Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-htx7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-09T15:57:10.448Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rooting Out Corruption or Rooting for Corruption? The Heterogeneous Electoral Consequences of Scandals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

Pablo Fernández-Vázquez ,
Pablo Barberá  and
Gonzalo Rivero
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Corruption scandals have been found to have significant but mild electoral effects in the comparative literature (Golden 2006). However, most studies have assumed that voters punish all kinds of illegal practices. This article challenges this assumption by distinguishing between two types of corruption, according to the type of welfare consequences they have for the constituency. This hypothesis is tested using data from the 2011 Spanish local elections. We exploit the abundance of corruption allegations associated with the Spanish housing boom, which generated income gains for a wide segment of the electorate in the short term. We find that voters ignore corruption when there are side benefits to it, and that punishment is only administered in those cases in which they do not receive compensation.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 379 - 397
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Pablo Fernández-Vázquez, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, PMB 505, Nashville TN 37203 (pablo.fernandez@vanderbilt.edu). Pablo Barberá, Moore-Sloan Data Science Fellow, Center for Data Science, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003 (pablo.barbera@nyu.edu). Gonzalo Rivero, Statistical Scientist, YouGov, 285 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 200, 94301 Palo Alto, California (gonzalo.rivero@yougov.com). The authors would like to thank Franziska Keller, Spyros Kosmidis, Bernard Manin, Adam Przeworski, Liz Zechmeister and four anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and discussions. Previous versions of this paper were presented at Universidad Diego Portales and the annual meetings of EPSA (2012) and IPSA (2012). The authors also acknowledge generous support by the “La Caixa” Fellowship Program. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2015.8

