Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America

In this article, the authors argue that where institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation become more appealing. The authors explore this relationship empirically by combining country-level measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest participation in seventeen Latin American countries. The authors find evidence that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest.