Between Democracy and Authoritarianism: Identity Profiles of People Who Trust the Judiciary in Latin America

Trust in the judiciary in Latin America is commonly read as an extension of general institutional trust and as a proxy for democratic health. This article argues instead that such confidence is internally heterogeneous. Using latent class analysis on 2023 Latinobarómetro data for seventeen countries ( N = 4274), the analysis identifies three profiles of judiciary trusters: dissatisfied authoritarians (43 per cent), satisfied government supporters (37 per cent), and critical institutionalists (20 per cent). The study treats this confidence as a thin evaluative measure, distinct from diffuse support or legitimacy, and projects the fitted model onto non-trusters for comparison. Openness to authoritarian rule does not distinguish the two groups, whereas satisfaction with democracy and rights-protective attitudes clearly do. On this basis, ambivalent judicial trust is defined as confidence that coexists with authoritarian dispositions, showing that aggregate trust can mask opposed value structures and should not be equated with democratic legitimacy.