Peasants or Bankers in Venezuela? Presidential Popularity and Economic Reform Approval,1989-1993

Abstract

How do people's assessments of past and future economic conditions affect their political judgments and choices, especially their evaluation of drastic market-oriented reform and its initiator? Drawing on survey re sults from Venezuela for the period from 1989 to 1993, this article finds that prospective pocketbook assessments of the economy had a signifi cant impact on presidential popularity and on public approval of neoliberal adjustment. Venezuelans acted like egocentric "bankers" (cf. MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson 1992), basing their political judgments on expec tations about the future, yet with a clear focus on their own pocketbooks. These findings suggest that painful economic reforms can be politically viable if they inspire in people confidence in future improvements. Ag gregate macro-economic success, however, is not sufficient for making structural adjustment acceptable; rather, people have to foresee a "trickle- down" of benefits to their own families.