Honduras and extreme dissatisfaction
I've written before about Vanderbilt's Latin American Public Opinion Project. Mitchell Seligson and John Booth have just published an article putting Honduras in empirical perspective. Once again, I apologize because they send an email with the PDF article before putting it on their site, but it will appear soon.*
The bottom line is their observation that in 2008 Honduran respondents had the highest ratio of "triply dissatisfied" versus "triply satisfied," on responses to three key aspects of political legitimacy: support for democracy, support for national institutions, and evaluation of the government's economic performance.
They posit that this measure provides some warning signs. "Like the weather forecaster, we still cannot say with certainty whether there will be a tornado or precisely when the tornado will hit a particular barn, but we can say something about when the conditions are ripe for a tornado to drop out of the sky" (pp. 5-6).
They provide a partial list, with the ratio of triply dissatisfied to triply satisfied.
Honduras - 6.17
Guatemala - 3.23
Panama - 1.67
El Salvador - 1.39
Nicaragua - 1.12
Mexico - 0.59
Colombia - 0.22
Costa Rica - 0.18
Further, here is a complete list of mean scores. 0 indicates triply satisfied, 1 indicates mixed, and 2 is triply dissatisfied. Once again, Honduras is at the top.
Honduras - 1.25
Haiti - 1.23
Guatemala - 1.13
Peru - 1.09
Ecuador - 1.08
Panama - 1.05
Jamaica - 1.04
El Salvador - 1.02
Paraguay - 1.02
Nicaragua - 1.01
Bolivia - 1.00
Mexico - 0.93
Chile - 0.92
Brazil - 0.90
Argentina - 0.89
Venezuela - 0.89
Dominican Republic - 0.81
Costa Rica - 0.79
Colombia - 0.79
Uruguay - 0.69
* Mitchell A. Seligson and John A. Booth, "Predicting Coups? Democratic Vulnerabilities, the AmericasBarometer, and the 2009 Honduran Crisis." AmericasBarometer Insights: 2009 Special Report on Honduras.
4 comments:
Okay, with those kinds of popular satisfaction numbers, I grant that a 14% headed-for-a-coup figure in Colombia is... high.
Interesting, but I'm not sure how useful.
According to this Jamaica, which has such strong institutions and respect for the rule of law that it spends almost half its budget on debt service and there's no political movement to change that, is worse than Bolivia?
Nicaragua better than Panama?
Neoliberalism and super exploitation in the context of human quality of life is an abject failure.
When I was in Honduras the social structure was in collapse mode: child prostitution was blatant and rampant, little in the way of opprotunity, drugs and alienation--a population that had been beaten down by the comprador oligarchy, and controlled through incessant propaganda via the oligarch controlled media and "entertainment" complex.
The indigenous groups were the healthiest, and rural communities were holding their own.
God willing the people will rise up and drive the oligarchy and the empire out of their country.
The Colombian Paradox and Explanations :
In many polls trough many years the Colombians say that they are happy, glad, content, resigned to their lot. That the Government, the Military, the Press, etc ... are not so bad ....,etc ... They score high in comparison to almost all Latin America.
How can that be ??? ... If Colombia has been in the Middle of Mafia, Narcos, Narcotics, Drug Wars, Bombs, Terrorism, Guerrillas, Land Mines, Kidnappings, Murders from the Left and the Right ...
This is the country with the Worst Image, the worst Advertising and Press. There are many gratuitous enemies in blogs, etc ... And not counting the "Envious" : Chavez, Correa, Ortega.
The Explanation is that what counts is not the level of Economic Richness, Economic Achievements, Peace, Law and Order, etc ...
What counts is the perception of Change ....
And Colombians acknowledge that they are better now. Many mafia bosses are dead, others in American Jails, same for Narcos, Paracos and Guerrillas.
The Government has defeated the Guerrillas ( the Worst Problem ) in 90% ...
Now the Government wants to defeat crime ...
So people realize that they are improving ....
And the Economy has been slowly increasing, slowly improving ...
Chavez, Correa and Ortega are despised and hated inside Colombia and produce unification and sane non-aggressive defense patriotism.
Milenials.com
Vicente Duque
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