From the Specific to the Diffuse: the Indirect Effect of Crime Victimization on Support for Democracy

• Published in: Brazilian political science review Vol. 17; no. 2
• Main Author: Teles, José
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Portuguese
• Published: Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política 2023
• Subjects: POLITICAL SCIENCE; Legitimacy; support for democracy; crime victimization; satisfaction with democracy
• ISSN: 1981-3821; 1981-3821
• DOI: 10.1590/1981-3821202300020005

Can crime victimization affect support for democracy through its effect on satisfaction with democracy? Drawing upon AmericasBarometer data representative of eighteen Latin American countries, this study answers this question by employing an identification strategy that deals with two strong limitations to causal inference with observational data: covariate imbalance between treatment and control groups and unobserved confounders bias. This strategy combines matching, a novel estimation for mediation analysis, regression-with-residuals, sensitivity analyses, and tests that rule out the possibility of reverse causality. Results show that victimization indirectly affects support for democracy through its effect on satisfaction with democracy. Being a crime victim reduces satisfaction with democracy, which decreases support for democracy. No direct effects were found. These findings contribute to the debate on crime and legitimacy by investigating a new causal pathway for the effect of victimization on support for democracy that partially explains the current lack of consensus in the literature. It also demonstrates the importance of disentangling indirect effects from direct effects when studying the effects of crime-related variables on legitimacy.