identification: Indigenous, Afro-descendant (Black or mulatto), mestizo, and other, treating white-identified respondents as the reference category.⁸

Additionally, we theorized that the structural context of exclusion may shape the degree to which people from marginalized groups are tolerant. To capture this possibility, we interact both political marginalization and BGI with Afro-descendant and Indigenous identity. We identified two competing hypotheses concerning these conditional relationships. The first expects deeper exclusion to intensify tolerance commitments among the marginalized, making their commitments even stronger in countries with profoundly racialized hierarchies. The second expects experiences of marginalization to cause pronounced erosion of tolerance among historically marginalized groups while experiences of inclusion may intensify their tolerance. Under the first scenario we would observe positive interactions between exclusion and Indigenous or Afro-descendant identity—marginalization would heighten already strong tolerance commitments among these groups. Under the second scenario the interaction terms would be negative—people from marginalized ethnoracial groups might be more tolerant than whites under conditions of greater inclusion but become markedly less tolerant as their context becomes more exclusionary.

Our models include several other variables that may influence tolerance. Because the dependent variable measures tolerance for the rights of dissidents, the effort required to express tolerant attitudes is likely to vary according to respondents’ stances toward the current government. So we include a variable measuring whether a respondent voted for the incumbent president.⁹ We also control for a series of sociodemographic factors reflecting individuals’ life experiences: religiosity, education, well-being, place of residence, and sex.¹⁰ In other models, we considered contextual-level controls for economic development measured as GDP per capita, inequality measured as the Gini index, experience with democracy measured as the number of years with a democratic regime since 1945, and current level of democracy. None had significant effects nor did they change the results reported below.

Analyzing Ethnoracial Exclusion and Tolerance

Our cross-national analysis estimates three core models to test the theoretical expectations described above. The first model focuses on how structures of exclusion are associated with tolerance and includes contextual and individual-level measures of ethnoracial marginalization as well as individual-level controls. The subsequent two models add the interactions between membership in a marginalized ethnoracial group and our country-level measures of racialized exclusion, first BGI (model 2) and then political marginalization (model 3). We discuss the main findings from this cross-national analysis below. (Table A-2 in the Supplemental Appendix presents full results.)

The core conclusion from our first model is that political tolerance is lower in contexts of deeper ethnoracial marginalization. Figure 1 uses the estimates from model 1 to graph the predicted level of tolerance as economic and political exclusion vary. In the left panel, we see that predicted tolerance declines by almost a point (about half a standard deviation) as BGI increases from its lowest to highest observed value (significance level p = .00, two-tailed test). The right panel indicates that as political exclusion moves from its lowest to highest observed value, predicted tolerance goes down by approximately a half-point (p = .07, two-tailed test). While the effect of economic exclusion is especially large, both effects are notable—even a 1-point change in political tolerance is greater than the observed within-country over-time range for more than half the countries we analyze (see Supplemental Appendix Table A-1). And the difference in predicted tolerance between the lowest and highest observed BGI is roughly equivalent to the difference between Uruguay, the most tolerant country in our analysis, and El Salvador, which has tolerance levels that place it among the bottom third of countries in the region.

Figure 1.

How tolerance changes with increases in economic and political exclusion: (a) predicted tolerance as between group inequality increases and (b) predicted tolerance as political exclusion increases.

This evidence aligns with our expectation that ethnoracial exclusion undermines tolerance.¹¹ Economic and political structures that perpetuate ethnoracial marginalization are associated with weaker tolerance commitments across society. Marginalization thus has the capacity not only to harm the marginalized as previous research suggests, but also has society-wide consequences, weakening tolerance for political dissent which might challenge entrenched hierarchies. This evidence supports our core claim that deeply rooted and pervasive structures of exclusion undermine tolerance at the societal level, threatening the vitality and viability of democratic regimes marked by exclusionary patterns.

