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The Nearness of Youths: Spatial and Temporal Effects of Student Protests on Public
Opinion in Chile
Rodolfo Disi Pavlic
Temuco Catholic University
rdisi@uct.cl
Social movement research indicates that mobilization can effect change on public opinion, yet few
works have systematically tested the effect of protests on individual attitudes. This article uses
survey and protest event data to assess the spatial and temporal effect of mobilizations on public
opinion in Chile. More specifically, it combines the 2008, 2010, and 2012 LAPOP surveys and a
dataset of college student protest events, mapping respondents and protests at the municipal level
using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Using regression analysis, it finds that proximity to
college student protests has a significant effect on various political attitudes. The effect, however,
tends to be larger on latent attitudes rather than on preformed ones. The results highlight the
importance of social movements in shaping individual political attitudes, and the role that
mobilizations play in the policymaking process.
Prepared for delivery at the 2019 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Boston,
USA, May 24 - May 27, 2019. The author acknowledges support from Temuco Catholic University
(PROFONDECYT Grant 2017PF-RD-02) to carry out the research for this paper. Please do not
cite without the author’s permission.
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Since the mid-2000s, a series of social mobilizations have shaped Chileans politics and society.
Students, workers, and environmental and local activists (among other actors) have staged various
demonstrations across the country. Although social movements rarely have a direct impact on
political reforms, (Tarrow, 2011b), the actions carried out by Chilean activists have had
repercussions. As Donoso & von Bülow (2017, p. 4) explain, “these social movements have
repoliticized many aspects of Chile’s development path, and forced a debate on pending political
reforms.” The rise in unconventional political participation has also resulted in a veritable
explosion in the amount of scholarship studying different aspects of protests. However, and
reflecting the general state of the literature on social movements, few of these works have focused
on the effects of mobilizations. How do protests influence political processes, and particularly
political attitudes?
This article explains differences in political attitudes using a relatively understudied factor: the
geographic and temporal location of protest events. The argument advanced herein is that
proximity to protests has a significant effect on individual’s political attitudes. The size of the
effect depends on the type of attitude: the effect tends to be larger on the more sensitive latent
opinions, and smaller on the more stable preformed attitudes. To test this claim, this article
combines data from the 2008, 2010 and 2012 LAPOP Chile surveys and a dataset of student protest
events in Latin America (Disi Pavlic, 2017) using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The
combined data creates a measure of the number of student protest events close to each respondent,
geographically as well as temporally. Using regression analysis, it finds that proximity to these
college student protests has a statistically significant effect on several political attitudes, including
identifying education as the country’s main issue, approval of peaceful demonstrations, political
interest, trust in the Executive, and national pride.
Studying the proximity effects of mobilizations on political attitudes is relevant for at least two
reasons. First, several studies evidence a growing decline in political interest, trust, satisfaction
with democracy and other attitudes associated with the health of Chilean democracy (Disi Pavlic
& Mardones, forthcoming; Toro Maureira, Acevedo, & Jaramillo-Bruhn, 2016). It is important,
therefore to assess whether the effects of mobilization in recent years has been significant or not,
and positive or negative. Second, mobilizations tend to shape the policymaking process through
the effect that they have on public opinion (Agnone, 2007; Amenta, Caren, Chiarello, & Su, 2010,
p. 299). In Chile, for example, student mobilizations have influenced electoral campaigns and
platforms, which has resulted in new public policies and laws regarding higher education funding
(Palacios-Valladares & Ondetti, 2018). Analyzing the way protests shape public policy is
increasingly interesting for both activists and policymakers, as they resort to mobilizations to
advance or incorporate social demands.
Analyzing protests in Chile
For illustrative reasons, I disaggregate the study of social mobilization in Chile into three groups.
The first cluster analyzes the causes of mobilizations (the “why” of protests); a second group
studies the features and traits of different protests (the “what”); finally, another cluster seeks to
explain the effects of protests on other social phenomena (the “what for”). As detailed below, the
literature has so far focused more on explaining the “what” and “why,” and much less on the “what
for” of mobilizations.
Regarding the “why” of protests, the literature is large, and it offers a series of explanations.
Some studies have focused on malaise and grievances as a driving force (Joignant, Morales, &
Fuentes, 2017; Mayol & Azócar, 2011; Somma, 2017). In the case of student protests, several
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works link them to grievances associated with debt and costs (Bellei & Cabalin, 2013; Bellei,
Cabalin, & Orellana, 2014; Cummings, 2015, 2015; Disi Pavlic, 2018; Donoso, 2013; Somma,
2012). Other explanations, based on political process theory (Tarrow, 2011a), point to the
relationship between social and political actors (Carruthers & Rodriguez, 2009; Disi Pavlic, 2018;
Somma & Bargsted, 2015; Somma & Medel, 2017; von Bülow & Bidegain Ponte, 2015).
