Two prevailing theories evaluate the link between political trust and citizen participation, but their perspectives differ greatly. On the one hand, the stealth democracy theory posits that trust in government is inversely related to citizen participation. Put another way, citizens only participate when they feel compelled to prevent corrupt politicians from embezzling the public. Individuals’ lack of trust in the government may push them to speak out in order to change the behavior of the authorities or replace them. Conversely, people who have confidence in the government see no reason to engage, as they trust those in power to do what is best for society. In sum, trust in government discourages citizen involvement (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002; Theiss-Morse and Hibbing, 2005; Lee and Schachter, 2019; Lavezzolo and Ramiro, 2018; Muhlberger, 2018). Deliberative theorists, on the other hand, believe that a trustworthy political system encourages citizens to participate in government processes. If people feel the political system is rigged or uncaring, they are less inclined to engage with it. Apathy stems from a lack of trust, while a responsive government prompts citizen participation (Lee and Schachter, 2019; Bächtiger et al., 2018; Neblo et al., 2010). Assessing which (if any) of the two theories most applies to Latin America and the Caribbean is not only an academic exercise but of policy relevance, given that most countries throughout the region display low levels of citizen participation.

While a growing body of research links citizen participation and accountability, few comparable empirical studies have investigated the relationship between citizen participation and trust. In one recent paper, Lee and Schachter (2019) investigate the relationship between trust in government and citizen participation in the United States using data from the World Values Survey. However, we did not find similar studies across developing countries in general and the LAC region in particular.<sup>2</sup> Hence, it is not possible to draw any conclusions about whether the above theories are borne out in the region from existing literature. At the global level, the main relationship investigated is between citizens’ trust in government and their willingness to obey laws and pay taxes. There is evidence, though, that weak trust in government can (including in developing-economy settings) erode the social contract and lead to citizens disengaging from the state (that is, citizens evade taxes, stop participating in elections, disobey laws, take justice on their own, among others; see Arizti et al. 2010; Kumagai and Iorio, 2020).

We contribute to the literature studying the relationship between trust in government—or political trust—and citizen participation in two ways. First, we develop a quantitative strategy that relies on the use of machine learning methods on micro-level data. Second, we focus the analysis across multiple countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region simultaneously using comparable data.<sup>3</sup> To be clear, we seek neither to construct a formal hypothesis testing nor develop a general theory of political participation. Rather, our study builds on the work of Lee and Schachter (2019) in

> 2 One exception is Wagle (2006), who uses a structural equation model to study political participation and civic engagement in Kathmandu, Nepal.

> 3 This comparative analysis does not undermine the need for case studies that provide further insights into specific contexts such as, for example, the sudden and dramatic increase in political trust in El Salvador or the effects on trust that Constitutional referendums have (as recently held in Chile), to mention a few examples. Nonetheless, the use of country fixed effects in our empirical analysis aims at controlling for those idiosyncratic factors in specific countries.

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