The Impact of Political Scandals on Popularity and Votes

Jean-Dominique Lafay and Marie Servais
Additional contact information
Jean-Dominique Lafay: Laboratoire D'Economic Publique (LAEP), Maison des Sciences Economques, Paris, France
Marie Servais: Laboratoire D'Economic Publique (LAEP), Maison des Sciences Economques, Paris, France

Homo Oeconomicus, 2002, vol. 19, 153-170

Abstract: Many political scandals have erupted in France since the middle of the 80s. Though their degree of seriousness may vary considerably, their high number in itself reveals the existence of a major phenomenon. The first, theoretical section analyzes the question of the equilibrium level of "underground government" in a country, the reasons why a scandal breaks, its dynamics, and the reactions of public opinion and of the electorate to it. The second, empirical section presents statistical measures of the influence of political scandals on the popularity of the different parties and individual politicians, and the vote for them. The empirical analysis uses two types of data: (a) the result of local elections in France 1995, and (b) the number of lines published about the different scandals in a well-known and influential French newspaper (Le Monde). Scandals appear to have a very significant influence, both on the electoral results of the individually concerned politicians, and on the general popularity of the involved parties.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hom:homoec:v:19:y:2002:p:153-170

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Homo Oeconomicus from Institute of SocioEconomics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().