According to these works, the distancing between civil society and institutional politics has
resulted in more mobilizations. A third influential strand emphasizes the role that social media has
played to explain participation (Scherman, Arriagada, & Valenzuela, 2015; Valenzuela, 2013; von
Bülow, 2018). These studies argue that social media have become an additional and
complementary arena through which activists can organize and protest (Cabalin, 2014;
Valderrama, 2013; Valenzuela, Arriagada, & Scherman, 2012).
The accumulated knowledge on the characteristics (the “what”) of protests is relatively smaller
but still important. An important example is the works that analyze the tactics used in
mobilizations, both off- and online (Medel & Somma, 2016; von Bülow, Vilaça, & Abelin, 2018).
The evidence suggests, for example, that the type of tactic (conventional, cultural, disruptive or
violent) depends on the targets, the presence of formal organizations, and the number of
participants in the demonstrations. Other characteristics explored by the literature include state
repression (Medel, 2016), the number of participants (Disi Pavlic, 2016; Somma & Medel, 2019),
internal organization (Palacios-Valladares, 2016a), and the relationship with political parties
(Palacios‐Valladares, 2016b; Somma, 2018).
Although intuition suggests that mobilization has had tangible effects, scholarship on the “what
for” of mobilization is much scarcer. This relative lack of works reflects the general state of the
discipline, where knowledge about the effects on mobilizations in terms of policy change is limited
(Giugni, 1999). Some authors, for example, have analyzed the indirect effect that the student
movement has had on the policymaking process (Castiglioni, 2014; Donoso, 2016; Silva, 2015,
pp. 32–33). Our knowledge of the effect on public opinon is even scarcer, although Donoso (2016,
pp. 185–186) suggests that the 2011 coincided with a change in public opinion in favor of signaling
education as the country’s most pressing problem.
Understanding Political Attitudes in Chile
There is a sizable literature on the causes and effects explaining differences in Chileans’ political
attitudes and opinions. Growth in this scholarship can be partly explained through the availability
of data due the appearance of various public opinion surveys, and the low levels of political
satisfaction, trust and other political attitudes, which have caught the attention of both scholars and
policymaking experts (Toro et al., 2016). Indeed, the country has experienced higher levels of
political disaffection, understood as “hostility to, and estrangement from, the political system”
(Montero, Gunther, & Torcal, 1997, p. 136), which includes political disinterest, distrust, and
inefficacy. Several works at the Chilean and Latin American level, study the component of
political engagement, such as institutional trust (Morales, 2008; Segovia, Haye, González, Manzi,
& Carvacho, 2008), regime approval (Booth & Seligson, 2009; Rhodes-Purdy, 2017), or
disaffection itself (Joignant, 2012; Lechner, 2003a, 2003b; Mardones, 2014; Parker, 2003; Toro,
2008). Some authors argue that disaffection is a major determinant of political participation: Disi
& Mardones (2019), for example, show that it negatively affects both electoral and protest
behavior. To the best of my knowledge, however, no works have systematically assessed the effect
of protests on Chilean public opinion.
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By contrast, the scholarship of more mutable attitudes like opinions about mobilizations or the
country’s most important problem is much less developed. As mentioned above, some works argue
that student mobilizations have shaped policymaking through their effect on public opinion
(Castiglioni, 2014; Donoso, 2016; Kubal & Fisher, 2016, p. 232; Silva, 2015, pp. 32–33).
According to Altman & Toro Maureira (2016, p. 166, author's translation), “the organization of
large protests for education reform, healthcare coverage and quality, environmental protection and
the development of remote areas managed to place in the public agenda and opinion the need to
change social, political and economic paradigms.” Consequently, several public opinion surveys
changed their instruments in moments of high mobilization by adding questions related to the
movements and their demands. Nevertheless, although there seems to be a consensus about the
effect of mobilization on politics, how do protests effect change on public opinion remains an open
question. Does proximity to protests shape public opinion? Does the effect vary by political
attitude? These are the questions that this paper seeks to tackle.
Proximity to protests and its effect on latent and preformed attitudes
From a methodological standpoint, there is a high degree of homogeneity in the study of social
movements in Chile, which tend to favor qualitative approaches.
