Judging politicians: The role of political attentiveness in shaping how people evaluate the ethical behaviour of their leaders

Birch, Sarah; Allen, Nicholas

doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12066

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Experimental methods are becoming increasingly popular in research examining candidate evaluations (Birch and Allen, 2011; Druckman et al , 2006; Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993; Rosenberg and McCafferty, 1987; Sanbonmatsu, 2002). They allow us to separate out confounding effects much more neatly than is possible using ordinary survey methods (Mutz, 2011).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment

2013

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There has been extensive research into the extent to which voters utilise short cuts based on gender and race stereotypes when evaluating candidates, but relatively little is known about how they respond to other background characteristics.We compare the impact of candidates' sex, religion, age, education, occupation and location/residence through a survey experiment in which respondents rate two candidates based on short biographies. We find small differences in the ratings of candidates in response to sex, religion, age and education cues but more sizeable effects are apparent for the candidate's occupation and place of residence. Even once we introduce a control for political party into our experimental scenarios the effect of candidate's place of residence continues to have a sizeable impact on candidate evaluations. Our research suggests that students of electoral behaviour should pay attention to a wider range of candidate cues. Keywords: candidate evaluations; candidate traits; survey experimentsWe know relatively little about what socio-demographic characteristics voters value in election candidates -and the extent to which short cuts based on stereotypes matter when it comes to the way candidates are viewed by voters.The literature on candidate effects is large, but it is also partial and geographically skewed. There is a voluminous and sophisticated literature looking at some types of candidate characteristic, of which by far the most common are biological sex and race. But other characteristics are much less studied, and the majority of the literature draws on data from one country, the United States.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment

2013

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“…In ‘real world’ elections, many voters will not know anything about the wealth of their candidates (and what they think they know may not be correct); in addition they may not have a choice between candidates with different levels of wealth. We therefore utilised a survey experiment, a technique becoming increasingly popular in research examining candidate evaluations (Rosenberg and McCafferty 1987; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993; McDermot 1998; Sanbonmatsu 2002; Birch and Allen 2011). They allow us to separate out confounding effects much more neatly than is possible using ordinary survey methods (Mutz 2011), and whereas some observable candidate characteristics—such as biological sex—can be relatively easily coded up, others are much more difficult to code definitively.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rich Man, Poor Man, Politician Man: Wealth Effects in a Candidate Biography Survey Experiment

Campbell¹,

Cowley²

2013

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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We show that voters are sensitive to the relative wealth of election candidates. • As candidates' earnings increase, so their popularity declines. • Wealth is an especial negative for women, for working class respondents and for Labour and Lib Dem respondents. • Conservative respondents are less put off by wealthy candidates, although they draw a sharper distinction between the source of income than others.This article reports the findings from an Internet survey experiment designed to investigate the British public's reactions to wealthy (or not so wealthy) candidates. We applied two experimental manipulations, one to wealth and the other to occupation. We varied occupation and the amount that the candidates earned each year. We found that voters preferred self-made businessmen to financiers, but that regardless of occupation they reacted negatively to financial success. We discovered heterogeneity in responses, with women, working class and Labour and Lib Dem respondents being especially hostile to increases in income. Conservative respondents were less put off by wealthy candidates, although they drew a sharper distinction between the source of income than did others. The experiments provide support for the identity politics claim that voters want a representative who is 'like them'; and suggest that political scientists should pay more attention to the representation of wealth and social class.

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“…For any democratic political system, trustworthy politicians are of vital importance, as negative sentiments towards the politicians will over time have negative spill‐over effects on how the political institutions and the general system of governance is being evaluated (Easton 1965; but see Maier 2011). Likewise, since MPs function as the face of a system of governance, citizens expect that these politicians act in the general interest and according to the highest legal, social and moral standards (Birch & Allen 2015; Rose & Wessels 2019). While these standards vary to some degree across contexts and cultures (Pollack et al 2018; Rose & Wessels 2019), politicians involved in scandals are nevertheless judged more harshly than other individuals are in the same society (Funk 1996; Carlson et al 2000; Doherty et al 2011; McDermott et al 2015).…”

Section: Scandals and Political Trust: Key Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study employs two survey‐experiments to explore how involvement in a neo‐populist political scandal, in comparison to other types of scandals and under varying circumstances, affects the trustworthiness of Members of Parliament (MPs) generally and in relation to the party affiliation of the MP. In general terms, we ask whether neo‐populist scandals are so‐to‐speak less adverse for trust than other typical scandal types (e.g., Birch & Allen 2015) such as financial and sex scandals. Additionally, we further explore whether neo‐populist scandals are less severe for RPP politicians than other politicians and the potential reasons thereof.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lowered Expectations and Shifting Standards? – Two Survey Experiments exploring Neo‐populist Political Scandals and the Perceived Trustworthiness of Politicians

Karv

Strandberg

2021

Scand Pol Stud

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The recent wave of electoral success for right‐wing populists has coincided with an increase in political scandals as well as a new, neo‐populist type, of scandals. Thus, it has been argued that the public might have become increasingly numb to scandals and that scandalous behaviour by populist politicians is often neglected as part of their ‘typical’ behavior. In this article, we explore how involvement in neo‐populist scandals affects the public's trust in individual politicians and whether this effect is moderated by the politician's party affiliation – both populist and non‐populist – and party preferences of citizens judging a scandal. We also compare the effects with two other types of traditional scandals, involving financial misconduct or an extra‐marital affair. Two factorial vignette survey experiments (N = 1,000 and 1,577) were carried out in 2017 and 2019 to explore whether and how neo‐populist scandals affect trust in politicians under varying circumstances. The key findings are that neo‐populist scandals clearly have negative effects on trust for a scandalous politician but the judgement of scandals are subject to strong partisanship effects. Thus, supporters of a populist party do not see a scandalous behaviour by a populist politician as harmful for their trust in that politician. This effect is not evident among supporters of a traditional party when ‘their’ politician is involved in a scandal. Populist supporters also tend not to see scandals in general as especially harmful to their trust in politicians, regardless of type of scandal nor affiliation of a scandalous politician.

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Judging politicians: The role of political attentiveness in shaping how people evaluate the ethical behaviour of their leaders

Cited by 10 publications

References 57 publications

What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment

What Voters Want: Reactions to Candidate Characteristics in a Survey Experiment

Rich Man, Poor Man, Politician Man: Wealth Effects in a Candidate Biography Survey Experiment

Lowered Expectations and Shifting Standards? – Two Survey Experiments exploring Neo‐populist Political Scandals and the Perceived Trustworthiness of Politicians

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