Turning now to the effects of membership in historically marginalized groups, we posited that individuals who identified with marginalized groups—Indigenous or Afro-descendant—would generally be more tolerant than other citizens. Examining the average effects for Indigenous and Afro-descendant identity without accounting for interactions with the context of exclusion uncovers little in the way of identity effects—the coefficients for both Indigenous and Afro-descendant identity are in the expected positive direction but neither is significant at the p = .05-level, (although p = .06 for Afro-descendants).

However, our theoretical framework suggests that marginalized ethnoracial groups might respond differently to variation in the depth of exclusion they encounter. We specified two competing hypotheses in this regard. The first expects Indigenous and Afro-descendant individuals to become more tolerant as the depth of marginalization increases, while the second expects those from marginalized groups to become more intolerant as their context becomes more exclusionary. To consider this possibility, our second model interacts BGI with both Indigenous and Afro-descendant identity (see column 2 of Supplemental Table A-2), and the third interacts these identities with political exclusion (see column 3 of Supplemental Table A-2).

Figure 2 plots the most theoretically relevant information from these underlying models—the predicted tolerance across levels of economic (Figure 2a) and political (Figure 2b) exclusion for white, Afro-descendant, and Indigenous respondents. These figures allow us to see how ethnoracial exclusion affects tolerance across relevant population subgroups.

Figure 2.

Effects of exclusion for white, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant respondents: (a) predicted tolerance as economic exclusion increases, conditioned by ethnoracial identity and (b) predicted tolerance as political exclusion increases, conditioned by ethnoracial identity.

This analysis uncovers three important patterns. First, we see confirmation that the society-wide effects for both political and economic exclusion discussed above are similar across ethnoracial groups. This is evidenced by the downward sloping lines for all three groups in both figures. Whether someone is white, Afro-descendant, or Indigenous, tolerance tends to be lower in contexts of deeper political and economic exclusion (although these effects do not attain statistical significance among Afro-descendants).

Second, while the negative effects of structural inequalities on tolerance are similar across subgroups, they are not identical. On the economic dimension where evidence of ethnoracial differences finds the greatest statistical support, Figure 2a shows that as BGI increases tolerance erodes more rapidly for Indigenous respondents than for other groups (interaction term statistically significant, p = .05). Whites also evidence significantly less tolerance as BGI increases, but for Indigenous respondents the negative relationship is particularly pronounced—they are significantly more tolerant than whites in contexts where BGI is low, but the two groups have tolerance levels that are not statistically distinguishable where economic exclusion is moderate to high. On the other hand, tolerance among Afro-descendants is least affected by increasing economic exclusion (interaction statistically significant, p = .03). We see similar patterns emerge in Figure 2b where political exclusion is the focus. While the interaction terms underlying those results are generally not significant, meaning that the effect of political exclusion is statistically indistinguishable across groups, it is notable that Afro-descendant respondents once again appear to be somewhat less affected by increasing exclusion in this part of the figure. We revisit these differential consequences of exclusion for Indigenous and Afro-descendant respondents below.

Third, these results show that Indigenous and Afro-descendant Latin Americans tend to be at least as tolerant as whites and often more so. This pattern is most evident in the positive and statistically significant main effects coefficients for Indigenous and Afro-descendant identity in columns 2 and 3 of Table A-2 in the Supplemental Appendix.

These findings from the cross-national analysis support our central theoretical argument that political and economic exclusion undermine tolerance across society. We also find some evidence in support of our expectation that individuals from historically marginalized groups are particularly likely to hold strong tolerance commitments. And we find that the context of exclusion matters for these ethnoracial identity effects.