1
This type of studies excels when
it comes to describing the context and the necessary causal mechanisms for causal explanations
(Falleti & Lynch, 2009) but they do not possess the same capacity as quantitative approaches to
simultaneously test different hypotheses, and to control for the effect of several explanatory
variables (Seawright & Gerring, 2008). On the other hand, there are few studies using a mixed-
methods approach to understand mobilization (Disi Pavlic, 2018; Somma & Medel, 2019). The
majority of quantitative studies use survey data (Castillo, Palacios, Joignant, & Tham, 2015;
Roberts, 2016; Scherman et al., 2015; Valenzuela et al., 2012), so they analyze social mobilization
indirectly through individual protest participation. One notable exception is Medel & Somma
(2016), who use protest event analysis (PEA) to create a dataset of protests in Chile. In spatial
terms, however, this study is limited to comparing the effect on protest tactics of staging protests
in Santiago or elsewhere in the country.
Spatial analysis (see Darmofal, 2015) can be a useful and timely addition to the study of social
mobilization in Chile. Spatial analysis as method fits nicely with the research tradition in social
sciences and social movements in particular focusing on diffusion processes in social phenomena.
For example, the spatio-temporal dimension played major role in the diffusion of protests during
the Paris Commune (Gould, 1991) and in the Swedish labor movement (Hedström, 1994).
There is also a burgeoning literature incorporating spatial elements to the study of protests. For
example, spatial analysis has been used to measure the effect of proximity to West German
television antennae on the 1989 East German protest wave (Crabtree, Darmofal, & Kern, 2015).
More important for this study, some works have also explored the effects of protest proximity on
public opinion. Wallace, Zepeda-Millán, & Jones-Correa (2014) find that large demonstrations
during the 2006 immigrant rights marches in the United States increased Latinos’ political
alienation, while increased numbers of nearby small events had a positive effect in their political
efficacy. These marches also had an effect on Latino’s immigration policy preferences, but this
impact depended on temporal and spatial exposure, as well as respondents’ personal
characteristics (Branton, Martinez-Ebers, Carey, & Matsubayashi, 2015). Meanwhile, Andrews,
Beyerlein, & Tucker Farnum (2016), show that proximity to Civil Rights protests in the Deep
1
For an excellent example, see Donoso & von Bülow (2017b).
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South had a positive effect on certain white Southerner’s attitudes towards mobilizations in 1961.
This social movement also appears to have had a lasting impact on political culture: whites in
counties that experienced historical Civil Rights protests are today more likely to identify with the
Democratic Party (Mazumder, 2018). Similarly, I theorize that college student mobilizations
might have had similar effects in political attitudes in Chile.
Hypothesis 1. Proximity to student protests has significant effects in political attitudes
Not all political attitudes are equally sensitive to events such as protests, however. An
important distinction is whether opinions are preformed or “latent” (Key, 1964). Preformed
attitudes are shaped and crystallize during childhood and adolescence through political
socialization in the family, at school, and among peers. These attitudes, which include political
interest, trust, ideology, party identification and racial attitudes (Alwin & Krosnick, 1991; Hooghe
& Wilkenfeld, 2008; Prior, 2010; Sears & Funk, 1999), tend to remain stable in the long run, and
make up the political culture of a certain place at a certain time (Almond & Verba, 2015). This
preformed attitudes “are said to be acquired before the adult is fully mature, to be relatively stable
through the life course, to be consistent with related attitudes, and to influence the formation of
attitudes toward new attitude objects such as new issues and political candidates” (Sears & Funk,
1999, pp. 1–2). Prior, 2010 (p. 763), for example, finds that “people return to their stable long-
term political interest levels quickly after perturbations caused by political or personal events,”
and that interest in politics “behaves like a central element of political identity, not like a
frequently updated attitude.” Although some preformed attitudes in Chile like party identification
and political trust have eroded since the return to democracy (Castiglioni & Rovira Kaltwasser,
2016; Morales, 2008), the change has been gradual and can be partly explained by inter-
generational differences, rather than intra-generational changes.
Other attitudes are much more sensitive to the political context and events later in life. These
latent opinions (Key, 1964), which include policy positions and evaluations of political figures,
tend to change over time, and tend to be informed by people’s preformed opinions, which are used
a mental shortcuts (Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). Attitudes towards the “Muslim ban” in the United
States, for example, changed rapidly and significantly after a protest wave denouncing the policy
(Collingwood, Lajevardi, & Oskooii, 2018). In the case of attitudes towards certain politicians or
institutions, perceived political or economic performance also determine to a great extent these
latent opinions (Finkel, Muller, & Seligson, 1989). Thus, proximity to protests may have more
potential to shape latent rather than preformed attitudes.
Hypothesis 2. Proximity to student protests has a larger substantive effect on latent attitudes
than on manifest ones
Data and variables
To analyze the effect of mobilization on political attitudes in Chile, this work combines protest
event analysis (Koopmans & Rucht, 2002) and survey data. More specifically, that analysis relies
on data about protests with college student participants from the Latin American Student Protest
Dataset (LASPD, Disi Pavlic, 2017), and the 2008, 2010, and 2012 waves of the Latin American
Public Opinion Project (LAPOP, 2015). The LASPD, which recorded more than 4,700 protest
events in Latin America (of which 461 occurred in Chile) between 2000 and 2012, uses the OSAL
(2012) social conflict reports, which provide information about the location of each events.
