Crook!: The impact of perceived corruption on non-electoral forms of political behaviour

Abstract

Anti-corruption claims have been at the core of many mass mobilizations worldwide. However, the nexus between corruption and collective action is often overlooked. Bridging social movement and corruption studies, this article contends that believing in extensive corruption has a positive impact on non-electoral forms of participation. But this effect is uneven across the population and contingent upon the individual’s political interest and education. Using survey data from 34 countries, the analysis confirms that people prefer non-electoral mobilization when institutions are seemingly captured by vested interests. Moreover, perceiving endemic corruption is likely to breed indignation among lesser-educated and less politically interested citizens, who are keener to embrace anti-elitist arguments and ultimately engage in extra-institutional behaviour. These findings help refine theories of societal accountability, which generally assume that politically sophisticated citizens are the driving force in the fight against corruption.

Voting Women, Protesting Men: A Multilevel Analysis of Corruption, Gender, and Political Participation

“…Furthermore, these gender differences are more pronounced in countries with low corruption whereas the effect is marginal in societies where corruption is widespread, which is contrary to the expectation in Hypothesis 2. These findings are in line with those reported by Bazurli and Portos (2019), who also find that perceptions of endemic corruption are likely to engage citizens to take part in extra-institutional behavior such as boycotts and public protests.…”

“…We here examine a potential piece in this puzzle by examining how the links between corruption perceptions and political participation differ for men and women. Previous studies show that the effect of perceptions of corruption differ across social groups (Agerberg 2019;Bazurli and Portos 2019), but the differences between men and women remain unclear. It has been a cause for concern that previous research has found a consistent gender gap in political participation (Dalton 2017;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995).…”

“…However, scholars contend that it has the potential to mobilize citizens against corrupt power holders and that "the effects of corruption on voting are more complex than merely to say that malfeasance depresses voter turnout" (Kostadinova 2009, 707). This mobilizing potential may mainly concern political participation other than voting in elections (Bazurli and Portos 2019;Navot and Beeri 2017). This shows that much about how corruption affects the tendency to become politically active is still unknown.…”

Corruption and Political Participation: A Review

“…However, this research combines different forms of political participation, including taking part in a demonstration, signing a petition, participating in a boycott, attending a political meeting or rally, contacting a politician, contacting the media, and donating money or raising funds for a political cause in the past year, into one dependent variable. Corruption, according to this research, has a positive impact on non-electoral forms of political participation, but the effect is primarily among people with lower levels of education and less political interest who hold anti-elitist views and tend to engage in noninstitutionalized forms of political participation (Bazurli and Portos 2019).…”

Modeling corruption perception effects on non-electoral participation in Morocco (2018-2019)

“…Although participation in elections is one of the most critical aspects of political participation in developing countries, in recent years non-electoral participation, especially protest methods, has also been expanding to influence governments. In this regard, it seems that one of the vital factors contributing to the development of new ways of political participation in these countries is the citizens' corruption perceptions (Bazurli and Portos, 2019;Kostadinova and Kmetty, 2019;Beyerle, 2014;Landell-Mills, 2013). In other words, as Van de Walle and argue, many citizens participate in protest activities in reaction to perceptions of corruption in society.…”