In the midst of an unprecedented era of democratic governments and economic prosperity, why are a record number of Latin American citizens choosing to participate in protests? This book argues that increasingly engaged citizenries, forged by economic progress and technological advances throughout the region, combined with dysfunctional political institutions have fueled more contentious modes of participation in Latin America, as citizens’ demands for government responsiveness have overwhelmed many regimes’ institutional capacity to provide it. Where weak institutions and active citizenries co ... More

In the midst of an unprecedented era of democratic governments and economic prosperity, why are a record number of Latin American citizens choosing to participate in protests? This book argues that increasingly engaged citizenries, forged by economic progress and technological advances throughout the region, combined with dysfunctional political institutions have fueled more contentious modes of participation in Latin America, as citizens’ demands for government responsiveness have overwhelmed many regimes’ institutional capacity to provide it. Where weak institutions and active citizenries collide, countries can morph into “protest states,” where contentious participation becomes so common as to render it a conventional characteristic of everyday political life. Drawing on cross-national surveys from Latin America and a case study of Argentina, which includes a rich dataset of protest events and dozens of interviews with political elites and citizen activists, Moseley tests this explanation against other leading theories in the contentious politics literature. Rather than emphasizing how worsening economic conditions and mounting grievances fuel protest, this book builds the case that it is actually the improvement of economic conditions amid low-quality political institutions that lies at the root of surging contention in the region. In presenting and systematically defending this novel approach, Protest State offers a comprehensive multilevel, mixed-methods study of one of the most intriguing puzzles in Latin American politics today.