Money, Sex and Broken Promises: Politicians’ Bad Behaviour Reduces Trust

This article develops and tests empirically a theory of the effect on political trust of forms of behaviour that violate social, political and legal norms about how politicians ought to behave. These include taking money for favours, over-indulging in private life and making misleading promises to w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Parliamentary affairs 2019-07, Vol.72 (3), p.481-500
Main Authors: Rose, Richard, Weßels, Bernhard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
behaviour
BRIBERY
distrust
ELECTIONS
Great Britain. Parliament
mandate
misleading voters
MPs
over-indulgence
PARLIAMENT
PARLIAMENTARIANS
Political aspects
POLITICAL PARTIES
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
taking money
Trust
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Summary:This article develops and tests empirically a theory of the effect on political trust of forms of behaviour that violate social, political and legal norms about how politicians ought to behave. These include taking money for favours, over-indulging in private life and making misleading promises to win votes. The evidence comes from a specially designed survey in Britain, France and Spain, countries where popular distrust of politicians appears greater than illegal political behaviour. Bad behaviours, especially abandoning election promises once in office, have a much stronger effect on distrust of political parties that do differences in partisanship. Comparing national regressions shows that the impact of bad behaviours is very similar in Britain, France and Spain.
ISSN:1460-2482
0031-2290
1460-2482
DOI:10.1093/pa/gsy024