Meanwhile, the LAPOP dataset is used because, unlike other surveys (such as Latinobarómetro,
CEP, Nacional Bicentenario, and Nacional UDP) it is the only one that contains the following
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information: the dates and location (at the comuna
2
level) of fieldwork, and questions about both
latent and stable opinions across several survey waves. Three different waves are used to introduce
more temporal variation in the analysis, which a single survey could not capture. Residents of a
neighborhood near a major campus may, on average, be more sensitive to student demands;
however, including information from distinct time periods with different levels of mobilization
may tell apart the effect of living near students from the effect of exposure to protests.
Independent variable: calculating the number of nearby student protests
To quantity the effect of protests, each of the 461 events recorded in Chile was mapped using the
ArcGIS geographic information systems at the commune level.
3
While most events occurred in
one location (and thus in a single commune), some events occurred in up to 33 of these districts.
The same procedure was done with the LAPOP data, which resulted in the geocoding of more
than 5,000 survey respondents. Finally, the two geodatabases were combined to calculate the
number of protests in the respondent’s commune or in adjoining communes up to two weeks
before the date of fieldwork. Table 1 summarizes the values of this covariate, which is the main
variable of interest in this study. The majority of respondents (85.4%) were not close to a protest
but the rest were close to up to six different events. There is missing data for some respondents
(4,3%), whose date of fieldwork was not recorded in the 2010 and 2012 waves.
Table 1. Number of nearby college student protest in Chile
Number of nearby protests
N
%
0
4,326
85.44
1
283
5.59
2
139
2.75
3
57
1.13
4
27
0.53
5
8
0.16
6
4
0.08
Missing date
219
4.33
Total
5,063
100
Figure 1 illustrates the geographic distribution of the respondents and their number of nearby
protests. As would be expected from a predominantly urban social actor, the respondents with the
largest numbers of nearby student protests reside in the largest cities (Santiago, Valparaíso,
Concepción), and in other regional capitals (Arica, Antofagasta, Temuco, Puerto Montt), where
most of the higher education institutions are located. Respondents who live in small towns and
rural areas, by contrast, are less likely to be directly exposed to student protests.
2
Comunas (communes) are the smallest administrative subdivisions in the country. The country
currently has 345 communes (in addition to Chile’s territorial claim in Antarctica). Most
communes contain one town and several smaller settlements, while the larger cities are subdivided
into several communes. The metropolitan area of Santiago, which is the country’s largest city,
extends into 37 communes. Communes are used in this study because no survey releases its
respondents’ primary sampling unit (residential blocks) for privacy reasons.
3
The events were not mapped more precisely (using, for instance, points or polygons) because the
survey data, as mentioned above, was only available at the commune level.
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Figure 1. Geographic distribution of nearby college student protest in Chile
Dependent variables: latent and preformed political attitudes
The number of nearby protests is regressed on six latent and six preformed political attitudes. The
first one is considering the education as the country’s most important problem. This variable is
derived from a survey item with more than forty alternatives.
4
As shown in Table 2, a only a small
share of respondents (4,1%) stated that education was Chile’s most serious issue. More frequently
mentioned issues include crime, the 2010 Chile Earthquake (included in that year’s wave),
unemployment, the economy, transportation, and inequality. Since Chilean students’ are related
to education policy (Disi Pavlic, 2018; Somma, 2012), I expect proximity to their protests to
increase the probability that respondents identify education as the top public priority.
Table 2. Distribution of education variable
Most important problem
N
%
Education
174
4.1
4
In 2012, half of the respondents were randomly excluded from answering this question, based
on their questionnaires’ number. Since their values in this item are missing completely at random
(MCAR), their exclusion should not bias the results below.
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Other issues
4,088
95.6
DK/NR
15
0.4
Total
4,277
100
The next four latent variables deal with respondents’ approval of protests, measured using ten-
point scales. The variables are approval of: government critics’ right to protest peacefully; legal
demonstrations; occupying private properties; and approval of roadblocks. Table 3 summarizes
the frequency distributions of the four covariates. Most respondents strongly disapprove
occupations and roadblocks, while the majority neither approves nor disapproves peaceful and
legal demonstrations. I expect closeness to mobilizations to have a positive effect on political
attitudes towards them, as proximity could make bystanders more sympathetic to the movement’s
claims (Andrews et al., 2016).
