Skip to main content
Log in

Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Acta Politica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although political scandals receive unprecedented attention in the contemporary media, the knowledge of political scientists regarding the consequences of such scandals remains limited. On the basis of two nationally representative survey experiments, we investigate whether the impact of scandals depends on the traits of the politicians involved. We find substantial evidence that politicians are particularly punished for political-ideological hypocrisy, while there is less evidence that gender stereotypes matter. We also show that voters evaluate scandals in the personal lives of politicians in a highly partisan manner – other-party voters punish a politician substantially harsher than same-party voters. Interestingly, voters show no gender bias in their candidate evaluations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See Thompson (2000, Chapter 1) for an elaborate definition.

  2. See Blach-Ørsten (2011) and van Dalen and Skovsgaard (2011) for a useful typology.

  3. Barabas and Jerit (2010) recently found that a number of survey experiments have low external validity when compared with benchmarks derived from natural experiments. As already pointed out, however, the scandals are difficult to study with observational data.

  4. We conducted robustness tests to check that the multiple treatments did not affect the results by examining whether the results hold when only looking at each individual’s first treatment assignment. The multiple treatments did not seem to affect the results greatly besides increasing the power of the experiment. The tests will be reported in the footnotes.

  5. We conducted randomization tests for each of the six treatments. In each of the randomization tests, a logit model was applied to predict treatment status. Independent variables were age, gender, political interest, education and children in the household and party affiliation (we also tried to exclude party affiliation with similar results). None of the six models performed better than a null model at the α 0.05 level (the lowest P-value was 0.11).

  6. We also asked the respondents to evaluate politicians on their worthiness of running for re-election as an alternative dependent variable. This variable has the potential advantage that it does not ask about a change but an absolute evaluation. The two sets of evaluations, however, correlated very closely (in all but one of the six scenarios, the correlation was above 0.6). Moreover, the results from the analysis were almost identical with the two measures (only one substantive important difference was found: As for the average effect of treatment, the difference between males and females on the absence due to child care scenario is not significant with the alternative dependent variable, whereas it cleared the 0.05 threshold with the trustworthiness question, see Table 3). For the sake of avoiding redundancy, we only present the results from the trustworthiness question.

  7. In 2011, 10 times more Danish men than women were convicted for drunk driving (Danish Statistics, 2011).

  8. As a robustness test, we considered the possibility that the fact that each individual receives three treatments might affect the results. One might argue that it is possible for the respondent to figure out the treatment when presented with multiple scenarios – some involving one party (or gender) and some involving the other party (or gender). We tested for the influence of multiple scenarios by only considering the results for the first scenario each individual is presented with (though our n drops to one-third of the original analysis). When Table 3 was repeated with the first scenarios only, almost identical difference sizes were generally found (the number of stars of course fall because of the lower sample size). Only for absence because of child care did we find a notable difference in the conclusion. When all cases were considered, men were punished slightly more than women. When only cases where this scenario was presented first were considered, there was no difference in means (and the difference-in-difference between the sub-sample with the first scenario only and the remaining cases were significant).

  9. One explanation for the mixed results might be that in the experimental setting, we present all respondents with the same information and ask them to evaluate it directly. We thus effectively hold information constant for all respondents. Therefore, we should be careful about transferring the result to a real life expectation with respect to the effect of political interest.

  10. Note that about 400 cases are lost, as many voters are undecided, thus giving the ‘votes left-wing’ several missing cases. We re-estimated Table 4 with a dummy for undecided and other voters included in order to prevent the loss of cases (along with an interaction between the undecided and the treatment). This did not change any of the main conclusions. For the sake of simplicity in the presentation of the results, we do not include the dummy (and the related interaction) in Table 4.

  11. We also tested interactions between political interest and the treatments. This might especially be important for the political hypocrisy analysis as it is possible that the politically interested (and thus potentially more informed) are better able to see ideological inconsistency. In one case, we did get a significant interaction in the expected direction – the politically interested punish Social Democrats more harshly for using private hospitals. Including the interaction in Table 4, however, does not in any of the cases substantially change the coefficients for the interactions currently examined (for instance, in model 3 where the interaction between political interest and the treatment was significant, the coefficient for the interaction between partisanship and treatment changes insignificantly from 1.43 to 1.45).

  12. We conducted robustness tests for Table 4 to examine the influence of multiple scenarios as described in footnote 3. Potentially, the presentation of multiple scenarios in Table 4 could affect the heterogeneity of the effect. If the treatment becomes obvious for the respondents, they may respond in a more or less partisan manner and may avoid or stress gender stereotypes. To test the robustness of the results to this potential factor, we re-estimated the six models in Table 4 with only the first scenario presented to each respondent, the results were almost identical to Table 4. There was a slight tendency for more heterogeneous effects for the party experiments, indicating that voters are most partisan when the party treatment is better concealed. Furthermore, the interaction for the absence because of child care experiment was significant at the 0.05 level (as opposed to Table 4). This could imply that men punish men relatively harder than women do (but only slightly so).

