Dictatorships and Generations in Chile and Uruguay. An Analysis of Political Preferences of Citizens Born Between 1930 and 1991

Abstract

Citizens’ political attitudes and preferences evolve in the life course, because of ageing as well as situations that each society
experiences. Nonetheless, each generation can have distinctive characteristics in such evolution, probably as a result of events that happened when their socialization was being processed. This paper analyzes the existence of distinguishable generational effects in the political preferences in Uruguay and Chile, two countries that went through military dictatorships in the recent past. Using public opinion polls from Latinobarómetro (1995-2010), we apply the APC approach to analyze ideological auto identification and vote intention profiles of Chileans and Uruguayans. We conclude that in both countries significant variations in political preferences exist for different groups of cohorts (or generations) that were marked by the authoritarian regime.