Table 3. Distribution of protest approval variables
Variables/Values
Approve
peaceful
protests
Approve legal
protests
Approve
occupations
Approve
roadblocks
N
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
1 (Strongly
Disapprove)
406
8.02
449
8.87
2,434
48.07
1,797
35.49
2
170
3.36
162
3.20
610
12.05
515
10.17
3
287
5.67
173
3.42
414
8.18
443
8.75
4
469
9.26
294
5.81
396
7.82
459
9.07
5
703
13.89
587
11.59
375
7.41
479
9.46
6
569
11.24
500
9.88
236
4.66
297
5.87
7
518
10.23
539
10.65
177
3.50
298
5.89
8
490
9.68
532
10.51
127
2.51
242
4.78
9
257
5.08
310
6.12
70
1.38
108
2.13
10 (Strongly
Approve)
947
18.70
1,418
28.01
141
2.78
343
6.77
DK/NR
247
4.88
99
1.95
83
1.63
82
1.61
Total
4,816
100
5,063
100
5,063
100
5,063
100
The last latent variable is presidential approval. Tables 4 shows that most interviewees
considered presidential performance to be fair or good. More nearby protests are expected to be
negatively associated with the Executive’s ability to solve problems, and hence to have a
negative effect on presidential approval.
Table 4. Distribution of presidential approval variable
Categories
N
%
Very Bad
210
4.15
Bad
655
12.94
Neither Good nor Bad (Fair)
2,377
46.95
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9
Good
1,459
28.82
Very Good
163
3.22
DK/NR
199
3.93
Total
5,063
100
The effect of protest proximity is also assessed on six preformed attitude variables. The first
one is political interest. Most Chileans have little interest or are outright uninterested in politics,
as Table 5 shows. Protest proximity, however, is expected to increase conversations about,
engagement with, and thus interest in politics.
Table 5. Distribution of political interest variable
Categories
N
%
None
2,383
47.07
A Little
1,5
29.63
Some
926
18.29
A Lot
215
4.25
DK/NA
39
0.77
Total
5,063
100
Table 6 describes the values of last five dependent variables, which are measured as seven-
point Likert scales. Most respondents have low levels of external but higher levels of internal
efficacy.
5
Following Wallace, Zepeda-Millán, & Jones-Correa (2014) I expect protests in the
vicinity to have a positive effect on both types of efficacy. Meanwhile, most respondents have
medium-high levels of trust in the president, and relatively high levels of support for democracy.
I expect that, as the number of protests near respondents increase, attitudes towards democracy
should improve – particularly when understood in its deliberative and participatory dimensions
(Donoso, 2016). By contrast, the levels of national pride and presidential trust should decrease, as
protests signal poor political performance, which has negative effects on trust and regime support
(Finkel et al., 1989; Mishler & Rose, 2001) .
Variable/
Value
External
efficacy
Internal
efficacy
Trust in the
President
Support for
democracy
National
pride
N
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
1
1,04
20.54
614
12.13
600
11.85
135
2.67
59
1.17
2
551
10.88
431
8.51
299
5.91
116
2.29
61
1.20
3
716
14.14
655
12.94
449
8.87
257
5.08
117
2.31
4
976
19.28
1,092
21.57
874
17.26
711
14.04
320
6.32
5
919
18.15
1,117
22.06
1,146
22.63
985
19.45
621
12.27
6
444
8.77
651
12.86
986
19.47
1,141
22.54
969
19.14
7
277
5.47
341
6.74
602
11.89
1,457
28.78
2,86
56.49
5
Measured by level of agreement with the statements “Those who govern the country are
interested in what people like me think” and “I feel I have a good understanding of the country’s
most important political issues,” respectively.
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10
DK/NR
33
2.76
162
3.2
107
2.11
261
5.16
56
1.11
Total
5,063
100
5,063
100
5,063
100
5,063
100
5,063
100
Note: in the External and Internal efficacy and Support for democracy scales, 1 means
"strongly disagree" and 7 means "strongly agree," in the trust in president and national pride
scales 1 means "not at all" and 7 means "a lot"
Control variables
Seven control variables (two of them attitudinal and five sociodemographic) are incorporated into
the analysis to account for other theoretically-relevant factors. The first one is ideology.
Identifying with the Left is an important predictor of participation in protests (Castillo et al., 2015;
Dalton, Van Sickle, & Weldon, 2009, p. 60; Disi Pavlic & Mardones, forthcoming), and is also
associated with support for public spending and education policies (Busemeyer & Garritzmann,
2017; Garritzmann, 2015). Leftism, therefore, may also be correlated with positive attitudes
towards mobilization and prioritizing education. Ideology is a particularly important control for
the latent attitudes, as people use their political identities as cognitive heuristics for their more
superficial opinions (Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). The LAPOP eleven-point ideology scale is recoded
into the following categories: Left, Center-Left, Center, Center-Right. Right, and “Doesn’t
Know/No Response.”
