Coups d’état, once a common end for democracies in the Americas, have declined sharply in recent years. This article investigates whether overall public support for coups is also in decline. Examining 21 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean from 2004 to 2014 helps to evaluate two alternative theses on democratization: Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán’s 2013 normative regime preferences theory, which inquires (but does not test) whether public opinion can signal to elites a reluctance or willingness to support a coup; and classic modernization theory (Inglehart 1988; Inglehart and Welzel 2005). We find a substantively meaningful effect of democratic attitudes on coup support and a weak effect for national wealth, from which we infer that evolving elite values and preferences are paralleled at the mass level and that together, those two trends play a stronger role in the consolidation of democratic regimes than does modernization.

中文翻译：

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支持美洲的政变：大众规范和民主化

政变曾经是美洲民主国家的共同目标，但近年来急剧下降。本文调查了公众对政变的总体支持是否也在下降。从 2004 年到 2014 年考察拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的 21 个国家有助于评估关于民主化的两个替代论点：Mainwaring 和 Pérez-Liñán 的 2013 年规范性政权偏好理论，该理论询问（但不测试）公众舆论是否可以向精英发出不情愿的信号或愿意支持政变；和经典的现代化理论（Inglehart 1988；Inglehart and Welzel 2005）。我们发现民主态度对政变支持有实质意义的影响，而对国家财富的影响微弱，从中我们推断，不断演变的精英价值观和偏好在大众层面是平行的，并且在一起，