This study assesses the extent to which national-level indices of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) fail to capture subnational variation in FoRB-related violence in Latin America. Drawing on the Violent Incidents Database, which documents state and non-state FoRB-related violence from 2017 to 2024, we compare these empirical events with national-level indices such as Pew's Government Restrictions Index, the Social Hostilities Index, and V-Dem's religious freedom measure. These national-level indicators tend to report Latin American countries as relatively free in terms of religious rights, but do not capture substantial temporal and subnational divergence in FoRB violations, particularly in federal states, remote territories, and indigenous autonomy zones. We suggest that democratic erosion and FoRB repression in Latin America frequently occur unevenly and remain undetected by national scores, calling for more granular approaches to democratic assessment.

Electoral divisions along class, religious, and ethnic lines differ in strength across countries and within them over time. I argue that the lack of meaningful ideological choices in many countries explains some of the variation in demographic-based electoral divisions in Latin America. Demographic divides are insignificant in countries where the parties are not ideologically polarised, but are stronger in countries where parties ideologically differentiate from each other. Forms of polarisation that are not directly connected to ideology have a less consistent effect on demographic-based voting, although ethnic-based voting tends to be stronger in polarised societies. Even in a region where programmatic politics is not universal, the electoral divisions that emerge are contingent upon the kinds of options voters are provided. The recent growth in ideological differentiation in many countries may thus strengthen voters’ connections to parties and remind observers that ideological polarisation has some beneficial features for democracy.

Information pollution poses a significant threat to democracy worldwide, and Mexico provides a critical case study of this growing problem. This study presents and applies a holistic analytical framework to detect the enabling and driving factors of information pollution, investigating its impact on democratic quality during the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024). Drawing on 20 expert interviews, findings reveal that structural socio-economic inequalities, weak institutional transparency, and media concentration indirectly enabled information pollution, while divisive populist rhetoric and a post-factual political style directly drove its rise. These dynamics contributed to affective polarisation, eroded trust in democratic institutions, and reduced press freedom. The study concludes that combating information pollution requires legal reforms, media literacy initiatives, and enhanced transparency. By focusing on a non-English speaking, deficient democracy, the study broadens the empirical base of understanding disinformation’s role in the global wave of autocratisation.

In 2021, El Salvador declared bitcoin legal tender. According to President Nayib Bukele, the measure was intended to expand access to financial services in a country with a high proportion of unbanked people and to cheapen and ease remittance flows for migrants and their families. In this article, we inquire about the use of bitcoin as a tool for financial inclusion and contend that this policy needs to be seen in the broader context of democratic backsliding. We show that bitcoin has not translated into financial inclusion, but instead, the bitcoin law serves as a public relations tool to capture new support from like-minded constituencies, build closer relations with them, and empower international “crypto-bros.” On the other hand, this is a tool to benefit a close circle close to the president with the use of public funds, as part of a broader historical shift of elites in El Salvador.

Group-based quotas and affirmative action policies are common in many parts of the world. A large literature has focused on public debates over the perceived fairness of these policies. Yet in highly diverse countries, debates often centre on which groups should benefit and how to establish who counts as a member of those groups. We know comparatively little about these kinds of debates. In this article, we present new experimental evidence on public preferences over targeted race quotas in Brazil, a country where racial identity is famously ambiguous and where substantial controversy over the use of race quotas in university admissions remains. Placing respondents from an online convenience sample in the role of deciding whom to admit as part of a university race quota, the results indicate (1) that while economic class dominates other considerations in quota targeting, racial factors still matter; (2) the public places a large premium on indicators of merit; and (3) that these preferences are largely homogeneous across racial groups and resistant to priming.

Since 1993, over a hundred bills have been submitted to National Congresses in Latin America, proposing a shift from restrictive to permissive marriage equality or same sex partnerships regulations. Only five of 19 countries have approved legal changes, and five have done so in courts. Extant research has focused on the explanatory factors of the positive policy changes, but few studies have examined cases of hampered policies. This article aims to identify under what conditions marriage equality, as a moral policy, has stalled in Latin America. It contributes to our understanding of policy non-decisions by offering a cross-national analysis and overcoming the limitations of “mirror” strategies that explain negative cases solely by the absence of factors associated with positive change. It highlights the importance of studying conditions conjunctionally. High levels of religiosity can significantly influence political decisions and may obfuscate religious cleavages, as left-wing parties also engage in moral discourse.

This study examines Brazil's foreign policy towards China, focusing on the extreme-right presidency of Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022). Based on original and systematic quantitative data, we investigate the drivers behind policy variation and their implications for Brazil–China relations. Using measures of voting and speech convergence at the United Nations, legal agreements with China, and trade and investment, our data covers the period from 1995 to 2022. We then explore the concept of asymmetry and consider the asymmetric relationship between Brazil and China using CINC scores. Our empirical analysis indicates that Brazil's foreign policy stance towards China did change under Bolsonaro. However, this shift did not disrupt the broader relationship due to the pre-existing partnership and widening asymmetry between the two countries. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of Brazil–China relations and of Beijing's relations with other middle powers.

An ugly manifestation of polarization is partisan dehumanization, a form of moral disengagement from and support for aggressive or even violent treatment of one's opponents. Brazil offers a useful case to explore the relative importance of in-group sympathy or out-group antipathy as sources of dehumanization, since its voters are polarized between supporters and opponents of a single party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party, PT). Using survey-experimental data from a convenience sample, we show that partisan dehumanization can stem from either in- or out-group bias. Both PT partisans, known as petistas , and PT opponents, known as antipetistas , dehumanize their opponents. For petistas , in-group favoritism drives dehumanization of their opponents. However, since the only thing that unites all antipetistas is their dislike for the PT, out-group animosity is the critical factor driving their dehumanization of petistas . We also find that dehumanization is associated with the intensity of positive or negative partisanship and perceptions of social and moral distance between opponents. However, perceptions of out-group threat and Social Dominance Orientation do not enhance dehumanization. Our findings contribute to understanding the roots of partisan dehumanization and polarization in Latin America and beyond.

Latin American democracies have been characterised as the product of personalistic leaders relying on their unique qualities to achieve and maintain political power. However, this characterisation has lacked conceptual and empirical development since the term “personalism” has been used to account simultaneously for a particular type of electoral appeal seeking to mobilise and persuade voters and for the concentration of power in a single political leader. This article advances in conceptualising electoral personalism as a strategy followed by political elites appealing to voters based on the personal characteristics of leaders and candidates, distinguishing it from personalisation as the concentration of power in a single leader. Based on statistical analysis, we propose two novel indicators of electoral personalism and assess its prevalence among Latin American countries. The article also advances in exploring its political, economic, and social determinants at the aggregate and individual levels.

In 2019, student protests over an increase in subway fare in Chile escalated into violence and a leaderless nationwide social upheaval. This research note takes a descriptive approach that goes beyond the protester/non-protesters dichotomy, because we believe we need a richer understanding of the “what, who, and how” of citizens around this outbreak. Based on a survey fielded amidst the upheaval, we distinguish protesters by intensity, and non-protesters by their position towards the upheaval. As expected, protesters tend to be young and educated. Strong protesters are more left-wing, interested in politics, and more participative, including electorally. They endorse democracy but are critical of its functioning, and more likely to justify illegal/violent actions as a means for social change. Inequality appears as a cross-cutting concern, even among opponents, but strong protesters are more distrustful of its sources and of the rich themselves. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings.