Says Who? An Experiment on Allegations of Corruption and Credibility of Sources

Abstract

To hold politicians accountable for corrupt practices, voters must rely on reports from third parties and view these accusation sources as credible. We conducted a survey experiment varying sources for corruption accusations and measuring citizens’ evaluations of political candidates in Colombia. Consistent with prior surveys, we find that respondents trust newspapers more than the judiciary or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Corruption accusations coming from the leading national newspaper drive down levels of support and trust for corrupt politicians relative to identical accusations made against identical candidates by NGOs and the judiciary. Our results also indicate that people with lower levels of education were more responsive than more educated individuals to corruption accusations coming from newspapers when compared to those coming from the judiciary or an NGO. Perceptions of candidate competence did not move with perceived trustworthiness.

Priors rule: When do Malfeasance Revelations Help or Hurt Incumbent Parties?

“…Civic education or a critical media may be required to help voters understand what good performance entails (e.g. Adida et al 2017;Botero et al 2015;Gottlieb 2016). Higher-quality candidates should also be encouraged to stand for office; some evidence suggests that increased wages can help (Caselli and Morelli 2004;Ferraz and Finan 2011).…”

Norms, Corruption, and Voting for Berlusconi

“…Clientelism is the exchange of material goods for political support, while private enrichment is the abuse of public office to increase one's personal wealth (Stokes ). Botero and others () point out that clientelism, while a misuse of state resources, does not enrich the politician indirectly. The resources are generally used to build support rather than line the pockets of the politician, per se .…”

Horizontal But Not Vertical: Accountability Institutions and Electoral Sanctioning in Northeast Brazil

“…In the context of Brazilians' staunch opposition to corruption, survey experiments presenting voters with hypothetical vignettes about a corrupt mayor running for reelection have found large and statistically significant electoral punishment effects, of much greater magnitude than similar studies in Colombia, Moldova, Peru, and Sweden (Avenburg 2016;Botero et al 2015;Klašnja and Tucker 2013;Vera Rojas 2017;Weitz-Shapiro and Winters 2017;Weitz-Shapiro 2013, 2016). In our own survey, we were able to replicate these large negative effects when presenting our treatment information about the rejection of accounts in the context of a hypothetical vignette (Boas, Hidalgo, and Melo 2017).…”