Can Corruption Erode Confidence in Political Institutions Among European Countries? Comparing the Effects of Different Measures of Perceived Corruption

Legal Corruption and Dissatisfaction with Democracy in the European Union

“…The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure confirmed sample adequacy (KMO = 0.645) for the proposed one-scale reduction, Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant at a 1% level, and Kaiser eigenvalue criterion was obeyed (explaining 68.16% of the variance in a single factor). 8 Sociographic individual-level variables and political determinants (at micro and macro levels) are usually used in studies about DwD and corruption as controls (Dahlberg et al 2015;Pellegata and Memoli 2016;Quaranta and Martini 2017;Stockemer and Sundström 2013;Wagner et al 2009). Macroeconomic factors, albeit typically used in DwD studies, serve to determine in which circumstances economic outcomes exert influence on political support at the aggregate level.…”

“…Special attention must be given to a few studies that tried to empirically link corruption and citizens' growing dissatisfaction with the way democracy works. In the Spanish case, Villoria et al (2012, p. 92) found that ''perceptions of corruption are associated with lower levels of satisfaction with democracy'', while other scholars related the same effects when comparing countries worldwide (Anderson and Tverdova 2003;Dahlberg et al 2015;Memoli and Pellegata 2013;Mishler and Rose 2001) or at the European level (see Pellegata and Memoli 2016;Stockemer and Sundström 2013;Wagner et al 2009). In the opposite direction, Quaranta and Martini found that corruption had little bearing on public support for democracy in Southern Europe.…”

“…While some concurrent approaches-focusing on individual-level sociographics/personal characteristics 5 and/or macroeconomic conditions (see Friedrichsen and Zahn 2010; Van Erkel and Van Der Meer 2016)-usually offer reasonable explanations for regime dissatisfaction, they underestimate political aspects 6 and ignore the prevalence of 5 This approach is adopted by the vast majority of studies in the area in a complementary perspective. Studies about the evaluations of DwD and corruption in Europe use individual social characteristics recurrently (Magalhães 2014(Magalhães , 2016Pellegata and Memoli 2016;Quaranta and Martini 2017). 6 Political attitudes (such as political participation, representation, quality of government, and corruption) sometimes appear as explanatory variables of DwD, influenced by macroeconomic determinants or microlevel sociographics (see for e.g.…”

“…Memoli and Pellegata 2013;Mishler and Rose 2001;Pellegata and Memoli 2016;Stockemer and Sundström 2013;Wagner et al 2009) describe corruption as one of the possible determinants of citizens' dissatisfaction with the way democracy works? The answer is they could not.…”

Sand or grease? Corruption-institutional trust nexus in post-Soviet countries

“…There is a considerable gap in the levels of institutional trust found in established democracies and transitional countries (Helliwell, Huang, & Wang, 2014;Kubbe, 2014;Pellegata & Memoli, 2016). Compared to established democracies, the FSU countries experience considerably lower levels of trust.…”