Citizens’ and Politicians’ Definitions of Corruption, Corruption Survey Quality, and Political Will for Anti-Corruption Reform: The Portuguese Case Put to the Test

Abstract

Corruption is recurrent in conversations and political debates, but it can have different meanings. This study aimed to assess how the words that 1,020 citizens and 120 politicians in Portugal associated with corruption interacted and varied. Data came from two surveys that collected responses to “What words do you associate with corruption?” from October 2020 to April 2021: the EPOCA-FCT survey conducted with citizens and the ETHICS-FFMS survey conducted with MPs and local elected officials in office. We used network analysis to find that the mass-elite incongruence when defining corruption can be used (a) to enhance corruption surveys and (b) as a tool to foster political will for anti-corruption reform in areas/sectors that are linked to corruption. In Portugal, corruption came down to “theft of money by politicians” (citizens) and “dishonesty and illegality in a crony relationship” (politicians), and the promotion of integrity in the Banking sector emerged as central to any anti-corruption reform. This was the first attempt to show that knowing what citizens and politicians have in mind can be a valid tool to enhance both the quality of future corruption surveys and the implementation of anti-corruption policies when no short-term political will for a change exists.