The word “corruption” is used frequently in political discourse, but it’s not always clear what it means. Generally, it refers to the misuse of public power for private gain—taking bribes, allowing self-enrichment, or favoring friends or family (nepotism and cronyism)—while ignoring or undermining the interests of the public. Such actions warp policy, hurting voters who depend on the services of government such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure. They also degrade the quality of political discourse.
In the United States, readers can probably recall numerous scandals, whether at the federal, state, or local level. Yet political science research has been limited in its investigation of these events. Most studies treat them as mere misbehavior, without examining the political calculus that leads to such behavior. In new work, Wioletta Dziuda and William G. Howell of the University of Chicago show that political polarization drives political scandal and reduces the value of political discourse, to voters’ detriment.
They study local corruption incidents, which involve the publicization of alleged norm-violating behavior of municipal politicians in their free time (for example, extramarital affairs). The authors find that corruption episodes reveal to voters that some of the values that politicians pretend to have—honesty, trustworthiness, caring about voters, etc.—are insincere. As a result, voters punish parties whose politicians have corruption incidents, ceteris paribus. However, if the accused politician is part of the opposition party and vehemently denies accusations, they are likely to suffer only minor electoral penalties (if any at all). This is because voters perceive that parties are not driven by a desire to weed out misconduct but by narrow political interests.