The Market and the Masses in Latin America

Andy Baker is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research on mass political behavior, political economy, and electoral systems has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, DuBois Review, Electoral Studies, World Politics, and various edited volumes. He has also been a contributor on two National Science Foundation grants and a recipient of two Social Science Research Council fellowships. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2001 and previously taught at the University of Houston and Northeastern University, Boston.

• Part I. Introduction and Theory: 1. Consuming the Washington consensus; 2. Theoretical framework: the top-down and bottom-up sources of public opinion; Part II. Mass Beliefs about Market Policies in Latin America: 3. The economic consequences and elite rhetoric of market reform in Latin America; 4. Are Latin Americans neoliberals?; 5. Are the poor neoliberals?; Part III. Mass Support for Reform in Brazil: 6. The economic consequences and elite rhetoric of market reform in Brazil; 7. How many Brazilians support market reforms?; 8. Which Brazilians support market reforms?; Part IV. Conclusion: 9. The politics of consumismo in Latin America.

'Studies of public opinion toward economic policy in Latin America conceive of citizens overwhelmingly as economic producers, not consumers as well. Andy Baker's well-crafted and compelling book challenges us to do otherwise, lest we fail to grasp how consumer interests shape opinion on neoliberal reform … In fact, Latin Americans feel differently toward separate features of market reform, such as privatization or free trade policy. Baker shows consumer interests better explain this variation than do market considerations … Baker offers both materialist and ideational lenses to explain why some Latin Americans are more neoliberal than others. He builds on studies of bounded rationality … to interrogate the cognitive processes through which people gather and weigh information when forming policy preferences. The result is an empirically rich and theoretically stimulating examination of contemporary public opinion in Latin America, replete with findings at odds with the conventional wisdom on the subject.' Comparative Political Studies