Politicizing Corruption

The electoral impact of anti-corruption

discourse in Europe 1983-2007

Andreas Bågenholm
QoG Lunch Seminar 2009-05-05

THE QUALITY OF GOVERNMENT INSTITUTE

Department of Political Science
University of Gothenburg

© 2009 by Andreas Bågenholm. Power-point presented at the QoG Lunch Seminar 5 May, 2009
Politicizing Corruption

The electoral impact of anti-

corruption discourse in Europe
1983-2007
 Research questions
• To what extent has political corruption been politicized in Europe?
• Is anti-corruption becoming a more frequent issue in electoral
campaigns in Europe?
• In which countries is political corruption the most politicized?
• What characterizes the parties that politicize anti-corruption?
• To what extent is anti-corruption rhetoric an extremist or “populist”
phenomenon?
• Is anti-corruption over or under politicized?
• What impact does corruption allegation have on the likelihood of
governmental survival?
• How successful are parties that promise to fight corruption?
 Theoretical underpinnings
Parties’ strategic choices in times of

• Increasing voter volatility

• Decreasing party identification
• Decreasing importance of old cleavages
• Increasing difficulties for voters to
distinguish between parties
 Party responses
• Reorganization (more centralization,
professionalization)
• Recruiting different types of candidates
• Focus on new issues
• Focus on mode, not substance of policy
making, e.g. competence, transparency,
cleanness etc.
 Concepts
Politicization Political corruption

• When politicians bring • Politicians taking

an issue to the voters advantage of their
knowledge position in order to
win financial favors
personally, for friends
or relatives or seeking
advantages for the
party. Not necessarily
illegal but by definition
morally questionable.
 Election campaigns 1983-2007
• Democracies • 32 countries (19
(considered Free by West; 13 CEE)
Freedom House) • 184 elections (12
• More than 100 000 missing)
inhabitants • 171 analyzed
• Parliamentary or elections (124 in West
semi-presidential & 47 in CEE)
systems
 Data
• Electoral Studies • Corruption allegations
(156) made
• West European • By whom?
Politics (11) • Against whom?
• European Journal of • Corruption scandals
Political Research (4) in connection with the
election
 Party manifestoes 1983-2003
• 1034 manifestoes in • Percentage of parties
30 countries (Ukraine in each election
& Serbia missing) campaign that
mention anti-
corruption
• 755 in Western
European countries & • Average share of
279 in CEE sentences referring to
anti-corruption
Share of election campaigns containing corruption allegation

Corruption allegations Yes No

% n % n N
All countries 22,2 40 77,8 131 171
Western Europe 17,0 21 83,0 103 124
Central and Eastern Europe
40,4 19 59,6 28 47

Source: Election reports in Electoral Studies, West European Politics and European Journal of Political Research.
Comment: Central and Eastern Europe refers to the former Socialist one party systems.
 Corruption allegations in election
campaigns in Europe 1983-2007 (%)
60

50 50

40 38.5
38.6
34.2
Per cent

30 32
26.2
23.1
20
13.7 18.4

11.1 11.6
10

4
0
0
1983-1987 1988-1992 1993-1997 1998-2002 2002-2007
Year

All countries Western Central and Eastern

 Anti-corruption in party manifestoes
Central and
Western Eastern Europe
All countries Europe
% of party manifestoes 50 45 63
containing anti-
corruption

% of sentences 1,17 1,07 1,46

containing anti-
corruption
Total number of 1034 755 279
manifestoes
Total number of 146 108 38
elections
Number of countries 30 19 11

Source: Party manifesto data sets in Budge et al., 2001 and Klingemann et al., 2006.
Comment: Manifesto data covers the period 1983-2003 (except for UK for which there is data also for 2005).
Thus, there is no data on Serbia and Ukraine.
Anti-corruption in party manifestoes
1983-2003
60 1.6
1.5 54.3
54.6
1.4
50
44.7 1.22 44.9 1.2
40 37.7 1.09
1
0.92
Per cent

Per cent
0.94
30 0.8

0.6
20
0.4
10
0.2

0 0
1983-1987 1988-1992 1993-1997 1998-2002 2003-2007

% of party manifestoes containing anti-corruption

% of sentences containing anti-corruption
 Politicization of political corruption by country
Corruption Anti-cor- Anti-cor- Corruption Anti-cor- Anti-
allegations, ruption, % of ruption in allegations, ruption, % of corruption in
% of mani-festoes % of % of mani-festoes % of
Country campaigns sentences Country campaigns sentences

