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Paula Armendariz Miranda, Ph.D. Candidate
armen013@umn.edu
Graduate Student
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
About Me:
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Originally from Ecuador, I hold a BA in International Relations and Political Science from Universidad San Francisco de Quito and a MA in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. My research lies at the intersection of Comparative Politics and Political Psychology. I am interested in understanding the roots of citizen support for autocratic governments. I incorporate theories from personality psychology into the study of citizen support for autocracy to understand what kinds of individuals and under what circumstances are more likely to prefer autocratic governments. I seek to expand the current literature in political psychology into developing countries in order to form a generalizable theory of individual support for autocratic forms of governance.
Research Interests
Public Opinion
Political Psychology
Latin American Politics
Autocracy
Comparative Political Behavior
Survey Research
Countries of Interest
Ecuador
Chile
Peru
Argentina
Bolivia
United States
Colombia
Brazil
Mexico
My Research:
My research lies at the intersection of Comparative Politics and Political Psychology. I am interested in understanding the roots of citizen support for autocratic governments. I incorporate theories from personality psychology into the study of citizen support for autocracy to understand what kinds of individuals and under what circumstances are more likely to prefer autocratic governments.I seek to expand the current literature in political psychology into developing countries in order to form a generalizable theory of individual support for autocratic forms of governance.
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Why do people support autocratic forms of governance? Political psychology suggests that certain psychological traits predispose people to express authoritarian attitudes, especially under conditions of normative threat. However, such research has not explored whether perceptions of existential threats drive support for autocracy. Nor has this research explored whether the types of threats that activate autocratic support might vary across socio-economic contexts. I extend existing work and show that closed personalities are more likely to support autocracy under conditions of threat. I also show that, in developing countries, “crisis threats” – poor economic performance, rampant crime, or corruption – activate closed personalities’ needs for order and security heightening their autocratic support. Using public opinion data, I show how crisis threats activate closed personalities’ support for autocracy in Latin America. The findings demonstrate the utility of personality psychology for understanding contemporary patterns of support for autocracy. The results also shed light on the possible roots of public support for autocratic leaders and forms of governance worldwide.
What activates individuals’ support for autocratic governments? Some suggest that the answer is perceptions of increased corruption and/or poor economic performance. We do not dispute this explanation but instead contend that it depends on individual differences in personality. We hypothesize that introverted and closed-minded citizens are generally resistant to democracy. When democracies appear unable to address problems, introverted and closed-minded citizens defer to authoritarian leaders for efficient solutions. We test our hypotheses with cross-national survey data from Latin America. Our findings have important implications for how we understand the roots of autocratic attitudes.
The literature on judicial politics has assumed that judicial independence and trust in the judiciary go hand in hand. Based on evidence from Ecuador, I show that citizens’ trust and support for the judiciary can increase despite decreasing levels of judicial independence, which I argue is largely driven by citizens’ approval of executive performance in office. Popular presidents send cues to their constituents regarding how and why the judiciary should be trusted, despite its institutional flaws. These results open the possibility to question whether public trust in the judiciary necessarily stems from the presence of independent judicial institutions.