The electoral consequences of corruption and integrity scandals: The case of Dutch local elections

Harm Rienks
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Harm Rienks: University of Groningen and COELO

Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS from Condorcet Center for political Economy

Abstract: Corruption scandals reveal to voters that a politician is not who he publicly is presenting to be and also reveals information about mal-performance. This paper investigates whether voters mainly respond to the first cue, as predicted by theories modeling elections as a type-selection device, or rather to the second cue, as predicted by theories modeling elections as an accountability device. For this a unique panel dataset is used on corruption and integrity scandals in Dutch local elections in the period 2006-2018. It finds that Dutch voters severely punish parties whose candidates have been involved in corruption scandals. An average sized party loses on average 11 percentage points of their voters compared to similar parties whose candidates were not involved in a corruption scandal. This paper also shows that voters punish integrity violation less directly related to in-office performance, such as misconduct in private time, much more mildly. These results support the accountability theory of voting rather than the type-selection theory. This also indicates that the corruption literature does not suffer from sub-set-bias and has been correct in treating corruption as being distinct from other integrity violations.

Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
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