Vivyan, Nick, Wagner, Markus and Tarlov, Jessica (2012) Representative misconduct, voter perceptions and accountability: evidence from the 2009 House of Commons expenses scandal. Electoral Studies, 31 (4). pp. 750-763. ISSN 0261-3794
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This paper examines electoral accountability after the 2009-10 UK expenses scandal. Existing research shows that Members of Parliament (MPs) implicated in the scandal fared only marginally worse in the election than non-implicated colleagues. This lack of electoral accountability for misconduct could have arisen either because voters did not know about their representative's wrongdoing or because they chose not to electorally sanction them. We combine panel survey data with new measures of MP implication in the expenses scandal to test where electoral accountability failed. We find that MP implication influenced voter perceptions of wrongdoing more than expected. In contrast, constituents were only marginally less likely to vote for MPs who were implicated in the scandal. Electoral accountability may therefore be constrained even when information about representative misconduct is easily available and clearly influences voter perceptions.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.journals.elsevier.com/electoral-studies... |
| Additional Information: | © 2012 Elsevier |
| Divisions: | Government |
| Subjects: | J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Aug 2012 10:28 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Dec 2024 00:10 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/45050 |
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