On 9 February 2020, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, flanked by soldiers, stormed the Legislative Assembly because it would not approve a multimillion-dollar loan for military equipment. Minutes later, he told a crowd outside the chamber that he could have the legislators removed, but that God had urged him ‘patience, patience.’ Although Bukele’s actions that day could have easily triggered massive demonstrations and ended presidencies in other countries, they were only the beginning of a new normal in El Salvador. They were also a test for citizens’ values and attitudes, which can become either the last bastion of democracy or its death warrant.
Indeed, both Bukele and his anti-democratic agenda seem to enjoy strong support among Salvadorans. In 2021, he and his “New Ideas” party won a legislative supermajority that dismantled the judiciary and removed the attorney general. Only months later did thousands take the streets after the Constitutional Court, newly packed with Bukele’s loyalists, allowed him to seek a second term despite the constitution explicitly prohibiting it.
But by then it was too late: El Salvador had already become an electoral autocracy, according to Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). What took Daniel Ortega in neighboring Nicaragua 32 months—from his inauguration to the high court permitting his reelection—took Bukele only 26 months. Yet just months after the flawed 2021 elections, the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) reported that El Salvador had the second-highest levels of support for and satisfaction with democracy, behind only Uruguay.
When LAPOP asked whether it is justifiable for presidents to dissolve and govern without the legislature in difficult times—a clear anti-democratic behavior known as executive coup or autogolpe—over half of Salvadorans agreed, alongside those polled in Peru and Haiti. In contrast, Uruguay, Chile, and Costa Rica, whose democracies are among the most robust in the region per V-Dem, ranked among the countries with the lowest levels of support for executive coups (less than 20% of those polled). What does this stark regional difference tell us? Do popular attitudes toward the political system (also known as political culture) matter to democracy’s survival?
Character Is Destiny
Roughly two-thousand years ago, the Greek thinker Heraclitus claimed that a person’s character shapes their fate—an idea that is still used to explain how collective values influence the fate of political systems. According to the latest V-Dem report, the global democratic progress made in the past 35 years has vanished, prompting many to ask why: Are unresponsive political elites and weak institutions what kill democracy? Or is it the lack of shared democratic values among citizens, as Heraclitus would suggest?
While a full autopsy may combine attitudes from both sides—elites and citizens—the question is still up for debate. In the bestseller How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that citizens do not significantly influence the type of government they have. The authors indicate that there is no evidence of public support for authoritarianism among Germans and Italians in the 1920s. Moreover, they argue, Venezuelans indicated higher levels of support for democracy than Chileans by the late 1990s, yet an autocrat consolidated power in Venezuela, while Chile is a thriving democracy. The authors conclude that political elites, not citizens, matter the most to preserving democracy. Inglehart and Welzel, by contrast, argue that mere expressions of support for democracy do not necessarily reflect real commitment to it, and that political culture is critical to advancing democracy.
Indeed, the results published by LAPOP allow a closer look at political culture and on how citizens react towards certain behavior. Besides the age-old question of whether democracy is the best form of government, survey respondents are asked about their attitudes toward concrete anti-democratic actions—such as whether executive coups are justifiable. Moreover, the poll is conducted among countries in the same region with shared roots, enabling comparisons between the results. Comparing El Salvador to Chile, one of the most advanced democracies in the region (which is also led by a millennial who promised sweeping change) offers valuable insights.
Two Distant Siblings
Over the past half-century, the political trajectories of Chile and El Salvador have shared numerous parallels: In the 1970s, coups brought military regimes to power that perpetuated gross human-rights atrocities, before giving way to new constitutions in the 1980s and democratic transitions that culminated in the early 1990s. But unlike in Chile, political conflicts in El Salvador escalated into one of the most violent civil wars in the Western Hemisphere during the 1980s.
In May 1992, Chile’s then-President Patricio Awlyin addressed key aspects of the country’s transition at Georgetown University: ‘in the face of authoritarianism,’ he said, ‘our people assumed a political logic of negotiation and the search for a peaceful solution of conflicts, which finally surpassed the logic of war that characterized authoritarian action.’ Just months before, in January, a Georgetown alumnus, Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani ended his country’s decades-long civil war: ‘On this day, we can say that Salvadoran democracy belongs to all of us and that we all owe ourselves to its development and progressive expansion.’
Although the logic of war had prevailed for a time in El Salvador, both countries soon became examples of democratic transitions. In the following decades, both held dozens of transparent elections and peaceful transfers of power: In Chile, a coalition of center and left-wing parties governed for four consecutive administrations; in El Salvador, a conservative party governed for four consecutive administrations. In 2009, a right-wing candidate was elected president of Chile for the first time since the end of the dictatorship. That same year, a left-wing candidate was elected president of El Salvador for the first time.
