Political scandal describes incidents of unethical behavior, financial improprieties, or illegal activity by political figures that undermine public trust. They can lead to resignations and major policy changes. Scandals are a critical part of political life and reflect broader societal issues. For example, the Watergate scandal exposed corrupt activities in Washington and led to changes in campaign finance laws and stronger oversight. Other major scandals such as the Credit Mobilier scandal exposed corruption in patronage systems and led to calls for reforms in government contracts and transparency.
For voters, it is important to understand the political calculus that leads politicians to engage in bad behavior and how this can affect their decision-making. In this article, we show that the political climate – specifically political polarization – accelerates the production of scandals. When political polarization is high, political parties will not expose members of their own party who commit misconduct and instead will shelter such politicians from exposure or even make false accusations against them. This dynamic reduces the information available to voters and clouds their judgment.
We use a new survey data set from Clean Hands, an anti-corruption campaign in Switzerland. We find that local politicians’ responses to this scandal do not depend on their direct involvement, but rather on the way they are depicted by the media. This results in a powerful causal estimate that the scandal induced a large reduction of votes for the implicated politicians. The political climate in Switzerland at the time of Clean Hands was characterized by political polarization, so the effect persists after controlling for direct involvement in the scandal.