Citizen Participation, Social Trust, and Ethnic Groups in Ecuador

Resumen

Employing survey data collected by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) 2010 Americas Barometer, this paper investigates the relationship between citizen participation and social trust in Ecuador along ethnic lines. Are there differences in the levels of social trust found across ethnic groups? What impact does ethnicity have on social trust? What is the effect, if any, of ethnic affiliation on engagement in political affairs? The evidence showed that, while the respondent category of “indigenous” is notoriously more prone to participate in civic organizations than any other ethnic group, ethnicity had no impact on political participation when controlling for other relevant variables. The social capital hypothesis, which sustains that more trusting individuals are more likely to participate in politics, found no support in the data.