Both countries also elected presidents outside the parties or coalitions that had governed in the past—Nayib Bukele in 2019 and Gabriel Boric in 2021. But after years of somewhat parallel milestones, Chile and El Salvador are currently at opposite ends: While Chileans are still figuring out a new constitution through institutional means, Buleke’s authoritarian behavior and concentration of power have led to a human-rights crisis in El Salvador.
In June 2019, shortly after his inauguration, Bukele asked hundreds of soldiers to pledge loyalty to him personally. In the midst of the 2021 legislative elections, the Organization of American States expressed serious concerns about human rights, separation of powers, press freedom, and other issues in the country. It also reported on the unconstitutional involvement of the military in politics and the suspension of constitutionally mandated funding to political parties. In March 2022, the new legislature suspended due process in response to a sudden peak in homicides, leading to massive incarcerations and human-rights violations. The suspension is still in place, and as of March 2023, 153 people have died in prisons, 29 of whom showed signs of torture. Even so, Bukele remains one of the region’s most popular presidents.
From Different Values Come Different Outcomes
Despite these developments, 78% of Salvadorans report living in a democracy, compared to 64% of Chileans, according to the last LAPOP poll. But the political-culture gap between the two countries is more evident when digging deeper into who thinks executive coups are justifiable. While it is reasonable to assume that those who say democracy is better than any other form of government will reject anti-democratic behavior, this has been the case consistently only in Chile since 2006. In the case of El Salvador, it is the opposite: those voicing support for democracy were more likely to say that dissolving the legislature is justified.
What does democracy mean for these self-proclaimed democrats, then? Is it just about electing a popular candidate for president and giving that person limitless power? While the survey does not elaborate how respondents define democracy, it does allow us to explore whether education plays a role in decisions to tolerate or reject anti-democratic behavior.
Education is typically a robust predictor of support for democracy: more educated people are less likely to support non-democratic behavior. Again, this is only true for Chile but not for El Salvador. Since 2012, more educated Chileans are less likely to justify executive coups, as shown in Figure 3.
In contrast, secondary education in El Salvador has not deterred citizens from excusing anti-democratic behavior. In fact, it has had the opposite effect: Since 2012, respondents with secondary education are more likely to support executive coups than their less-educated counterparts. Additionally, while respondents with tertiary education in El Salvador are less likely to justify executive coups compared to others in 2021, the percentage of executive-coup supporters among this education group is still twice as high as previous years and exceeds the regional average.
Viewing the LAPOP data by generational cohort indicates a generational split in democratic support. In the case of Chile, the last two polls show that Generation Z and millennials are slightly less likely to justify executive coups than older cohorts. In El Salvador, however, younger generations are more likely to justify executive coups more than older cohorts.
El Salvador’s results fit arguments that older people, who are more likely to have experienced violent conflict and severe threats against the political system, tend to better understand the value of living in a democracy. In the Salvadoran case, younger generations lack firsthand experience of the civil war.
A Mirror for Reflection
Examining the situation in El Salvador through the mirror of one of the most advanced democracies in Latin America suggests three key points for reflection.
Firstly, values do matter. The fact that Chile has higher levels of understanding of or commitment to democratic values and remains a democracy, while El Salvador lacks both, having become an autocratic regime, is a finding that should not be taken lightly, considering that Bukele’s popularity remains high despite his consistent anti-democratic behavior.
Other perspectives might suggest that the data from El Salvador only confirms the incumbent president’s popularity, leading citizens to normalize non-democratic behavior from “opportunistic authoritarians” or to rationalize undemocratic behavior regardless of political culture while increasing the number of those willing to justify executive coups. While these arguments merit further discussion, it is worth noting that the apparent contradiction of simultaneously supporting democracy and justifying non-democratic behavior, especially among youth, precedes Bukele. Moreover, evidence that secondary education was not reducing support for anti-democratic acts was evident before 2021, signaling a more deeply rooted issue that pre-dates Bukele’s presidency.
Secondly, education may or may not help to mold public feeling toward democracy. The quality of secondary or informal education in Chile could explain lower rates of support for non-democratic behavior among younger cohorts. Yet secondary education in El Salvador has little to no impact on rejecting non-democratic behavior. This finding may explain why younger generations are more likely to support authoritarian actions.
Unlike older generations, youth in El Salvador are less likely to have witnessed how political turmoil can escalate into mass human suffering. Democracy and human rights are abstract concepts whose true meanings are not necessarily self-evident, making the case for rethinking innovative strategies to advance civic education in these contexts.
Finally, it is crucial to underscore that democracy in Chile is not immune from authoritarian turns, as even democracies labeled as ‘consolidated’ can unexpectedly falter. The surge in the percentage of respondents justifying executive coups must be addressed: Taking democracy for granted is always a fundamental mistake. As Steven Friedman aptly put it, ‘in reality, no democracy is ever completed’. As Heraclitus would probably add, we must consistently assess and fortify our character as democrats.