A sex scandal, corruption allegations, or an ethical lapse can send politicians tumbling. But why do some become embroiled in scandal while others get off scot-free? What drives political misbehavior and how does it affect voters’ evaluations of a politician? These questions are at the heart of new research led by Wioletta Dziuda of UChicago’s Harris School. She and her colleagues show that the key factor is not a politician’s individual character or the nature of the scandal itself, but the level of polarization in a political system.
Polarization creates incentives for the aligned party to shelter its politician from a scandal, and the opposing party to accuse its opponent of misconduct, even on flimsy evidence. This partisan game of “scorched-earth politics” dilutes public discourse about political misconduct and makes it difficult for voters to distinguish between good and bad behavior. Scandal production is weakly related to the underlying misconduct, and in the end voters are the losers as political discourse becomes increasingly toxic.
This article provides the first comprehensive examination of political scandal’s effects through meta-analysis. A total of seventy-eight studies, involving more than 54,000 participants, are included in the analysis. Across models, results reveal that scandal does have negative evaluative effects on politicians, but five central moderators—candidate characteristics, behaviors, prior attitudes, context, and scandal type—significantly influence those effects. The research in this Special Issue of the International Journal of Communication shows that a lesson can be learned from Watergate: political scandals are often more about the climate in a political system than about a politician’s individual character or the specific nature of the misconduct involved.