Qualities of democracy and non-violent political protest in Latin America: The role of freedom, equality and responsiveness

The chapter offers a large comparative study of the fairly new democracies of Latin America to examine the influence of specific qualities of democracies on levels and forms of popular contention using survey data. The analysis shows that in regimes that are hybrid in nature for the concept of political opportunity structure to be analytically useful it is necessary to pay attention to some contextual conditions: equality, freedom, and responsiveness. The chapter also shows that grievance-related factors experienced at the individual level come into play and interact with those contextual characteristics. The chapter acknowledges that often political opportunities are offered by forces and institutions that are not traditionally considered political, such as the military.