The corrosive effect of corruption on trust in politicians : evidence from a natural experiment
Ares, Macarena (European University Institute)
Hernández, Enrique (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Fecha:	2017
Resumen:	Empirical studies do not provide a univocal answer about the effects of corruption on political attitudes and behaviour. Focusing on the relationship between corruption and political trust, in this article we explore whether real-world corruption scandals have a negative causal effect on trust in politicians; whether the impact of scandals decays over time; and whether corruption scandals have a weaker impact among the supporters of the party involved in the scandal. We address these questions through a natural experiment generated by the coincidence of the uncovering of a corruption scandal in Spain (the Bárcenas scandal) and the fieldwork of the European Social Survey. Given that the day at which survey interviews were conducted is as-if random, the uncovering of the scandal represents a unique opportunity to assess the causal effect of corruption on individuals' trust in politicians. The results indicate that: (i) the corruption scandal had a substantial negative effect on trust in politicians; (ii) the effect of the scandal was stronger in the days following its disclosure; (iii) the effect of the scandal was independent from individuals' partisan preferences.
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Corruption ; Natural experiment ; Trust in politicians ; Political support ; Scandals
Publicado en:	Research and Politics, Vol. 4 Núm. 2 (2017) , p. 1-8, ISSN 2053-1680

DOI: 10.1177/2053168017714185

8 p, 301.9 KB

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