Political scandal involves the exposure of unethical or illegal behavior by politicians, and it is a key part of democratic politics. Corruption scandals are a common example of a political scandal, and they often expose corrupt practices such as bribery and patronage systems, which undermine public confidence in government. Other types of political scandals include financial improprieties, sex abuses, and other personal behavior violations.
A large body of research has examined the effects of political scandal, with most studies focusing on single politician scandals (n = 31). The results of these studies are mixed, with some studies finding negative spillover effects of scandals on citizens’ evaluation of politicians in other parties (e.g., Puente-Diaz, 2015; Maier, 2011). Other studies find that a scandal has a smaller impact on the citizens’ evaluation of the particular politician who is implicated (e.g., Bowler & Karp, 2004; Pattie & Johnston, 2012).
The authors argue that this mixed result reflects the complexity of political life. Scandal is rarely a single event, but instead occurs over time as politicians engage in behavior that violates a set of norms (i.e., a violation of a political rule or a moral code). Those violations are then picked up by the news media and framed as a scandal. In polarized times, this process is exacerbated because the aligned party of a politician wants to shelter her from a scandal and the opposition party is willing to throw around baseless accusations for the sake of weeding out corruption. This leads to the escalation of political scandals, which devalues political discourse and diminishes democracy.