Saturday, October 31, 2009

Trust in the Latin American military

The Latin American Public Opinion Project does all sorts of fascinating work. The latest is about trust in the armed forces.

Daniel Montalvo, "Do You Trust Your Armed Forces?" AmericasBarometer Insights n. 27 (2009).

One key finding is that the level of trust has no relation to past repression. In Chile, for example, 65.2 percent trust the military, and 56.5 percent in El Salvador. Instead, it is correlated to economic growth.

I would like to this sort of analysis examined in more depth. Nicaragua and El Salvador rank high, but I would argue it is controversial to attribute that to economic growth. Mauricio Funes was elected in large part because of dissatisfaction with the economy. There is a cluster of countries around 2 percent growth (for 1990-2005), which is not very high. That cluster includes Argentina, which is at the opposite side of the trust spectrum from every other country.

Still, it is interesting that a majority of Latin Americans in every country but two--Paraguay and Argentina--trust their armed forces. It would also be interesting, however, to ask what they trust them to do or not to do. Do they trust them to protect the country from security threats? Do they trust them not to intervene in domestic politics?

But overall, this would be a great start to a more in-depth academic article.

1 comments:

Defensores de Democracia 11:33 AM  

Mr Weeks :

Thanks for Useful Article and for the Links.

Using those Links, I finally got these numbers for Percentages of Trust in the Military.

Colombia 65.6%

Nicaragua 61.5%
Ecuador 56.9%
Bolivia 54.9%
Venezuela 54.5%

So the Chavistas and their Minions have failed in producing Trust in the Military, after so much Demagoguery, Populism, and Idiotic Jingoism, Nationalism, and Chauvinism ( That is what Latin Americans call PATRIOTERISMO or Idiotic Patriotism ), the use of a foreign strawmen or bogeymen to induce National Pride and Agression Instincts against other nations.

It helps to have a punching bag.

Unleashing an Arms Race and Idiotic Military Parades don't persuade the People.

The "Bolivarian" Revolution is a Failure and a Great Deception based on Squandering Billions of PetroDollars. A more fortunate nation would have built a Great Consumer Industrial Complex and Great Agricultural Development.

But Venezuela has squandered hundreds of Bilions of Dollars in Useless Projects and luxury expenses of "Red Shirts", and the sycophants of Chavez. ( Ten or more Marshall Plans ). Throwing money upon ignorants without experience in business or projects. What do they do with the Government Money ??? .... Buy expensive Cars, Vans, SUVs, and live in luxury.

The apotheosis of Lavishness and Sumptuosity, while the Criminal Indexes are the worst in Latin America, and poverty is very evident in Venezuela.

A stupid control of prices bring scarcity of the most basic foodstuffs.

The Narcos and Mafias are advancing and every day many corpses are thrown on the countryside.

Studying Foreign Policies around the World and mapping the Future :

Prophesizing.com

Vicente Duque

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