The Role of Social Capital in Citizen Support for Governmental Action to Reduce Economic Inequality

This article suggests that an important source of political conflict in Latin America and the Caribbean is the disagreement among the citizenry on the role of government in reducing economic inequality, particularly between the very rich and the poor. While the poor clamor for vigorous public policies to reduce economic inequality, the rich show significantly lower support. The findings of this article, however, indicate that social capital, in the form of interpersonal trust, does work as a conciliatory force between haves and have-nots. The results shed light on the importance of cultivating social capital in the region to boost support among the wealthy for public policies that favor the poor, and consequently for creating the political conditions for governments to fight economic inequality and, in turn, political disparities. Interpersonal trust, a core component of social capital, is theorized to be correlated with a wide variety of positive social, political, and economic outcomes (Almond and Verba 1963; Coleman 1990; Fukuyama 1995; Inglehart 1999; Putnam 1993). In the political arena, trusting individuals have been found to be more likely to interact and sympathize with others who do not share their political interests, facilitating the generation of respect among the citizenry for the political rights of underprivileged groups, including the poor. Thus, the literature suggests that where interpersonal trust reigns, solidarity rather than conflict is more likely to prevail, fostering cooperation and political stability. Surprisingly, despite the theorized link between interpersonal trust and a myriad of democratic attitudes, one of the least researched 02 Cordova.indd 28 5/2/2011 4:42:10 PM topics in the social capital and public opinion literature is the effect of interpersonal trust on citizens’ support for public policies that favor minorities or underprivileged groups, such as policies aimed at reducing poverty and economic inequality. For interpersonal trust to be a “magic elixir” for alleviating social illnesses (Uslaner 2004), and consequently for increasing the chances to build more equal democracies, interpersonal trust would not only have to increase citizens’ sympathy for the poor but also encourage citizens to demand and support governmental actions in favor of economically disadvantaged populations, even among those more likely to show lower support, namely, the wealthy. Without this, the link between interpersonal trust and solidarity would be more rhetorical, and therefore not likely to have an impact on the lives of unprivileged groups or, as Uslaner (2004) puts it, interpersonal trust would be more of a “mixed blessing.” By exploring the impact of interpersonal trust on citizens’ support for public policies that benefit the poor, the social capital literature is here being put to a demanding test. This research argues that by promoting interpersonal trust, greater pressure can be exerted on governments to address economic inequality, and thus increase the likelihood that economic disparities and consequently political inequalities will also be ameliorated. The importance of public opinion in determining the kind of policies implemented by governments has been demonstrated in previous research. For example, evidence for the United States suggests that citizens’ preferences for public policies are taken into account by the government, but at the same time that not all citizens’ preferences are weighted equally, sometimes working to the advantage of the rich (Gilens 2005). As a result, in the United States, regressive public policies or government concessions in favor of the wealthy, rather than market forces, are said to better explain rising economic inequality in this country in the past few years (Bartels 2008). In Latin America and the Caribbean, a similar process might also be at work. Despite the overwhelming levels of poverty and economic inequality, and therefore the predictably high support for public policies that benefit the poor, the little progress made in most of the region in reducing poverty and economic inequality suggests that individuals at the top of the economic ladder might be influencing government policies the most (De Ferranti 2004). To a considerable extent the lack of a significant progressive fiscal reform or income redistribution in Latin America and the Caribbean might be explained by the lower support or even opposition of well-off individuals or a powerful economic minority. On the other hand, empirical studies have also demonstrated that social capital, including interpersonal trust, can be encouraged and consequently grow over time, in particular, when neighborhoods have educated and young leaders in charge of organizing communal activities (Krishna 2007). Thus, I hypothesize that by promoting mutual help and social cohesion in Latin America and the Caribbean, sympathy and solidarity toward dissimilar others can be nurtured to achieve wide citizen support for public policies that help the poor, thereby increasing the chances that governments will take serious action to improve poverty and the distribution of income. 02 Cordova.indd 29 5/2/2011 4:42:10 PM 30 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY In other parts of the world, this process appears to have taken place and helps to explain why economic inequality is relatively low. For instance, in Scandinavian countries, the coexistence of high interpersonal trust and citizen support for welfare policies is suggested to have contributed to the maintenance of welfare state regimes and consequently much lower economic inequality (Rothstein 1998; Rothstein and Stolle 2003). Surprisingly, in Latin America and the Caribbean, citizens’ opinions on public policy preferences and their determinants are for the most part understudied. This article seeks to empirically explore the extent of support for public policies to reduce poverty and inequality among poor and well-off individuals in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the role of interpersonal trust in encouraging higher levels of support for such policies. Specifically, the objectives of this article are threefold. First, it seeks to answer the question of the importance of conflicts regarding the role of the state in reducing economic inequality between the rich and the poor. The literature suggests that where economic inequality is high, conflicts over income or wealth redistribution are deeper (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006; Boix 2003). As a result, given Latin America and the Caribbean’s high economic inequality, the expectation is to find statistically significant differences between haves and have-nots regarding their opinions on the role of the state in resolving inequality. Second, this article examines the effect of interpersonal trust, vis-à-vis other competing factors, on citizen support for reducing inequality. Finally, this research explores the possibility that the relationship between personal economic status and citizen support may be mediated by the level of interpersonal trust such that welloff individuals with high levels of interpersonal trust are more likely to support an active role of the government in fighting inequality. This article looks at the individual level determinants of two distinct dependent variables: 1. Citizen support for public policies to reduce economic inequality 2. Citizen support for income redistribution through higher taxes on the rich While the first dependent variable taps into support for public policies to shrink the gap between the rich and poor in general, the second variable measures support for a specific mode to fight poverty and inequality, namely, redistribution of income from the rich to the poor through taxation. Lower support for the latter is expected among the wealthy, since this survey item proposes a mechanism for improving the well-being of the poor that is likely to have a direct negative impact on the incomes of affluent individuals. Therefore, the second dependent variable poses a greater challenge to interpersonal trust, since it is expected that interpersonal trust will also substantially increase support among the wealthy for public policies that can clearly work against their economic interests. The survey data come from the 2008 AmericasBarometer surveys by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) for twenty Latin American and Caribbean countries. The 2008 project uses a stratified probability sample design 02 Cordova.indd 30 5/2/2011 4:42:10 PM