Apathy or Anger? How Crime Experience Affects Individual Vote Intention in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

Does the experience of crime lead to individual disenchantment from politics or can it even stir political activism? We study how crime victimization affects the intention to vote with survey data from Latin America and the Caribbean. Research on non-electoral political behavior reveals that crime victims become politically more engaged. In contrast, findings from psychological research suggest that victimization increases apathy due to loss of self-esteem and social cohesion. Building a cognitive foundation of political activism, we propose that it is the level of distress which increases—in the case of non-violent crime—or decreases—in the case of violent crime experience—the likelihood of voting. The results support the hypothesis on victims of non-violent crime. The probability of turnout does, however, not change for victims of criminal violence. We subsequently test for a possible anti-right-wing incumbent effect, to explain the mobilization of victims of non-violent crime, but only find evidence for an anti-center incumbent tendency.