Eppur si Muove. Social Mobility, Inequality, and Political Trust in Latin America

Abstract Despite extensive scholarship on the impact of inequality on political trust, empirical evidence on the role of social mobility in shaping confidence in institutions remains scarce. This article contributes to the literature on political trust by analyzing how perceived social mobility influences trust in institutions across 18 Latin American countries using nine waves of the Latinobarometer survey (2004–2020). Our findings suggest that higher levels of perceived social mobility are positively associated with political trust. However, this relationship is moderated by economic inequality. Random Effects Within-Between models (REWB) reveal two different effects. Respondents who live in countries with higher levels of economic inequality exhibit lower levels of political trust compared to those living in countries with lower levels of economic inequality, regardless of their social mobility backgrounds. However, as economic inequality increases within countries over time, the political trust gap between mobility groups widens rather than narrows. Our results highlight the importance of considering inequality when evaluating the attitudinal consequences of mobility in socially fragmented societies.