6
The second attitudinal variable used is retrospective economic evaluations
(Better, Same or Worse), which have significant effects on political trust (Mishler & Rose, 2001;
Polavieja, 2013), approval (Arriagada, Navia, & Schuster, 2010; Lau & Redlawsk, 2006), and
national pride (Evans, 2002).
The first sociodemographic covariate is education, measured as the number of years of formal
schooling (from none to seventeen). Higher levels of education are associated with increased
political engagement (Sunshine Hillygus, 2005) and more positive attitudes towards politics
(Carlin, 2006; Galston, 2001). Education is also important because people who are more educated
tend to be more unvarying in their opinions (Feldman, 1989). At the same time, however, more
education is associated with lower levels of nationalism (Coenders & Scheepers, 2003), and hence
may have a negative effect on national pride. Students status and having children
7
are also
incorporated because students and parents may be more likely to consider education as an
important issue (Garritzmann, 2015). Additionally, students’ own opinions maybe particularly
sensitive to student mobilizations. Finally, age (continuous) and gender (dichotomous) are also
used as controls.
Results
The hypotheses mentioned above are tested using several regression models. In the case of the
education variable, a mixed-effects logistic regression is used; the rest of the dependent variables
are regressed using mixed-effects ordered logistic regressions. All models have commune-level
and survey wave-level random effects, so they are multilevel models (with respondents nested
within communes, which are in turn nested within survey waves). These random effects are used
to account for commune- and year-specific dynamics.
8
The models are regressed using STATA
15 (StataCorp, 2017).
6
This category is added because about 23% of respondents refused to answer this question.
7
Both of these variables are dichotomous.
8
Commune-level effects are pertinent due to the extremely segregated nature of Chilean cities
(Sabatini, Cáceres, & Cerda, 2001). Meanwhile, wave-level random effects are added to account
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Table 2 shows the effect of proximity to student protests on latent political attitudes. The
number of nearby protests has a statistically significant effect on two of these political attitudes,
and both are in the expected direction. More specifically, each additional student protest in the
respondents’ vicinity increases the odds of identifying education as the country’s most serious
problem by about 21%. The effect is similar for approving of peaceful demonstrations: additional
events increase the odds of higher levels of approval by almost 19%. These odds ratios suggest
that the effect of protest proximity is relatively large for latent attitudes (when significant). The
effect on approving other types of mobilizations (allowed by the law, occupations, and blockades)
is not statistically significant, which suggests that the effect of protest proximity on opinions about
demonstrations depends largely on whether they are peaceful or not. Presidential approval levels,
on the other hand, seem to vary independently from the number of nearby student protests.
Table 2. Regressions of student protest proximity on latent political attitudes in Chile
Educatio
n most
serious
problem
(1)
Approve
peaceful
demonstr
ations (2)
Approve
legal
protests
(3)
Approve
occupatio
ns (4)
Approve
roadblock
s (5)
Presidenti
al
approval
(6)
Number of
nearby
protests
1.209***
1.186***
1.028
1.039
0.961
0.992
(0.0645)
(0.0520)
(0.0540)
(0.122)
(0.0645)
(0.0574)
Ideology
(reference:
Left)
Center-Left
0.986
0.860
1.015
1.171*
1.025
1.373
(0.368)
(0.162)
(0.0649)
(0.101)
(0.188)
(0.367)
Center
0.651**
0.629***
0.551***
0.804***
0.649***
1.914
(0.119)
(0.0278)
(0.0152)
(0.0342)
(0.0566)
(1.162)
Center-Right
0.466***
0.629**
0.552***
0.839
0.762
2.764
(0.128)
(0.133)
(0.0560)
(0.122)
(0.132)
(2.746)
Right
0.589**
0.592***
0.598***
0.516***
0.457***
3.943
(0.143)
(0.0716)
(0.0486)
(0.0672)
(0.101)
(6.119)
DK/NR
0.793
0.583***
0.481***
0.582*
0.496**
1.758
(0.197)
(0.0506)
(0.0297)
(0.178)
(0.157)
(1.136)
Retrospectiv
e economic
evaluation
(reference:
Better)
Same
1.024
1.016
1.008
1.174
1.135
0.549***
(0.440)
(0.0441)
(0.0663)
(0.117)
(0.117)
(0.0976)
Worse
0.647
0.976
0.983
1.138
1.211*
0.275***
(0.271)
(0.167)
(0.0985)
(0.188)
(0.131)
(0.108)
for time-specific trends in public opinion.
