Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

12-2024

Abstract

A growing literature has explored various factors that hamper the electoral punishment of corruption. Most studies have focused on how voters react to a corruption allegation, but this focus leaves out an important, common aspect of corruption allegations that voters also encounter: politicians' blame avoidance strategies. This study examines how politicians' presentational strategies in response to corruption allegations affect voter sanctioning. Employing an online survey experiment on a sample of 3531 U.S. citizens, we find that politicians' action-oriented strategies, such as denying allegations, acknowledging a problem but denying responsibility, or acknowledging a problem and taking responsibility, are more effective than passive non-response. These three active strategies do not differ in their effectiveness. This result is robust to heterogenous levels of state-level corruption, partisan bias, and political knowledge. Our findings suggest that politicians’ presentational strategies may undermine political accountability for corruption, although they do not fully counteract the effect of corruption on voting intentions.

Discipline

Political Science

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Electoral Studies: An International Journal on Voting and Electoral Systems and Strategy

Volume

92

First Page

1

Last Page

10

ISSN

0261-3794

Identifier

10.1016/j.electstud.2024.102867

Publisher

Elsevier

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2024.102867

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