When rotten apples spoil the ballot: The conditional effect of corruption charges on parties’ vote shares

DOI10.1177/0192512116668858
Published date01 March 2018
Date01 March 2018
International Political Science Review
2018, Vol. 39(2) 242 –255
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512116668858
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When rotten apples spoil the
ballot: The conditional effect
of corruption charges on parties’
vote shares
Andrea Ceron
Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Marco Mainenti
Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Abstract
The impact of corruption charges on the electoral performance of parties is conditioned by specific
institutional factors. This article shows the extent to which the effects of political corruption depend on the
control that party leaders exercise over the ballot. It is argued that voters might abstain or support other
lists if they cannot select individual candidates to revitalize the reputation of the political party. Employing
data on judicial investigations in Italy from 1983 to 2013, we provide evidence of the role of electoral rules
and intra-party xcandidate selection in shaping the relationship between corruption and voters’ behaviour.
Parties implicated in corruption or related crimes experience a loss of votes when they compete under a
closed list formula or when the candidate selection process is strongly centralized.
Keywords
Accountability, corruption, electoral rules, intra-party democracy, Italy
Introduction
Political accountability is one of the pillars of democratic systems. Competitive elections, in fact,
give voters the opportunity to hold ruling parties accountable (Fiorina, 1981; Lewis-Beck and
Stegmaier, 2000) and sanction their bad behaviour, such as their involvement in corrupt practices.
Because corruption is a prominent valence issue, parties whose representatives are charged with
bribery or related crimes are expected to lose considerable electoral support. Indeed, the
Corresponding author:
Marco Mainenti, Università degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, Via Passione 13,
Milano, 20122, Italy.
Email: mainenti.marco@gmail.com
668858IPS0010.1177/0192512116668858International Political Science ReviewCeron and Mainenti
research-article2016
Article

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