We all know political scandal when we see it – unethical behavior by government officials warps policy and hurts the public. From bribes to kickbacks, corruption corrodes trust in politicians and degrades the public good. The USC Sol Price School of Public Policy is home to experts who study the issue, examining everything from who is at fault and why it happens, to how and when scandals work and don’t.
Political scientists define a political scandal as the violation of rules and procedures governing the exercise of power and the misuse of power for personal or party gain. However, despite the prevalence of such scandals in the United States and elsewhere, few studies examine the negative consequences of political misbehavior on voters or how these impacts vary across time and institutions. In this article, we use experiments to explore the influence of individual motivations on how voters react to political scandal. We find that while partisanship influences how voters perceive the misconduct behind a scandal, the impact can be limited to specific contexts. For example, in our study of the attempt to give preferential treatment to SNC-Lavalin in Canada, we show that partisans supporting a genuine centrist party are not as sensitive to these concerns as other partisan groups.
Moreover, we also find that people who benefit from a politician’s policies can also reduce their sensitivity to scandals. This is because they are more likely to remember that the politician was caught engaging in improper behavior, but less likely to believe that the scandal provides a reliable signal of misbehavior or to expect that the accused will resign from office as a result.
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