Using a large six-city exit poll from 2000, we examine popular judgments of what constitutes “political corruption” in the United States. We find two distinct evaluative dimensions: corruption understood as lawbreaking, and corruption as favoritism. These judgments are heavily conditioned by the voter’s socioeconomic background and are politically consequential. Subjective understandings of “corruption” shape perceptions of how much corruption actually exists in government. Furthermore, and more importantly, these normative assessments play a significant part in voting decisions. Individuals who judged illegal activities such as bribe-taking to be “corrupt” were more inclined to back one of the major party candidates in 2000; those who believed that favoritism in politics was “corrupt” (e.g., an official recommending an unemployed friend for a government job) were more likely to vote for Al Gore or Ralph Nader.

Popular interpretations of 'corruption' and their partisan consequences

Public confidence in politicians across all democratic countries has fallen to historic lows in recent years. In Australia, around one in three voters believe that legislators use their public offi...

Keeping them Honest: Public and Elite Perceptions of Ethical Conduct among Australian Legislators

Public perceptions of political ethics are at the heart of current political debate Drawing on original data, this book is the first general account of popular understandings of political ethics in contemporary British politics It offers new insights into how citizens understand political ethics and integrity and how they form judgments of their leaders By locating these insights against the backdrop of contemporary British political ethics, the book shows how current institutional preoccupations with standards of conduct all too often miss the mark While the use of official resources is the primary focus of much regulation, politicians' consistency, frankness and sincerity, which citizens tend to see in terms of right and wrong, are treated as 'normal politics' The authors suggest that new approaches may need to be adopted if public confidence in politicians' integrity is to be restored

Ethics and Integrity in British Politics: How Citizens Judge their Politicians' Conduct and Why It Matters

iv Acknowledgements v Abbreviations v Executive Summary vii Part I: Introduction, concepts, and methods 1

/pdf/risks-of-corruption-to-state-legitimacy-and-stability-in-59bzaxn0mk.pdf

Risks of corruption to state legitimacy and stability in fragile situations

This article develops a cognitive institutionalist account of mass and elite evaluations of political ethics, which is tested on a new dataset from the United Kingdom. The analysis explores the extent of contemporary disagreement among British political elites and those they represent by comparing responses to questions asked in a representative survey of the public with similar questions asked of incumbent MPs and parliamentary candidates. There are systematic differences between members of the public, candidates and MPs at both aggregate and individual levels – differences which can be accounted for with reference to the framing effects of Parliament as an institution. Candidates for parliamentary office display significantly more tolerance of ethically dubious behaviour than other members of the public. Within the elite category, elected MPs exhibit more permissive ethical standards than those candidates who are unsuccessful.

On either side of a moat? Elite and mass attitudes towards right and wrong

The search for a definition of political corruption that adequately captures the nuances of governmental activity has been a long one This article defends social or attitudinal definitions of corruption against some recent criticisms It examines the value of Arnold Heidenheimer's widely cited distinctions among “black,”“gray,” and “white” corruption using empirical evidence from an interview study of over 100 Australian politicians and 500 voters The results show that the broad dimensions of corruption — the official, the donor, the payoff, and the favor — identified by John Peters and Susan Welch affect the views of both politicians and voters alike



Nonetheless, elites and the public come to judgments from different perspectives, and they judge some acts differently Put another way, some corruption is gray Politicians judge actions more subtly than do voters, who are more likely to see corruption in all acts As Michael Johnston has suggested, the different experiences of political insiders and outsiders explain this disparity in their moral outlooks Insiders are socialized to see at least some actions as functional and therefore not corrupt Outsiders, unaware of the insiders' rules, tend to judge political action by moral absolutes Thus the structure of liberal democratic government contributes to conflicting elite and public views of political right and wrong

Inside Moves and Outside Views: An Australian Case Study of Elite and Public Perceptions of Political Corruption

‘Interest’ is a central concept in contemporary liberal political theory. Much of this discussion is marked by related confusions between ‘interest’ and ‘actions‐in‐interests’ and between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ interests. These confusions are damaging, since liberal theorists are ostensibly firmly opposed to treating objective interests as politically relevant, but they inevitably finish up admiting the relevance of some form of objective interests. They do this by limiting valid interest judgements to those which are rational, or which favour future over present interests, or which are made post facto, or which favour public over individual interests. This admission of objective interests into liberal theory has important implications for the way in which liberal theorists conceive of relationships between the liberal democratic state and its citizens. In particular, it seriously undermines the democratic element in contemporary liberal democratic theories of political representation.

The problem of interests in contemporary liberal political theory

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Rodney Smith

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Inside Moves and Outside Views: An Australian Case Study of Elite and Public Perceptions of Political Corruption

The problem of interests in contemporary liberal political theory