But our conditional analyses depicted in Figure 2 identify differences in the ways Indigenous and Afro-descendant individuals respond to exclusionary systems. Among the Indigenous we see that as BGI increases, tolerance rapidly declines. Thus, in countries like Chile and Paraguay where ethnoracial inequality is low, Indigenous respondents are particularly tolerant, whereas tolerance commitments among the Indigenous are much weaker in high-BGI contexts like Peru and Mexico. This result suggests that racialized economic inequalities are particularly detrimental to tolerance among the Indigenous. Political exclusion is also associated with reduced tolerance among Indigenous respondents, although this relationship is fairly similar across Indigenous and white respondents alike. Overall the evidence concerning Indigenous respondents aligns with the second, more pessimistic, conditional hypothesis that expected greater exclusion to have a particularly detrimental effect on tolerance among the marginalized.

Afro-descendants, on the other hand, respond less to increasing economic and political inequality—their tolerance commitments are fairly resilient even in contexts of deep exclusion. Although tolerance among Afro-descendant individuals appears to erode slightly as exclusion increases, the effects of increasing exclusion are smaller for Afro-descendants than for Indigenous (and white) respondents. And in the most profoundly exclusionary contexts, Afro-descendant respondents are the most tolerant group. Thus, while our findings for Indigenous respondents support the more pessimistic conditional hypothesis, the evidence is more mixed for Afro-descendents. Tolerance among Afro-descendants does not increase in contexts of deeper exclusion as the first, more optimistic conditional hypothesis anticipated. However, the relative resiliency of Afro-descendants’ tolerance commitments in the face of profound racialized exclusion lends some support for the optimistic idea that marginalized groups’ tolerance commitments would become more positively differentiated from those of white neighbors as exclusion intensified.

What might explain the resilience of Afro-descendant attitudes as juxtaposed against the steep decline in tolerance among Indigenous respondents as exclusion deepens? While we did not theorize about such differences explicitly, one possible explanation relates to how group consciousness forms in different contexts and among different groups (Lee, 2008; McClain et al., 2009; Sanchez & Vargas, 2016). Building strong group consciousness, particularly group consciousness that recognizes the role of systemic discrimination in constructing contemporary ethnoracial inequalities and that emphasizes the role of collective action in countering this discrimination, can serve as an important psychological and substantive resource as people from marginalized groups engage the political realm (Miller et al., 1981; Slaughter, 2020). Previous research has found racial group consciousness to be an important predictor of specific policy attitudes and political behaviors (Dawson, 1995; Mitchell-Walthour, 2018; Tate, 1994). Group consciousness may also promote more enduring commitments to democratic principles and practices among people from marginalized groups, as those with stronger group consciousness may see greater promise in the possibility of collective action through democratic processes and therefore place more value in respecting the political rights required to pursue these goals, even in the face of profound exclusion. Although the myth of mestizaje has limited acknowledgment of systemic racism across Latin America (Hanchard, 1994; Loveman, 2014; Twine, 1998), many Latin Americans from historically marginalized groups have nevertheless developed a group consciousness that recognizes structural discrimination (Clealand, 2017; Johnson, 2020b; Mitchell-Walthour, 2018; Moraes Silva & de Souza Leão, 2012). And while scholarship that directly compares Indigenous and Afro-descendant consciousness is rare, the patterns of collective identity formation across the two groups suggest that the development of a politicized structural group consciousness may be more pronounced for Afro-descendant Latin Americans as compared to Indigenous communities for whom cultural distinctiveness has proven more politically salient (Hooker, 2005; Van Cott, 2000; Wade, 2010; Yashar, 2005).

Evidence from the 2012 AmericasBarometer surveys lends suggestive support to the idea that stronger structural group consciousness among Afro-descendant (as opposed to Indigenous) Latin Americans may indeed contribute to the relative resiliency of their tolerance commitments. In that year, a split-sample of participants responded to a group consciousness question measuring agreement with the idea that systemic discrimination is the primary driver of ethnoracial inequalities.¹² The data demonstrate that Afro-descendants are more likely than Indigenous Latin Americans to exhibit group consciousness that recognizes the importance of structural racism, after controlling for a variety of other individual characteristics as well as country fixed effects. Then in additional multilevel analysis based on our main model above, we finds that group-consciousness among Indigenous and Afro-descendant respondents is strongly associated with greater tolerance. (Full results are available in Supplemental Appendix C.) Together these results suggest that group consciousness may be moderating the effects of political and economic exclusion among marginalized groups, enabling greater resiliency among Afro-descendants. Given data limitations pertaining to sample sizes at both the individual and contextual level, we cannot fully test this possibility, making us reluctant to draw strong conclusions. Nevertheless, these patterns along with previous research demonstrating the importance of group consciousness for moderating experiences of marginalization point to the plausibility of this idea.

