Perceptions of Democracy in Latin America during COVID-19
Background
Dissatisfaction with democracy in Latin America has been extensively studied in recent years, but the political implications of the novel coronavirus on this perception remain largely under explored. Luminate set out to measure perceptions of democracy in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luminate’s research was conducted through a randomized online survey that collected a total of 26,000 responses in three waves (May, August, and October 2020) across four countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico). The research set out to measure favorability of democracy, satisfaction with leaders’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis, and trust of information sources, among other areas. Read our analysis of the findings here.
Navigating the dashboard
Aggregate results are available in the Summary tab, and these can be filtered by country and by question at the top of that page. The raw data results, as well as additional crosscuts in graph form, are available to download at the top right corner of the dashboard.
The findings of Luminate’s survey on perceptions of democracy in Latin America suggests that as COVID-19 has progressed, citizens’ satisfaction with their governments’ management of the crisis has declined in all countries, except for Brazil. At the same time, predisposition to protests has risen, while support for democracy continues its steady decline from resoundingly high favorability ratings in years past. While older demographics show a strong sentiment towards democracy, younger people tend to have less favorable views. Additionally, while access to information plays a key role in the context of a public health crisis, trust in information sources remains low in all countries.
Luminate’s survey measuring perceptions of democracy in Latin America during COVID-19 collected 26,000 total responses from four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. While the results from the four countries are similar in some questions - for example on those aged 16-24 having the lowest favorability of democracy – there are questions in which the results differ significantly between countries.
The tables below present the data by country, to allow for comparison among the four countries included in the survey.
Luminate’s survey measuring perceptions of democracy in Latin America during COVID-19 collected 26,000 total responses in three waves: May, August, and October 2020. In some cases the responses across all three waves differed significantly, for example on the shifting perceptions around governments’ response to the crisis.
The tables below present the data by wave, to allow for comparison among the three waves.
The tables below show the response statistics of the survey. The survey can be accessed here.
The survey was conducted by RIWI – a research firm that delivers anonymous opt-in surveys to web users who are surfing online, with access to the entire global internet population. When users land on one of the hundreds of thousands of domains that RIWI temporarily controls at any given moment, these random, anonymous, and non-incented users are filtered through a series of proprietary algorithms and invited to participate in a language-appropriate survey. RIWI geo-targets respondents automatically by country, region, state, and city, and presents a language-appropriate survey. Read about the strengths and limitations of the RIWI approach.
RIWI collected 26,000 total responses in three waves (May, August, and October 2020) across four countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico). All data are provided in raw unweighted format, as well as weighted to the national population. Weights are applied to age and gender as per the most recent national census data available. Weighted data estimates what the nationally representative population perceives.