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El efecto antisistema de los escándalos de corrupción

Abstract

The extant research on electoral accountability after corruption scandals has focused on the punishment of the incumbent party. The literature consensus is that scandals damage the incumbent party’s electoral performance, but only mildly. However, the literature has not inquired the damage corruption scandals might do to the established parties’ electoral performance, aside from the incumbent party’s. Using time-series cross-sectional data from the Mexican states, I suggest that corruption scandals, besides possibly harming the incumbent party’s electoral performance, might damage the established parties’ electoral performance. Corruption scandals therefore could have an anti-establishment effect, not only an anti-incumbent effect. Finally, contrary to the literature’s argument that corruption scandals depress turnout, the paper finds that, under certain conditions, corruption scandals might motivate turnout.