When the tide goes out

LATIN AMERICA is a notoriously cyclical region, and the end of the long commodity boom has hit its countries hard. Although a weakening economy does not necessarily make officials more corrupt or criminals more violent, it does eliminate the distraction from these endemic problems that rising living standards provide. From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, discontent is growing. Mexicans are up in arms over the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 student activists; Venezuelan streets have erupted in occasionally violent protests against the authoritarian and economically incompetent government of Nicolás Maduro; and Brazilians are calling for the impeachment of their president, Dilma Rousseff, as a result of a kickback scandal and a credit-rating downgrade.

This year’s Latinobarómetro poll, an annual survey of public opinion produced since 1995 and published exclusively by The Economist, reflects this broad souring of the regional mood. Latin Americans are fed up with their leaders: government approval ratings across the 17 countries in the study have fallen from 60% in 2009 to 47% today. They are abandoning political moderation in favour of polarised ideologies, as the share of respondents who call themselves “centrist” rather than “left” or “right” has dropped from 42% in 2008 to 33% now. They are losing faith in civic institutions: 34% of the public say they trust the state, down from 42% in 2013. Most disturbingly, they are drifting from each other. A mere 16% of those surveyed agree that “You can trust most people”, which ties the lowest rate Latinobarómetro has ever recorded.