The Varying Political Toll of Concerns About Corruption in Good Versus Bad Economic Times

Abstract

Under what conditions do citizens connect concerns about corruption to their evaluations of sitting executives? In contrast to conventional scholarship positing a direct, negative relationship between corruption and political support, we build on a small but suggestive body of research to argue that this relationship is conditional on economic context. We test this claim with national survey data collected in 19 presidential systems as part of the AmericasBarometer 2010 study. Using both fixed effects ordinary least squares and hierarchical linear regression analyses, we show that individuals facing bad (good) collective economic conditions apply a higher (lower) penalty to presidential approval for perceived political corruption. This result holds across both an individual-level indicator of national economic assessment and a regional economic measure; we further test, and find less substantial results for, the moderating influence of personal economic conditions on the political toll of corruption perceptions.

A critical assessment of the transformative power of EU reforms on reducing corruption in the Balkans

“…While not always an accurate gauge of actual corruption levels in a given setting, perceptions of corruption play a crucial role in the development of numerous international corruption measurement indices, which, in turn, can affect decisions of foreign assistance (Grigorescu 2006, 522). This view is also congruent with a recent study by Zechmeister andZizumbo-Colunga (2013, 1191), which suggests that people's perceptions and economic conditions play a key role in their assessment of and reaction to corruption in a country.…”

It's not only the economy, stupid! Good governance matters in elections

“…The ongoing debate is whether incumbents are punished for charges of corruption or not (Fackler and Lin, 1995;Hibbing and Welch, 1997;Peters and Welch, 1980;Manzetti and Wilson, 2007;Shabad and Slomczynski, 2011). Recently, scholars have claimed that corruption is relevant in elections only when economic performance is simultaneously under pressure (Zechmeister and Zizumbo-Colunga, 2013;Kla snja and Tucker, 2013). In the next section, I examine why incumbents are held accountable for changes in governance although they seem to escape punishment when there is high corruption.…”

“…3 Incumbents are punished for corruption or allegations of corruption only if they also underperform economically. Several theoretical arguments have been proposed to explain this conditionality: corruption is a second order concern behind the state of the economy (Kla snja and Tucker, 2013, 537), voters trade off perceived political honesty for economic prosperity (Zechmeister andZizumbo-Colunga, 2013, 1195), or economic performance filters the information about corruption and voters do not assign the same weight to it unless it is seen as the cause of economic decline, especially in developing countries (Choi and Woo, 2010, 255).…”

“…information about, allegations or individual evaluations of corruption) show that its effect on vote decision and electoral outcome is small (Fackler and Lin, 1995;Hibbing and Welch, 1997;Peters and Welch, 1980) and that it is tolerated by voters as long as the economy is doing well (Zechmeister and Zizumbo-Colunga, 2013;Kla snja and Tucker, 2013;Choi and Woo, 2010). It is however debatable whether voters close their eyes to bad governance in times of economic growth.…”

The Economy, Corruption, and Conditional Voting : A Cross-National Analysis

“…Thus, positive economic conditions mitigated the impact of perceptions of corruption on presidential approval ratings, whereas negative economic conditions magnified the negative effect of corruption (Zechmeister and Zizumbo-Colunga 2013). This is called a trade-off hypothesis.…”