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12
Years of
education
1.087
1.039***
1.047**
0.983
1.009
0.998
(0.0670)
(0.0131)
(0.0203)
(0.0130)
(0.0183)
(0.00607)
Student
status
2.778***
1.184
1.316
1.167
1.266
1.213***
(0.700)
(0.261)
(0.348)
(0.297)
(0.261)
(0.0644)
Has children
1.109
0.930*
1.005
0.925
0.853*
1.156
(0.265)
(0.0396)
(0.0327)
(0.0780)
(0.0807)
(0.182)
Age
0.979*
0.994***
0.991***
0.990***
0.990***
1.008
(0.0113)
(0.000340
)
(0.00310)
(0.000930
)
(0.00127)
(0.00509)
Male
0.961
0.915**
0.768***
0.815***
0.955
1.105
(0.119)
(0.0347)
(0.0329)
(0.0468)
(0.0508)
(0.125)
Observations
3,977
4,497
4,642
4,657
4,658
4,542
Number of
waves
(random
effects)
3
3
3
3
3
3
Number of
communes
(random
effects)
274
274
274
274
274
274
Robust standard errors in parentheses. Odds ratios reported instead of coefficients. ***
p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
Several control variables also have significant effects on these attitudinal variables. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, being a student and younger have major positive effects on considering education
as the country’s most pressing problem. As expected, Leftists (compared to most of the other
ideological groups) and younger respondents have higher odds of approving all types of protests.
Male respondents, on the other hand, are less likely to approve occupations and peaceful and legal
demonstrations. In line with the literature (Arriagada et al., 2010), presidential approval varies to
a great extent depending on economic evaluations.
The effects on preformed political attitudes are shown in Table 3. In this case, the vicinity to
mobilization has significant effects on three variables, all of which are in line with the theoretical
expectations. Every additional nearby protest increases the odds of having higher values in
political interest variable by 0,7%, but they also decrease the odds of having higher levels of trust
in the President and national pride by 0,65% and 0,48%, respectively. Thus, as hypothesized, the
effects of protest proximity on preformed political attitudes tend to be rather small.
Table 3. Regressions of student protest proximity on preformed political attitudes in Chile
Interest
(7)
External
efficacy
(8)
Internal
efficacy
(9)
Trust in
the
Presiden
t (10)
Support
for
democra
cy (11)
National
pride
(12)
Number of
nearby protests
1.070***
1.107
1.051
0.935**
1.006
0.952**
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(0.0102)
(0.0948)
(0.0636)
(0.0292)
(0.0504)
(0.0230)
Ideology
(reference: Left)
Center-Left
0.783
1.207
0.810***
1.315
1.047
0.929
(0.142)
(0.149)
(0.0257)
(0.363)
(0.148)
(0.110)
Center
0.380***
1.443
0.667***
2.232
0.726***
1.187
(0.0175)
(0.407)
(0.102)
(1.351)
(0.0580)
(0.192)
Center-Right
0.593***
1.756*
0.839
3.166
0.671***
1.253
(0.0445)
(0.598)
(0.0911)
(2.934)
(0.0294)
(0.282)
Right
0.678***
2.170
1.090
6.201
0.640***
1.756***
(0.0404)
(1.124)
(0.178)
(9.102)
(0.0857)
(0.378)
DK/NR
0.168***
1.030
0.382***
1.869
0.644***
1.036
(0.00819)
(0.144)
(0.0391)
(1.274)
(0.0979)
(0.194)
Retrospective
economic
evaluation
(reference:
Better)
Same
0.811***
0.665**
0.863*
0.592***
0.935
0.707***
(0.0653)
(0.112)
(0.0677)
(0.0669)
(0.0667)
(0.0119)
Worse
0.741***
0.524***
0.782*
0.329***
0.851
0.576***
(0.0633)
(0.0782)
(0.105)
(0.0737)
(0.127)
(0.0326)
Years of
education
1.111***
1.002
1.139***
0.992
1.034***
0.949***
(0.0115)
(0.0104)
(0.0106)
(0.00621)
(0.00324)
(0.00360)
Student status
1.288**
1.183
0.944
1.519**
0.947
1.144***
(0.138)
(0.143)
(0.245)
(0.266)
(0.0453)
(0.0201)
Has children
1.080
1.064
1.150
1.207***
0.989
1.357***
(0.0834)
(0.105)
(0.204)
(0.0704)
(0.0771)
(0.125)
Age
1.004
1.006***
1.012***
1.014***
1.013***
1.007***
(0.00391)
(0.00103)
(0.00037
1)
(0.00319)
(0.00146)
(0.00075
8)
Male
0.713***
1.009
0.638***
1.024
1.031
1.077***
(0.0307)
(0.0785)
(0.0926)
(0.0652)
(0.0525)
(0.0294)
Observations
4,686
4,593
4,578
4,621
4,484
4,666
Number of
waves (random
effects)
3
3
3
3
3
3
Number of
communes
(random effects)
274
274
274
274
274
274
Robust standard errors in parentheses. Odds ratios reported instead of coefficients. ***
p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
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Some theoretically-informed control variables are also shape preformed political attitudes.
