Who Punishes Antiestablishment Leaders? A Multilevel Analysis of Leaders Evaluations.

Political disaffection has often been cited as a key driver behind the rise of anti-elite leaders and the erosion of democracy. However, few studies have sought to distinguish between different types of political disaffection and how they shape citizens’ tolerance or punishment of anti-establishment rhetoric. Building on Torcal and Montero’s (2006) conceptualization, this article proposes four profiles of politically disaffected citizens: civic (trustful and politically engaged), compliant (trusting but disengaged), critical (distrustful of institutions but politically engaged), and disaffected (both distrustful and disengaged). Triangulating data from Latinobarómetro to measure political disaffection and leader evaluations with expert survey data capturing anti-elite rhetoric, we use Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to test the empirical validity of this typology and multilevel modeling to examine its association with support for anti-establishment leaders. The findings reveal that, in Latin America, political disaffection can be modeled through the proposed typology and that, contrary to Norris (1999, 2011), critical and disaffected citizens are more tolerant of anti-establishment rhetoric. In contrast, civic and compliant citizens are more likely to punish anti-establishment leaders – especially civic citizens when leaders are ideologically distant. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of institutional trust in resisting anti-establishment rhetoric and, ultimately, in sustaining democratic resilience.