Persuasive Peers: Social Communication and Voting in Latin America (Princeton Studies in Global and Comparative Sociology)

Description

How voting behavior in Latin America is influenced by social networks and everyday communication among peers In Latin America's new democracies, political parties and mass partisanship are not deeply entrenched, leaving many votes up for grabs during election campaigns. In a typical presidential election season, between one-quarter and one-half of all voters-figures unheard of in older democracies-change their voting intentions across party lines in the months before election day. Advancing a new theory of Latin American voting behavior, Persuasive Peers argues that political discussions within informal social networks among family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances explain this volatility and exert a major influence on final voting choices. Relying on unique survey and interview data from Latin America, the authors show that weakly committed voters defer to their politically knowledgeable peers, creating vast amounts of preference change as political campaigns unfold. Peer influences also matter for unwavering voters, who tend to have social contacts that reinforce their voting intentions. Social influence increases political conformity among voters within neighborhoods, states, and even entire regions, and the authors illustrate how party machines use the social topography of electorates to buy off well-connected voters who can magnify the impact of the payoff. Persuasive Peers demonstrates how everyday communication shapes political outcomes in Latin America's less-institutionalized democracies. Cover Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Part I. Introduction and Descriptive Background 1. Social Communication and Voting Behavior 2 Latin American Political Discussion in Comparative Perspective Part II. Social Influence and the Vote 3. Voter Volatility and Stability in Presidential Campaigns 4. Discussion Networks, Campaign Effects, and Vote Choice 5. Neighborhoods and Cities as Arenas of Social Influence 6. Discussion and the Regionalization of Voter Preferences Part III. Implications of a Horizontally Networked World 7. Clientelism as the Purchase of Social Influence 8. Discussion, Societal Exclusion, and Political Voice 9. Conclusion Appendix A. Statistical Results Appendix B. Measurement of Variables Appendix C. Details of Correct-Voting Analyses Notes References Index