Neither a “fissure” nor “moral degradation”: an empirical test of the political narrative in Argentina
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24215/16696581e074Keywords:
culture change, polarization, political culture.Abstract
In these years, a line of discourse that emphasizes alleged cultural shortcomings of Argentines has gained resonance in our country. These narratives have focused on the existence of a "fissure" or sharp political division in society and, more recently, on aspects such as the apparent moral degradation of the country and the inclination of its citizens to depend on the State in detriment of personal effort. Using the databases of the World Values Survey and, complementarily, Latinobarómetro, the paper empirically contrasts the basic assumptions of these narratives examining how the attitudes and values of Argentines have evolved over the past three decades on a set of key economic and cultural issues The analysis focuses on the society as a whole and some of its social groups, such as politicized people, partisan voters and geographic regions. It applies, in particular, the method developed by DiMaggio, Evans and Bryson for the study of mass political polarization. The empirical evidence shows that the assumptions of these discourses have no correlation in reality and that, in recent years, Argentines tended to converge, rather than diverge, on fundamental issues.
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