References

Anduiza, Eva, Gallego, Aina, and Muñoz, Jordi. 2013. ‘Turning a Blind Eye: Experimental Evidence of Partisan Bias in Attitudes Towards Corruption’. Comparative Political Studies, 46(12): 1664–1692.Google Scholar
Barreiro, Belén, and Sánchez-Cuenca, Ignacio. 2000. ‘Las Consecuencias Electorales De La Corrupción’. Historia y política: Ideas, procesos y movimientos sociales 4:69–92.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert. 1973. ‘The Control of Politicians: An Economic Model’. Public Choice 14(1):19–42.Google Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Burgess, Robin. 2002. ‘The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4):1415–1451.Google Scholar
Brollo, Fernanda. 2008. Who is Punishing Corrupt Politicians: Voters or the Central Government? Evidence from the Brazilian Anti-Corruption Program. Boston: Boston University, Department of Economics.Google Scholar
Brollo, Fernanda, Nannicini, Tomasso, Perotti, Roberto, and Tabellini, Guido. 2013. ‘The Political Resource Curse’. American Economic Review 103(5):1759–1796.Google Scholar
Cabrera, Miguel. 2011. ‘Una trama para saquear las arcas públicas de El Ejido’, 1 May. Available at http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/04/27/andalucia/1303888002.html, accessed 1 June 2013.Google Scholar
Chang, Eric, Golden, Miriam, and Hill, Seth. 2010. ‘Legislative Malfeasance and Political Accountability’. World Politics 62(2):177–220.Google Scholar
Chong, Alberto, De La O, Ana, Karlan, Dean, and Wantchekon, Leonard. 2015. ‘Does Corruption Information Inspire the Fight or Quash the Hope? A Field Experiment in Mexico on Voter Turnout, Choice, and Party Identification’. The Journal of Politics 77(1):55–71.Google Scholar
Costas-Pérez, Elena, Solé-Ollé, Albert, and Sorribas-Navarro, Pilas. 2012. ‘Corruption Scandals, Voter Information, and Accountability’. European Journal of Political Economy 28(4):469–484.Google Scholar
Cuevas, Oscar. 2010. ‘Citan como imputado al alcalde de Pastrana, por presunta prevaricación’ 9 May. Available at http://www.abc.es/20100509/nacional-castilla-mancha-toledo/citan-como-imputado-alcalde-201005091328.html, accessed 1 June 2013.Google Scholar
Eggers, Andrew, and Fisher, Alexander. 2011. ‘Electoral Accountability and the UK Parliamentary Expenses Scandal: Did Voters Punish Corrupt MPs’? Political Science and Political Economy Working Paper No. 8/11, London, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James. 1999. ‘Electoral Accountability and the Control of Politicians: Selecting Good Types Versus Sanctioning Poor Performance’. Democracy, Accountability, and Representation 55:61.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1986. ‘Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control’. Public Choice 50(1):5–25.Google Scholar
Ferraz, Claudio, and Finan, Frederico. 2008. ‘Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil’s Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 123(2):703–745.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1978. ‘Economic Retrospective Voting in American National Elections: A Microanalysis’. American Journal of Political Science 22(2):426–443.Google Scholar
Fundación Alternativas. 2008. Informe sobre la democracia en España, 2008. La estrategia de la crispación. Derrota, pero no fracaso. Madrid: Fundación Alternativas.Google Scholar
Golden, Miriam. 2006. ‘Some Puzzles of Political Corruption in Modern Advanced Democracies. Unpublished manuscript, Annual Meetings of the Japan Political Science Association, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Gary, and Dimock, Michael. 1994. ‘Checking Out: The Effects of Bank Overdrafts on the 1992 House Elections’. American Journal of Political Science 38(3):601–624.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Fernando. 2007. ‘Luces y sombras en el control de la corrupción: las elecciones municipals del 27 de mayo de 2007’. Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas 6(2):43–76.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Fernando.. 2009. ‘Building Boom and Political Corruption in Spain’. South European Society and Politics 14(3):255–272.Google Scholar
Klasnja, Marko, Tucker, Josua, and Deegan-Krause, Kevin. 2012. ‘Pocketbook vs. Sociotropic Corruption Voting’, British Journal of Political Science, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0007123414000088.Google Scholar
Krause, Stefan, and Méndez, Fabio. 2009. ‘Corruption and Elections: An Empirical Study for a Crosssection of Countries’. Economics & Politics 21(2):179–200.Google Scholar
Londregan, John, and Guzman, Eugenio. 2013. ‘Electoral Responses to Corruption in Chile’. Paper presented at the 2013 European Political Science Association Conference, Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Mauro, Paolo. 1995. ‘Corruption and Growth’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 110(3):681–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montero, José Ramón, Barberá, Pablo, Gómez, Raúl, Mayoral, Juan, and Riera, Pedro. 2011. ‘Las elecciones municipals en España: más allá del modelo de las elecciones de segundo orden?’, CIS Research Report. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.Google Scholar
Muñoz, Jordi, Anduiza, Eva, and Gallego, Aina. 2012. ‘Why Do Voters Forgive Corrupt Politicians? Cynicism, Noise and Implicit Exchange’. Paper presented at the 2012 International Political Science Association Conference. Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
Pande, Rohini. 2011. ‘Can Informed Voters Enforce Better Governance? Experiments in Low-Income Democracies’. Annual Review of Economics 3(1):215–237.Google Scholar
Peters, John, and Welch, Susan. 1980. ‘The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections’. The American Political Science Review 74(3):697–708.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan, and Manin, Bernard. 1999. Democracy, Accountability, and Representation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reed, Steven. 1996. ‘Political Corruption in Japan’. International Social Science Journal 48(149):395–405.Google Scholar
Rivero, Gonzalo, and Fernández-Vázquez, Pablo. 2010. ‘Electoral Consequences of Local Corruption, 2003–2007’. Estudios de Progreso 59:1–51.Google Scholar
Rundquist, Barry, Strom, Gerald, and Peters, John. 1977. ‘Corrupt Politicians and Their Electoral Support: Some Experimental Observations’. The American Political Science Review 71(3):954–963.Google Scholar
Skidmore, Thomas. 1967. Politics in Brazil: An Experiment in Democracy 1930–1964. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, Donald. 1963. ‘Spatial Models of Party Competition’. The American Political Science Review 57(2):368–377.Google Scholar
Villoria, Manuel, and Jiménez, Fernando. 2012. ‘La corrupción en españa (2004–2010): Datos, percepción y efectos’. Reis: Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas 138:109–134.Google Scholar
Vivyan, Nick, Wagner, Markus, and Tarlov, Jessica. 2012. ‘Representative misconduct, voter perceptions and accountability: Evidence from the 2009 House of Common’s Expenses Scandal’. Electoral Studies 31(4):750–763.Google Scholar
Weitz-Shapiro, Rebecca, and Winters, Matthew. 2013. ‘Lacking Information or Condoning Corruption: When do Voters Support Corrupt Politicians?’. Comparative Politics 45(4):418–436.Google Scholar
Welch, Susan, and Hibbing, John. 1997. ‘The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections, 1982–1990’. The Journal of Politics 59(1):226–239.Google Scholar
Zechmeister, Elizabeth J., and Zizumbo-Colunga, Daniel. 2013. ‘The Varying Political Toll of Concerns About Corruption in Good Versus Bad Economic Times’. Comparative Political Studies 46(10):1190–1218.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Fernandez-Vazquez et al Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/26823
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Fernández-Vázquez supplementary material

Appendix

Download Fernández-Vázquez supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 88.8 KB