Leftist ideology (in contrast to other ideological categories) and older age are positively associated
with political interest, internal efficacy, and support for democracy. Meanwhile, positive
economic evaluations are significantly associated with higher values in all the attitudinal variables
(except for support for democracy, where the effect is not significant). Additional years of
schooling tends to have a positive effect on these attitudes with the exception of national pride,
where less educated respondents tend to have higher values, which is in line with the literature.
Figure 2 shows the predicted probabilities of selected values of the dependent latent variables
from models 1 and 2 in Table 2, where protest proximity had statistically significant effects. In
the former case, the predicted probabilities of considering education to be Chile’s main concern
increase from 4% with no nearby protests to about 10,7% when respondents are exposed to six
mobilizations. Similarly, the predicted probabilities of exhibiting the highest value in the peaceful
protest approval scale increase from approximately 20% without protests in the vicinity to almost
38% when close to six college mobilizations. These results lend additional support to the argument
that protest proximity has a major effect in shaping political attitudes that are formed on the spot.
Figure 2. Predicted effects of protest proximity on selected values of latent attitude variables,
with 95% Cis. All other variables held at their mean values.
Finally, Figure 3 illustrates the predicted probabilities of selected values from the dependent
variables in models 7, 10, and 12 in Table 3: political interest, trust in the President, and national
pride. Showing high levels in interest in politics increases with protest proximity: the predicted
value of being interested “a lot” grows modestly from approximately 3,3% when there are no
protests to about 4,8% with six protests. The probabilities of high level of trust in the Executive
and national pride, by contrast, decrease with more nearby protests: they each decline from
approximately 11% and 59% at zero nearby events to about 7,9% and 53% at six nearby protests.
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15
Thus, the effect of spatial and temporal proximity to protests is relatively smaller in the case of
preformed political attitudes.
Figure 3. Predicted effects of protest proximity on selected values of latent attitude variables,
with 95% Cis. All other variables held at their mean values.
Conclusions
This paper seeks to understand the spatial and temporal effects of college student protests on
political attitudes in Chile. It theorizes that, at the individual level, geographic and temporal
proximity to student mobilizations can significantly shape political attitudes (Hypothesis 1).
However, I also hypothesize that the impact of protest proximity depends on the type of attitude:
the effect should be larger on latent attitudes, which are more sensitive to exogenous stimuli, and
smaller on preformed attitudes, which tend to remain stable over time (Hypothesis 2).
Combining data from three LAPOP waves and student protest event data, the article uses
regression analyses to test these claims. The findings support Hypothesis 1, as the number of
events near respondents has the expected significant effect on several attitudinal variables.
Hypothesis 2 is also supported, as the magnitude of the significant effects is larger for the latent
attitudes (opinions about education and demonstrations) and smaller for the preformed ones
(political interest, trust, and national pride).
The findings have important implications for the study of social movements and public
opinion. The evidence supports the general claim that movements can shape public opinion and
influence the policymaking process (Giugni, 2004), and the specific impact that student
mobilizations in Chile have had a significant effect on public opinion and policy (Donoso, 2016;
Kubal & Fisher, 2016; Palacios-Valladares & Ondetti, 2018; Silva, 2017).
The effects on preformed attitudes challenge some claims in the literature, however. The null
effects of student protest proximity on external and internal efficacy and on support for
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16
democracy, for example, cast doubt on the claim that student mobilization has been a
“democratizing force” in Chile (Donoso, 2016). More generally, the small effects on preformed
attitudes contradict the argument that movements have an impact on individual political identity
or national political culture (Earl, 2007).
9
Finally, the results suggests that protests have opposing
effects on different dimension of political disaffection (Disi & Mardones, forthcoming; Montero
et al., 1997): while protest proximity slightly increases political interests, it also diminishes
political engagement through its negative effect on trust.
This paper has several limitations that future research may address. Unlike, for example,
Wallace et al. (2014), this work relies on survey data from separate time periods, and the locations
and dates of the fieldwork were not decided for this project, so there is no way to ensure that
particularly eventful or uneventful periods and places are not overrepresented in the samples used.
Since the protest data comes from college student mobilizations, the findings may not be
applicable to other social sectors (workers, indigenous groups, sexual minorities) or to social
mobilization in general. Likewise, future research may also investigate whether peaceful, cultural,
disruptive and violent tactics (Medel & Somma, 2016) have particular effects on specific attitudes.
Finally, while these results show that protest proximity shapes some attitudes, future works may
explore how lasting this effect may actually be.
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