The Emergence of Anti-Establishment Attitudes and Protest Behavior 

Discontent with established political parties has become a global phenomenon, affecting both developed and developing democracies. Argentina and Chile exemplify this trend, with a surge in anti-establishment views, mass protests, and outsider victories. This is striking given that mainstream coalitions in both countries were ideologically distinct. Why, then, do voters abandon traditional parties—even when clear ideological alternatives exist? 

My dissertation explores this question by focusing on the Southern Cone and employing a mixed-methods approach that combines survey experiments, text-as-data analysis of campaign speeches, semi-structured interviews, and case studies. I argue that repeated and consecutive governance failures by different parties—what I term convergence in poor performance—largely drives anti-establishment attitudes and protest behavior. These failures include corruption, economic mismanagement, and inadequate public service provision. When voters confront multiple alternatives that have previously governed and disappointed, they are more likely to express discontent through protests, invalid ballots, or outsider support. This perspective introduces a novel framework centered on cumulative retrospective evaluations, moving beyond existing research centered on incumbent punishment or ideological convergence. 

I also analyze the rhetorical strategies outsiders use to gain support. I develop an original typology of anti-establishment discourse, distinguishing between valence-based appeals—highlighting repeated governance failures—and ideological critiques that depict all mainstream parties as equally neoliberal or statist. I show that in contexts of weak partisan attachments and widespread underperformance, valence-based messages mobilize the entire electorate, while ideological ones polarize, activating voters along existing ideological lines. By distinguishing among anti-establishment appeals—often treated as homogeneous in the literature—and theorizing their distinct political effects, I contribute to research on populism.

Lautaro Cella, Ipek Çinar, Susan Stokes, and Andres Uribe (2025). Building Tolerance for Backsliding by Trash-Talking Democracy: Theory and Evidence from Mexico. Comparative Political Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140251328024

Punishing the Political Establishment When Everyone Fails: Outsider Support and Invalid Voting in Argentina and Chile

What Drives Support for Outsiders? Valence and Ideological Anti-Establishment Appeals
in Argentina

Do Voters Punish Denialism? Rewritten Narratives and Voter Responses in Chile and Argentina (with Susan Stokes)

Support for Pro-Indigenous Policies Amid Conflict in Chile (with Michael Albertus)

Do LGBT Candidates Cause Backlash? The Electoral Effect of Candidate Sexual Orientation in Latin America (with Rodrigo Castro Cornejo)

Chile’s New Voting Rules May Have Derailed the New Constitution, The Washington Post: Monkey Cage, September 16, 2022 (with Eli Rau).

Comparative Rules of Procedures in South America’s Chambers of Deputies, Working Paper N° 117, CIPPEC, 2019 (with Carolina Tchintian and Lara Goyburu)

The Gender Parity Law in Buenos Aires’ Local Governments, Policy Document N° 204, CIPPEC, 2018 (with Mariana Caminotti and Maria Page)

Congress’ Modernization and the Chamber of Deputies’ Rules of Procedures, Policy Document N° 200, CIPPEC, 2018 (with Alejandro Bonvecchi and Nicolas Cherny)