Abstract

LACA AROCENA, Francisco Augusto, SANTANA AGUILAR, Heriberto, OCHOA MADRIGAL, Yunuen et al. Perceptions of socialwell-being, anomie, political interestand powerlessness in relation with attitudes towards democracy. liber., Jan./jun. 2011, vol.17, no.1, p.7-18. ISSN 1729-4827.

This empirical and transversal paper tests the hypothesis that perceived social well-being, anomie, political interest, and political powerlessness condition attitudes towards democracy. We adopted the Keyes' five-dimension model to measure social well-being and the Srole's (1956) psychosocial perspective for anomie. A sample of 568 legally adult subjects of different states of Mexico filled out a battery containing four questionnaires: Morales' Attitudes Towards Democracy Scale, Keyes' Social Well-being Scales, Srole Anomie Scale, an adaptation into Spanish language of The Powerlessness Scale, and one item of unique value for Political Interest taken from the 2006 European Social Survey. Correlations between social wellbeing, political interest and acceptance of democracy were positives. Results show that higher perception of anomie and political powerlessness indicates more rejection of democracy.

Keywords: Attitudes Towards Democracy; Anomie; Interest in Politics; Political Powerlessness; Social Well-being.