As a final step in our analysis, we examine over-time dynamics within Bolivia, which offers a rare case where a profoundly exclusionary context experienced a dramatic shift toward greater political inclusion when the pro-Indigenous party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) gained control of government in 2005 (Anria, 2018; Madrid, 2012).¹³ If we are correct that tolerance commitments respond to elite cues emanating from political incorporation (rather than the reverse), then we should observe an increase in tolerance among the mass public after the MAS victory in 2005. To test this expectation, we regress individual-level tolerance on a dichotomous measure indicating before (0) and after (1) the 2005 election, an interaction between the post-2005 dummy and Indigenous identity (since Indigenous is the marginalized ethnoracial group in Bolivia), as well as individual-level controls that parallel those in the cross-national analysis above.¹⁴ The ascent of MAS was followed by a statistically significant increase in tolerance (p = .03). Figure 3 charts predicted tolerance before and after the MAS victory for white and Indigenous respondents. Whites increased from about 3.6 to about 4.2 on the tolerance scale, while the shift among Indigenous was about half that size. These results suggest that greater inclusion leads to greater tolerance not only among those at the bottom of the ethnoracial hierarchy but also among those nearer to the top, and they bolster our view that changes in inclusion pre-date and predict shifts in tolerance.

Figure 3.

Additional evidence from Bolivia: the MAS effect.

Discussion and Conclusions

Our findings indicate that the continued reproduction of ethnoracial hierarchies encourages values that are harmful to democracy. Economic divides between ethnoracial groups and political exclusion weaken tolerance. Political systems that fail to cede power to marginalized groups signal that it is unimportant or even threatening to listen to competing perspectives, fomenting intolerance for dissent. Likewise, racialized inequalities reinforce social divisions and legitimize not only the unequal distribution of resources but also of power, a process that undermines citizens’ commitments to tolerating the exercise of political rights for all. On the other hand, where racialized economic hierarchies are less pronounced and the political system incorporates traditionally excluded groups, tolerance is stronger. The analysis of tolerance in Bolivia before and after the rise of MAS provides further evidence that greater inclusion has the potential to deepen tolerance.

Thus, racialized marginalization impedes tolerance for dissent. These findings emphasize how exclusion is harmful not only to its direct victims, but resounds throughout societies. Where marginalization is rooted in deep group-based divides, people are reluctant to extend the basic benefits of democracy, like political rights for all.

The findings also suggest that sometimes those who suffer most under the weight of marginalization are most deeply affected by ethnoracial inequalities. While exclusion undermines tolerance across society, its negative effect is especially pronounced among Indigenous respondents who experience more dramatic decays in tolerance than other ethnoracial groups as economic exclusion deepens. This finding indicates that Indigenous people who experience profound marginalization may see democracy as doing little to transform patterns of exclusion, making them reluctant to embrace democratic values like tolerance for dissent. Our interviews with Indigenous activists in the deeply exclusionary context of Peru support this finding. Activists emphasized that “the state does not treat people like citizens,” and as a result “the idea of citizenship, of equality. . .has never taken root.”¹⁵ Experiences of structural marginalization degrade the meaning of democracy and undermine Indigenous commitments to the ideals of democratic political community.

