When everyone is corrupt, no one is? Examining the effects of widespread corruption on electoral behavior*

Abstract

ABSTRACT Corruption scandals can be costly for elected officials seeking re-election. But what happens when the other candidate alternatives are also known to be corrupt? Do voters downplay the importance of corruption in their vote decision when corruption is widespread? Also, how does it affect their engagement with the electoral process? Are voters more likely to abstain or cast null or blank votes when presented with corrupt candidates? In this paper, we contribute to a flourishing literature that focuses on the importance of clean electoral alternatives to tackle these questions. We do so by adopting an innovative vignette experiment that we apply to a large sample of adult Brazilians where we manipulate the availability of candidate alternatives in a mock election. We find that as the availability of honest candidate alternatives decreases, the lower the electoral engagement and the importance given to corruption on vote choice.