The Electoral Impact of the UK 2009 MPs' Expenses Scandal

Abstract

The 2009 scandal over British MPs' expenses claims unleashed a powerful and highly vocal tide of public anger with elected politicians. It claimed some political careers: some of the MPs most heavily implicated in the scandal decided (or were forced) to stand down at the 2010 election rather than face the voters' wrath. Others struggled to deal with the consequences and the party leaderships felt they had to be seen to be responsive to public outrage. But the scandal hit a year before the UK general election, a contest dominated by anxieties over a deep global recession, looming public sector cuts and antipathies towards a deeply unpopular prime minister. In this environment, no‐one could be sure of the scandal's wider electoral fallout. Would the departure of the most notably guilty MPs assuage public anger, or would the effects be more extensive, taking in either implicated MPs seeking re‐election, or even all MPs standing again, irrespective of their involvement? The article examines the scandal's electoral implications.

Institutional checks and corruption: The effect of formal agenda access on governance

“…Tavits (2007) explains that the principle-agent relationship is tightened in the presence of clear lines of responsibility for enacting anti-corruption policies (see also Gerring & Thacker 2004). Evidence from the 2009 MPs' expenses scandal in the United Kingdom suggests, however, that even in the best of circumstances (and for reasons that are both unclear and beyond the scope of this article) voters might not punish questionable behaviour (Pattie & Johnston 2012;Vivyan et al 2012).…”

Access to information in the UK and India

“…However, the exact consequences of FOI on voters and public perceptions may be more nuanced. Despite claims of an "expenses election", the scandal appeared to have little impact on voting patterns in the subsequent 2010 General Election (Pattie and Johnston 2012). One interesting result was a subsequent "ripple" of accountability, as FOI was used to look into the expenses of local government councillors, the police and even academics.…”

Differential Turnout Decline in Norway and Sweden: A Generation of Apathy or Alienation?

“…This view has much of its contemporary academic roots in Robert Putnam's (2000) © 2019 The Authors. Scandinavian Political Studies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Nordic Political Science Association seminal work on declining social capital and has received support in several studies that find or cite growing apathy at the heart of modern democracy (Pirie & Worcester 1998;Park 2000;Pattie & Johnston 2012;Phelps 2012;Flinders 2012a;Wattenberg 2012;Albacete 2014). Furthermore, authors on both sides of this debate have claimed that these developments are behind turnout decline (e.g., Putnam 2000;Smith 2009, 3-4;Flinders 2012a, 1;Dalton 2016, 13).…”