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RETURN MIGRANTS AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN PUERTO RICO
Guest Speaker: Carlos Vargas Ramos

 
PUERTO RICO ENCOURAGES POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Poltical cultural theorists and psychology based behavioral models provide an alternate explanation of political behavior. These explanations rest on the causal relationship between the measures of psychological involvement in politics and modes of participation whereby holding higher levels of these attitudes tend to stimulate more political activities.

Thus, higher levels of trust in the political system, of perception of personal influence on the political process and of responsiveness from the political system, of civic mindedness out of knowledge about the political environment create a participant political culture which in turn leads to higher political participation and, ultimately, to strengthening the political system.

As with the socio-economic status approach, political cutural theories have tended to focus on the Puerto Rican population in the United States and, making a circular argument, argue that the low levels of political participation and corresponding low psychological involvement in politics may be the result of a subject political culture this migrant may have brought from the islnad with them.

But as I will show below, any cursory look at the political climate of Puerto Rico would demonstrate that far from having a system that promotes political passivity, Puerto Rico is a polity that promotes active involvement in the political process. Therefore, to understand the political behavior of Puerto Ricans in the United States, one needs to study and understand the political system, the political institutions in Puerto Rico and the extant patterns of political participation on the island to then be able to identify the factors that inhibit such levels of involvement in the United States.



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