Ukraine 100 - - Estonia 20 55 1,19

Lithuania 67 85 1,28 Ireland 17 51 0,66
Romania 67 84 1,61 Belgium 14 83 1,47
Austria 63 72 2,52 Finland 14 18 0,81
Malta 60 100 3,57 Slovakia 0 64 1,58
Poland 50 43 1,35 Netherlands 0 53 0,15
Slovenia 50 26 0,72 Croatia 0 50 0,95
Latvia 40 62 1,94 France 0 45 0,73
Greece 38 100 4,09 UK 0 39 0,40
Czech R. 33 70 1,61 Germany 0 35 0,26
Iceland 33 26 1,04 Luxemburg 0 27 0,29
Italy 29 68 2,30 Switzerland 0 19 0,18
Portugal 25 76 1,52 Norway 0 11 0,03
Bulgaria 25 59 1,44 Denmark 0 8 0,12
Hungary 20 69 2,02 Sweden 0 0 0
Spain 20 56 0,95 Serbia 0 - -
Characteristics of parties using corruption allegations

Ideological
orientation Incumbency Established
Left Right Yes No Yes No
n % n % n % n % n % n %
13 28 32 70 6 11 49 89 42 76 12 22

Source: Woldendorp et al. , 1998; Müller-Rommel et al., 2004.

Comment: On the left-right dimension each party is counted only once. As incumbency and newness may
change from one election to the next, all parties in all elections are included on these two variables.
In one case, Lega Nord, both the ideological belonging and the extent of newness were unclear.
 Anti-corruption parties
• 46 different parties, in 40 elections
• 18 West European; 28 CEE.
• 21 parties are big, influential, well
established. Only FPÖ can be considered
populist in this category.
• 12 new parties
• 9 minor, mainstream parties
• 4 ”extremist” parties.
 Most successful parties using anti-corruption rhetoric

Party Country Year + Left-right New Opp Gov.

National Movement Simon II Bulgaria 2001 42,7 R X X X
Labour Party Lithuania 2004 28,4 L X X X
Union of Democratic Forces Bulgaria 1997 28,1 R X X
Res Publica Estonia 2003 24,6 R X X X
New Era Latvia 2002 23,9 R X X X
Democratic Renewal Party Portugal 1985 17,9 L X X
Law and Justice Poland 2005 17,5 R X X
Civic Platform Poland 2007 17,4 R X X
Party of Democratic Socialism
Romania 2000 15,1 L X X
Democratic Party Slovenia 2004 13,3 R X X
Liberal Democratic Party Lithuania 2004 11,4 R X X
Civic Democratic Party Czech R. 2006 10,9 R X X
Socialist Party Bulgaria 1994 10,4 L X X
Democratic Convention Romania 1996 10,2 R X X

Source: Election reports in Electoral Studies, West European Politics and European Journal of Political Research.
Woldendrop et al. , 1998; Müller-Rommel et al., 2004.
 Top ranking parties in terms of anti-corruption in party manifestoes
% Anti-cor-
ruption in Left-
Party Country Year manifestoes right New Opp +/- Gov
Confederation for an Poland 1991 27,37
Independent Poland ER X 7,5
Republicans Czechosl. 1992 22,45 ER X 5,0
Freedom Party Austria 1994 21,11 R X 5,9
Social Movement-Right Italy 1992 18,37
National ER X -0,5
Democratic Renewal Party Portugal 1985 16,07
L Y 17,9
Party of Democratic Left Italy 1992 12,59 Y/N
L -10,5
New Democracy Greece 1989:1 12,03 R X 3,5
Coalition Left and Progress Greece 1989:1 11,86 L X 1,4
Coalition Left and Progress Greece 1989:2 11,86 L X -1,9
National Party (SNS) Slovenia 2000 10,53 R X 1,2
New Democracy (ND), Greece 1989:2 10,29 R X 1,9

Source: Party manifesto data sets in Budge et al. (2001) and Klingemann et al. 2006.
 Allegations and scandals
• 38 cases of corruption scandals
• In 17 cases (45 %) no party took
advantage
• In 14 elections (8 %) allegations were
made without any references to scandals
• Correlation between level of corruption and
corruption allegation

• Political corruption is under politicized

 Shifts in government
Allegations
All cases = 42% 65%
High corrupt = 64% 92%
Medium corrupt = 57% 78%
Low corrupt = 31% No allegations

Corruption scandal = 41%

 Conclusions
• Increasing trend of anti-corruption rhetoric.
• The difference between east and west is widening.
• Large variation in politicizing political corruption among
the countries studied.
• Corruption is not politicized in low corrupt countries.
• Politicizing political corruption is not an extremist or
populist phenomenon
• The issue appears to be under rather than over
politicized
• Corruption allegations make a difference for the outcome
of elections in medium and highly corrupt countries
• New parties are more inclined to use anti-corruption
rhetoric