Do voters differentially punish transnational corruption?

Cheng Matsuno, Vanessa and Berliner, Daniel ORCID: 0000-0002-0285-0215 (2023) Do voters differentially punish transnational corruption? European Journal for Political Research. ISSN 0304-4130

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Abstract

A large literature studies whether, and under what circumstances, voters will electorally punish corrupt politicians. Yet this literature has to date neglected the empirical prevalence of transnational dimensions to real-world corruption allegations, even as corruption studies undergo a ‘transnational turn’. We use a survey experiment in the United Kingdom in 2020 to investigate whether voters differentially punish politicians associated with transnational corruption and test four different potential mechanisms: information salience, country-based discrimination, economic nationalism and expected representation. We find evidence suggesting that voters indeed differentially punish transnational corruption, but only when it involves countries perceived negatively by the public (i.e. a ‘Moscow-based firm’). This is most consistent with a mechanism of country-based discrimination, while we find no evidence consistent with any other mechanism. These results suggest that existing experimental studies might understate the potential for electoral accountability by neglecting real-world corruption allegations’ frequent transnational dimension.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14756...
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Authors
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General) J Political Science > JC Political theory
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2023 14:21
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2024 19:21
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121031

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