Prospects for the consolidation of Latin American democracies rethinking the role of corruption and institutional trust

This article analyses the role of corruption and institutional trust in the process of the consolidation of Latin American democracies. Corruption not only violates the basic democratic principles of equality, transparency, and fairness, but it is also believed to foster the likelihood of a democratic breakdown by undermining the legitimacy of the democratic system in general, and the trust in its core institutions in particular. When compared with consolidated democracies, both level of corruption and institutional distrust are significantly higher in almost all Latin American countries. However, there is no evidence that the Latin American citizens' trust in the policy-implementing institutions (police, judiciary, public administration) is more negatively influenced by corruption than it is the case for citizens in consolidated democracies. These findings cast some doubts on the assumption that attitudes should form part of the concept of CoD. Instead, they might better be conceptualized as independent phenomena potentially influencing the persistence of democracy.