Candidate sex, corruption and vote choice

Abstract

Existing research suggests that voters may view female politicians as less prone to corruption than male politicians. We argue that this voter belief can yield advantages to hypothetical female candidates as voters sometimes punish them less for bribe accusations. We test these propositions with hypothetical vignettes of sub-national executive races in Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. We find that only Uruguayans prefer allegedly corrupt female over male candidates, but when Uruguayans are told that hypothetical corruption is widespread, they do not prefer accused females. Moreover, voters in none of the countries prefer females among candidates who have fought corruption. Our findings thereby demonstrate that voters’ preferences for corrupt female candidates in hypothetical races can vary not only according to the specific justifications for the wrongdoing, but also across countries.