Voters And Corrupt Politicians 1

If voters dislike corruption, why does it exist amongst politicians, even in societies characterized by strong institutions and high accountability?

 A possible, understudied reason for this phenomenon is that, sometimes, voters might knowingly vote for corrupt politicians and understanding this potential cause of corruption is important since corruption is thought to be a significant barrier to economic growth and democratization, these are central concerns for social scientists (Mauro 1995; Holmberg, Rothstein and Nasiritousi 2009) and policy makers.

 

Understanding the electoral roots of corruption should also help policy makers design suitable 

remedies for the problem.

However, Sofia Breitenstein a PHD holder from University Of Barcelona said "Why do voters choose corrupt politicians?"

While, public citizens express their clear rejection of corruption and their intentions not to support corrupt politicians, empirical evidence shows that voters around the world only mildly punish corrupt politicians. 

From a theoretical point of view it is puzzling how corrupt governments survive in democratic societies, as one of the main functions of free elections and a fundamental to every democracy to hold governments accountable. 

According to both the sanctioning and the selecting model of voting behavior, it is perplexing why an informed and free citizen would vote for a corrupt incumbent. 

Corruption is a clear signal of a harmful government that will not act in the voters’ best interests, and a distinct motive to sanction the ruling government.

In her study, she use multidimensional survey experiment to assess under what circumstances voters decide to choose a crooked politician.

The results of this study provide clear-cut evidence that, even when obtaining highly credible information, citizens might choose to overlook corruption if they like other characteristics of the candidate. 

Respondents care about corruption but in line with previous findings, partisanship clearly leads voters to condone corruption. Co-partisanship strongly moderates the negative effect corruption has on the likelihood of voting for a politician. 

Furthermore, partisanship is together with corruption which attribute the most and determines the vote. The economic performance of a politician can also condition whether or not a voter chooses a corrupt politician, however the results for this moderating effect are softer and less robust.

Therefore, Democratic elections are supposed to prevent corrupt politicians from winning office. In practice, however, corrupt politicians frequently get elected for public office in mass elections. 

In this article, we examine how voters respond to corruption allegations against political candidates and how voter responses may be attenuated by patronage and partisanship. 

We test these explanations through a survey experiment in Africa—a country where political corruption is a recurrent issue. We find that voters express strong willingness to punish corrupt candidates. 

However, voters are more lenient toward corrupt politicians when they are offered work or jobs in return for their vote as part of a clientelist exchange. This effect is amplified for people living in economic hardship. 

These findings suggest that some types of clientelism serve to reproduce corruption—particularly when poverty is rife—and have important implications for the fight against corruption.

SOFIA BREITENSTEIN, PHD CANDIDATE AT THE UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA DE BARCELONA (UAB) POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT.

Voters And Corrupt Politicians 1 is the attitudes of our citizens and the ways they think to choose leaders, corrupt or not.

Voters And Corrupt Politicians 2 coming out soon and it's base on Nigeria phenomenon.