In contrast, the tolerance commitments of Afro-Latin Americans are more resilient to racialized exclusion. We probed these differences between Indigenous and Afro-descendant respondents by considering the role of racial group consciousness. Here we found that group consciousness is positively associated with tolerance, and that Afro-descendants possess a stronger consciousness rooted in recognizing structural discrimination than Indigenous Latin Americans. While these patterns are merely suggestive, they point to the potential significance group consciousness may play not only in shaping voting decisions and policy attitudes as previous research has found, but also in limiting the deterioration of core democratic values among groups who may otherwise become disillusioned with democracy’s shortcomings.

Together the evidence indicates that systems of exclusion shape tolerance in ways that reflect overall structural conditions as well as individuals’ locations within those structures. Persistent ethnoracial hierarchies within formal democratic systems pose a serious impediment to strengthening tolerance commitments, particularly among the most marginalized. Moreover, reducing marginalization and promoting equality and inclusion do not seem to threaten citizens who belong to dominant groups in ways that undermine their commitment to democratic values. Thus, dismantling ethnoracial hierarchies and promoting political incorporation for all carries the promise of strengthening democracy not only in the abstract, but also in very real ways among the mass public and especially for the most marginalized. Without systemic changes that dismantle these patterns of exclusion, establishing deeply rooted democracy based on widespread support for democratic principles will remain challenging. As a Peruvian Indigenous leader cynically observed, “how can democracy be consolidated under these conditions,” when the state “only complies with the basic requirements [of democratic rights] to keep people under control?”¹⁶

The evidence here also demonstrates the importance of considering the structural contexts in which people are embedded if we are to make sense of their tolerance commitments and emphasizes the need to take ethnoracial hierarchies seriously in our understandings of Latin American political dynamics. And while our empirical analysis has focused on Latin America, the lessons may carry implications for other contexts where democracy and exclusion coexist. Understanding how social and political systems of exclusion shape citizens’ commitments to basic democratic values like tolerance has the potential to offer important insights into the ways democratic values (fail to) take root in the many democracies around the world that remain characterized by deep hierarchies. It is our hope that this article will prompt further efforts to identify the empirical relationships between systemic marginalization and processes of citizenship formation.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-cps-10.1177_0010414021997163 – Supplemental material for Inequality, Exclusion, and Tolerance for Political Dissent in Latin America

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-cps-10.1177_0010414021997163 for Inequality, Exclusion, and Tolerance for Political Dissent in Latin America by Jana Morgan and Nathan J. Kelly in Comparative Political Studies

Supplemental Material

sj-tex-2-cps-10.1177_0010414021997163 – Supplemental material for Inequality, Exclusion, and Tolerance for Political Dissent in Latin America

Supplemental material, sj-tex-2-cps-10.1177_0010414021997163 for Inequality, Exclusion, and Tolerance for Political Dissent in Latin America by Jana Morgan and Nathan J. Kelly in Comparative Political Studies

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Meghan Condon, Christina Ewig, Katharine Donato, Marty Gilens, Patrick Grzanka, Lynne Haney, Evelyne Huber, Liz Markovits, Vincent Mauro, Gladys Mitchell-Walthour, Christopher Ojeda, Maritza Paredes, Victor Ray, Ken Roberts, Louise Seamster, Dara Strolovitch, Linda Tropp, Vesla Weaver, Simon Weschle, and Richard Wilson as well as audiences at Cornell University, Purdue University, University of Miami, the California Political Behavior Conference at the University of California-Riverside, and the University of Tennessee intersectionality working group for their comments on this paper. The Chancellor’s Professional Development program at the University of Tennessee provided leave time, and the Russell Sage Foundation and Wild Love Bakehouse were hospitable and stimulating environments to write. We thank the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and its major supporters (USAID, IDB, and Vanderbilt University) for their contributions in the individual-level data. We are also grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers for an excellent review process that improved the manuscript substantially.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jana Morgan

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Jana Morgan is professor of political science at the University of Tennessee. Her research examines the political consequences of inequality, exclusion, and lack of representation.

Nathan J. Kelly is professor of political science at the University of Tennessee and a recipient of the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. His research examines connections between inequality and politics.

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