The Welfare State amid Crime: How Victimization and Perceptions of Insecurity Affect Social Policy Preferences in Latin America and the Caribbean*

Melina Altamirano, Sarah Berens and Sandra Ley
Additional contact information
Melina Altamirano: El Colegio de México
Sarah Berens: University of Innsbruck
Sandra Ley: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

Politics & Society, 2020, vol. 48, issue 3, 389-422

Abstract: Criminal violence is one of the most pressing problems in Latin America and the Caribbean, with profound political consequences. Its effects on social policy preferences, however, remain largely unexplored. This article argues that to understand such effects it is crucial to analyze victimization experiences and perceptions of insecurity as separate phenomena with distinct attitudinal consequences. Heightened perceptions of insecurity are associated with a reduced demand for public welfare provision, as such perceptions reflect a sense of the state’s failure to provide public security. At the same time, acknowledging the mounting costs and needs that direct experience with crime entails, victimization is expected to increase support for social policies, particularly for health services. Survey data from twenty-four Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period 2008–12 show that perceptions of insecurity indeed reduce support for the state’s role in welfare provision, whereas crime victimization strongly increases such preferences.

Keywords: crime; social policy preferences; victimization; insecurity perceptions; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329220940850 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:48:y:2020:i:3:p:389-422

DOI: 10.1177/0032329220940850

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Politics & Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().