Political scandals expose the unethical behavior of politicians and government institutions and often have serious long-term effects. They can result in leaders resigning, parties losing elections, and citizens growing more cynical towards politics as a whole. Scandals usually stem from corruption or abuse of entrusted power, and they typically spark debates over ethics reforms and the importance of transparency in government.
However, scandals are also a complex phenomenon that has been shaped by many factors beyond misbehavior itself. One of the most important is the degree to which a scandal is politically motivated. This article examines the partisan calculus that leads politicians to engage in scandals and the ways in which those motivations shape the consequences of scandals.
The main finding of this article is that political polarization plays a critical role in the political decision to engage in scandals. It increases the incentive to expose bad behavior by members of the opposing party, as well as to throw baseless accusations at their rivals, even when the allegations are highly dubious. This distortion of the truth can further erode voters’ ability to determine the truth about politics and makes it difficult to evaluate politicians based on their actual performance.
The article offers a new perspective on the function of scandals in democracies, in which a greater level of polarization increases the incentive to engage in the kind of politically motivated scandal-making that undermines democracy’s ability to promote ethical behavior and hold politicians accountable. This finding is consistent with a series of general lessons confirmed across international scandal research, including that the type of behavior and norm transgressions that are deemed scandalous depend on context; and that news media play a central role in the mediation of political scandals by framing and reporting on them.