Closer to the state, closer to the polls? The different impact of corruption on turnout among public employees and other citizens
| Author | Laura Cabeza,Stefano Ronchi,Sabina Haveric |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118795174 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118795174
International Political Science Review
2019, Vol. 40(5) 659 –675
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512118795174
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Closer to the state, closer to the
polls? The different impact of
corruption on turnout among
public employees and other citizens
Sabina Haveric, Stefano Ronchi and Laura Cabeza
University of Cologne, Germany
Abstract
Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while some
studies find corruption to be positively related to turnout, others report a negative relationship. This
article argues that the relevant question is not whether corruption has a positive or negative effect on
turnout, but for whom. We hypothesize that the effect of corruption on the likelihood to vote depends on
individuals’ employment sector. Public employees have different incentives to vote in corrupt settings since
their jobs often depend on the political success of the government of the day. Hence, while corruption
dampens turnout among ordinary citizens, public employees are more likely to vote in highly corrupt
countries. Analysis of World Values Survey data from 44 countries, shows that the differential in voting
propensity between public employees and other citizens gets larger as corruption increases, partially
confirming our expectations.
Keywords
Turnout, corruption, public employees, patronage
Introduction
There is a vast amount of literature analysing the determinants of voter turnout. Differences in both
individual-level resources and motivations are the main factors explaining why people do or don’t
vote (Verba et al., 1978), together with socio-economic, political and institutional features at the
aggregate-level (Geys, 2006). Yet, citizens do also make the decision on whether to vote or abstain
based on their perceptions on how trustworthy and transparent the whole political system is (Birch,
2010). Political corruption influences political legitimacy, political efficacy and confidence in the
electoral process, and as such can play a determinant role in shaping individuals’ voting behaviour.
Corresponding author:
Sabina Haveric, Research Training Group SOCLIFE and Cologne Center for Comparative Politics, University of
Cologne, Gürzenichstr. 27, Cologne, 50667, Germany.
Email: haveric@wiso.uni-koeln.de
795174IPS0010.1177/0192512118795174International Political Science ReviewHaveric et al.
research-article2018
Article
660 International Political Science Review 40(5)
Surprisingly, research examining the impact of corruption on voter turnout is rather scarce;
moreover, previous studies yielded contradictory results. According to most of the existing
research, corruption has a negative effect on turnout, since it causes alienation and apathy among
voters (McCann and Domínguez, 1998; Stockemer et al., 2013; Sundström and Stockemer, 2015).
Yet, this finding is not conclusive. First, some studies have found that, instead of having a demo-
bilizing effect, corruption does increase turnout (Escaleras et al., 2012; Kostadinova, 2009).
Second, the negative effect of corruption on turnout vanishes in highly corrupt countries (Dahlberg
and Solevid, 2016).
This article argues that if the effect of corruption on turnout is not uniform everywhere, it is
because not everyone is affected in the same way. We hypothesize that the effect of corruption on
voter turnout depends on individuals’ sector of employment. Corruption is more likely to have a
positive effect on turnout among public employees than among ordinary citizens. In highly corrupt
societies, the practice of delivering or maintaining public-sector jobs in exchange for political sup-
port tends to be widespread (Kurer, 1993). Thus, the incentives to vote among public employees
would be higher in corrupt societies since their fortunes are tied to the political fate of the incum-
bent government or the politician who has appointed them. By contrast, corruption is more likely
to have a negative effect on turnout among citizens who do not work in the public sector and are,
therefore, less dependent on the state and the political success of the government of the day for
their livelihoods. By proposing patronage as a possible contributing mechanism to account for the
mixed results obtained by previous research, this article seeks to bridge between two strands of
literature: the one that investigates the link between corruption and turnout, and the one that focuses
on the different voting behaviour of public-sector workers.
We test our expectations using data from the World Values Survey (WVS) to analyse the impact
of the level of corruption found in a country on individual voting propensity, comparing citizens
working in the public sector with the rest of the population. We run logistic multilevel models on a
sample of 56,376 individuals from 44 countries, finding empirical evidence that is partially con-
sistent with our expectations. Our results show that the turnout differential between the two catego-
ries indeed grows as the perceived level of public-sector corruption increases. However, while
corruption has a demobilizing effect among those who are not public employees, public employees
do not vote more in highly corrupt countries. They remain equally likely to vote regardless of cor-
ruption levels.
The rest of this article is structured as follows. In the second section, we define both corruption
and patronage, discussing their relationship. Subsequently, in the third and fourth sections we sum-
marize previous research analysing the effect of corruption on voter turnout, and the electoral
behaviour of public employees, respectively. In the fifth section we present the argument of this
article. Data and methods are introduced in the sixth section; and in the seventh we present the
results. The last section concludes with a discussion and suggestions for future research.
Corruption and its by-product: Patronage
We shall start by defining corruption and its relationship with one of the many practices that are
common within corrupt societies: patronage in the allocation of public-sector jobs.
The most common definition of corruption in the literature relates to ‘acts in which the power
of public office is used for personal gain in a manner that contravenes the rules of the game’ (Jain,
2001: 73). Similarly, Gerring and Thacker describe corruption as ‘an act by a public official (or
with the acquiescence of a public official) that violates legal or social norms for private or particu-
laristic gain’ (2004: 300). For Heidenheimer and Johnston, corruption is the ‘transaction of
bureaucratic resources for political purposes and political support’ (Heidenheimer and Johnston,
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