The Colombian government enjoys high levels of citizen support and Colombians trust the democratic system, according to a new survey.
The Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) released a comparative study on June 13 in Bogotá, Colombia, titled La Cultura Política de la Democracia en Colombia: 2006. Among the key findings, the study finds that Colombians have great trust in their judicial system, ranking Colombia second in the region after Costa Rica. Yet since 2004 that level of trust has eroded in small but significant ways.
A third of the people surveyed stated that violence is the worst problem in the country, but only 13 percent acknowledged themselves to be crime victims. This level of actual crime victimization is relatively low when compared to the rest of Latin America, placing Colombia in the company of Panamá and Jamaica.
On the other hand, victimization levels due to the existing armed conflict, resulting in deaths, disappearances, and the flight of family members to foreign countries, have not changed since 2004. While acts of violence attributed to guerrilla and paramilitary forces were less frequent, those committed by unidentified actors apparently have increased. There is also a general perception among Colombian citizens that the protection of human rights has deteriorated since 2005.
“Despite President Alvaro Uribe’s emphasis on safety, citizen perception of the lack of personal safety has not decreased in the last three years,” writes the report’s author, Juan Carlos Rodríguez-Raga of the Universidad de los Andes.
The study is based on a poll carried out among 1,491 adults. It is part of a series of surveys by LAPOP’s AmericasBarometer, an effort to measure democratic values and behaviors in the Americas using national probability samples of voting-age adults.
This latest round of polls covers 21 countries in the Western Hemisphere with the support of United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations Development Program and the Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt University.
Colombia clearly shows improvements in its level of corruption victimization, though corruption perception is still high. In 2006, the data showed fewer cases of Colombians reporting that public officials had solicited bribes from them than it did in 2005 and 2004. In addition, bribes in the health and public education system appeared to drop by almost half. Despite this, the perception that corruption is widespread has actually increased since 2005.
While Colombian political parties show poor levels of citizen confidence, the Catholic Church enjoys broad support. Citizen participation in community groups and organizations is low. This is likely influenced by the relatively high levels of fear about participating in public activities. In Colombia, where political violence is an issue, women and less educated citizens show higher levels of fear to participate than men and more educated people.
The publication and data are free to the public and can be obtained at www.lapopsurveys.org.
LAPOP is part of the Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt University, an institute devoted to collaborative, interdisciplinary research for the benefit of the Americas. LAPOP was founded in the 1970s by Mitchell A. Seligson, a fellow of the Center for the Americas and Centennial Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt, to conduct scientific surveys of Latin American citizens about their opinions and behaviors related to building and strengthening democracies.
For more information, click on the Center for the Americas website at www.vanderbilt.edu/americas or call 615-343-2818.
Media Contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens, 615-322-NEWS
annmarieowens@vanderbilt.edu