Political ideology in three Latin American countries and the United States

In this dissertation I argue that citizens use ideology as an heuristic tool that allows them to compensate for their lack of information about complex political issues. In this regard, I intend to verify empirically a hierarchical model of ideology through the examination of two ideological orientations that have been used to explain the political cleavage of industrial and post-industrial societies: the left-right and the materialist-postmaterialist dimensions. The study is conducted in four countries.