Confiança nas instituições democráticas e vitimização por crime: qual a relação?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the confidence on democratic institutions (executive, representative and justice) derived from traumatic experiences (such as victimization by crime), controlling by the roots of democratic culture (preference for democracy). We seek to answer whether in old democracies with institutionalized civic culture individuals acquire affective reserves to the regime making the victimization of crime responsiveness only of the agencies directly involved with the theme, exempting the others. In new democracies, by contrast, the contamination effect would lead to the reduction of confidence levels on democratic institutions in general. To this end, data from 2010 for the United States of America (ancient democracy) and Brazil (recent democracy) are taken from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (Lapop) as empirical counterpoint. The results show that confidence in institutions decline due to victimization of crime in both countries, with the presence of a slightly higher contamination effect in Brazil than in the United States, even when results are controlled by preference for democracy.

KEYWORDS:
confidence; contamination; institutions; victimization; legitimacy