Political scandal involves politicians’ or government institutions’ misuse of power, often involving corruption and unethical behavior. When these events become public through investigations, leaks, or media reporting, they lead to loss of trust in leadership and politics and can have important political consequences like leaders resigning or laws being changed. However, we know very little about what leads to political scandal and how its occurrence varies across time and place.
In new work, UChicago’s Wioletta Dziuda and William G. Howell find that the answer to this question is shaped in large part by the level of polarization present in a political system. They show that the greater the polarization between two political parties, the more a politician’s private misbehavior will turn into a public scandal. This is because the aligned party has an incentive to shelter its politician from scandal and the opposing party has an incentive to make false accusations, even if the evidence is flimsy. This dynamic reduces the value of political discourse and, ultimately, voters’ ability to learn about actual misconduct by politicians.
While some authors focus on the positive functions of scandal, such as promoting transparency and improving the quality of government, Dziuda and Howell demonstrate that partisanship is an essential factor driving political scandal, encouraging misbehavior, and decreasing the value of political discourse—all to the detriment of democracy. As a result, the rise of political scandal in recent years should prompt a renewed push for structural reforms to strengthen federal institutions and curb the erosion of norms that undermines democratic governance.