ABSTRACT
Classical democratic theory defines democracy as citizen participation in the rule of a society. Political participation includes behaviors ranging from voting and partisan activity to community activism, contacting public officials, civil-society engagement, and protest. Participation in public life conveys citizens' demands to government, and thus helps constrain the expectations and actions of officials and elites. This chapter includes data from the public-opinion surveys to explore political engagement among Central Americans. It deals with a comparative examination of political participation in 2012. Latin American political culture once had strong authoritarian components: deference to authority, preference for strong leaders, intolerance of regime critics, and antidemocratic norms. Central American countries shared these cultural traits, which were reinforced by the protracted authoritarian rule. In recent years these old patterns have changed substantially across Latin America. The political pendulum in Latin America swung to the left with the election of several center-left governments, driven by popular frustration with such neoliberal policies.
