This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 1940161209335943v1 14/3/353    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Hughes, S. Articles by Guerrero, M. A. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Disenchanted Voter

Emotional Attachment, Social Stratification, and Mediated Politics in Mexico's 2006 Presidential Election

University of Miami

Manuel Alejandro Guerrero

Iberamerican University

This study of micro-level political decision making responds to an initially perplexing phenomenon that appeared in the 2006 Mexican presidential election, what the authors call the disenchanted voter. The authors found that participants in their longitudinal, qualitative study expressed extreme dissatisfaction with politics, politicians, and the outcomes of a young democracy yet voiced enthusiasm for voting. Checks after the ballot revealed they actually did vote. In this article, the authors argue that this unlikely constellation is explained by participants' emotional appraisals of mediated campaign messages about a polarizing presidential candidate. Grounded in an individual's class position, emotional appraisal of this candidate generated fear in wealthy participants and hope in poorer participants. The coping mechanism, or "secondary assessment" of the candidate, was the firm decision to vote. Based on these findings, the authors propose a model of disenchanted voting that integrates research on emotional appraisal and the social construction of emotions with election salience and personal political efficacy. These findings may be of use in economically polarized democracies beyond Mexico. However, the authors question whether long-term polarizing political discourse is a viable antidote to disenchantment with the uneven economic and social justice outcomes of Latin American democracy.

Key Words: emotions and voting • emotional appraisal • mediated campaigning • voter turnout • Mexico

This version was published on July 1, 2009

The International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol. 14, No. 3, 353-375 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1940161209335943


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?