When politicians are accused of committing unethical, illegal, or inappropriate behaviors, it often sparks widespread outrage and calls for reform. Depending on the nature of the scandal, it can have serious legal repercussions (such as arrests or convictions) and impact citizens’ satisfaction with democracy and trust in government institutions and officials. These effects can have lasting impacts on the political landscape.
But what makes a politician’s behavior worthy of being branded as a scandal? What are the underlying motives that drive political parties to reveal or suppress allegations of misbehavior? In this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee and Julia talk to Charles Hunt, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Boise State University, and Jaclyn Kettler, a Political Science Assistant Professor at BSU, about their research that sheds new light on these questions.
They find that the degree to which a political scandal is reported depends on how polarized the country is. The more politically polarized the country, the more inclined political parties are to suppress information about their own politician’s misconduct and to make false accusations against their opposition’s politicians. This undermines the value of political discourse and clouds voters’ ability to evaluate politicians’ performance.
In their paper, Hunt and Kettler explain that the production of political scandal depends on a complex set of social incentives. For example, the more polarized a country is, the more likely it is that a politician’s aligned party will want to shelter its member from a scandal and the opposing party will want to expose its members’ misbehavior. This leads to a situation in which the number of scandals produced only goes up, but the quality of political discourse is diminished and voters are ultimately the losers.