References

  • Alexander, D. and Andersen, K. (1993) Gender as a factor in the attribution of leadership traits. Political Research Quarterly 46 (3): 527–545.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alford, J., Teeters, H., Ward, D.S. and Wilson, R.K. (1994) Overdraft: The political cost of congressional malfeasance. Journal of Politics 56 (3): 788–801.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allern, S., Kantola, A., Pollack, E. and Blach-Ørsten, M. (2012) Increased scandalization: Nordic political scandals 1980–2010. In: S. Allern and E. Pollack (eds.) Scandalous! The Mediated Construction of Political Scandals in Four Nordic Countries. Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordicom.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barabas, J. and Jerit, J. (2010) Are survey experiments externally valid? American Political Science Review 104 (2): 226–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartels, L.M. (2002) Beyond the running tally. Political Behavior 24 (2): 117–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blach-Ørsten, M. (2011) Politiske skandaler i danske medier 1980–2010. Tidsskriftet Politik 14 (3): 7–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blais, A., Gidengil, E., Fournier, P., Nevitte, N., Everitt, J. and Kim, J. (2010) Political judgments, perceptions of facts, and partisan effects. Electoral Studies 29 (1): 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowler, S. and Karp, J.A. (2004) Politicians, scandals, and trust in government. Political Behavior 26 (3): 271–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brenton, S. (2011) When the personal becomes political: Mitigating damage following scandals. Current Research in Social Psychology 18 (4): 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D.T. and Stanley, J.C. (1963) Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, J., Ganiel, G. and Hyde, M.S. (2000) Scandal and political candidate image. Southeastern Political Review 28 (4): 747–757.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carstensen, M.B. (2005) Et kompliceret forhold: Politiske skandaler og politisk mistillid. Tidsskriftet GRUS 26 (74): 7–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chanley, V., Sullivan, J.L., Gonzales, M.H. and Kovera, M.B. (1994) Lust and avarice in politics: Damage control by four politicians accused of wrongdoing (or, politics as usual). American Politics Research 22 (3): 297–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook, T.D. and Campbell, D.T. (1979) Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis for Field Settings. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cushion, S. and Lewis, J. (eds.) (2010) Has 24 Hour News Changed the World? The Global Impact of Rolling News. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dancey, L. (2012) The consequences of political cynicism: How cynicism shapes citizens’ reactions to political scandals. Political Behavior 34 (3): 411–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Danish Statistics. (2011) DATABASE: STRAF33 Strafferetlige afgørelser efter område, overtrædelsens art, alder og køn (Criminal convictions by area, crime, age, and gender).

  • Druckman, J.N., Green, D.P., Kuklinski, J.H. and Lupia, A. (2006) The growth and development of experimental research in political science. American Political Science Review 100 (4): 627–635.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fenno, R. (1978) Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Festinger, L. (1957) A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischle, M. (2000) Mass response to the Lewinsky scandal: Motivated reasoning or bayesian updating? Political Psychology 21 (1): 135–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fridkin, K.L. and Kenney, P.J. (2009) The role of gender stereotypes in U.S. Senate campaigns. Politics & Gender 5 (3): 301–324.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fried, C.B. and Arounson, E. (1995) Hypocrisy, misattribution, and dissonance reduction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21 (9): 925–933.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funk, C.L. (1996) The impact of scandal on candidate evaluations: An experimental test of the role of candidate traits. Political Behavior 18 (1): 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaines, B.J., Kuklinski, J.H. and Quirk, P.J. (2007) The logic of the survey experiment reexamined. Political Analysis 15 (1): 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gerber, A. and Green, D. (1999) Misperceptions about perceptual bias. Annual Review of Political Science 18 (11): 189–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Groseclose, T. and Krehbiel, K. (1994) Golden parachutes, rubber checks, and strategic retirements from the 102d house. American Journal of Political Science 38 (1): 75–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holli, A.M. and Wass, H. (2010) Gender-based voting in the parliamentary elections of 2007 in Finland. European Journal of Political Research 49 (5): 598–630.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huddy, L. and Terkildsen, N. (1993) Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science 37 (1): 119–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joslyn, M.R. (2003) Framing the Lewinsky affair: Third-person judgments by scandal frame. Political Psychology 24 (4): 829–844.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lammers, J., Stapel, D. and Galinsky, A. (2010) Power increases hypocrisy: Moralizing in reasoning, immorality in behavior. Psychological Science 21 (5): 737–744.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lang, G.E. and Lang, K. (1983) The Battle for Public Opinion. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maier, J. (2011) The impact of political scandals on political support: An experimental test of two theories. International Political Science Review 32 (3): 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Midtbø, T. (2012) Do mediated political scandals affect party popularity in Norway? In: S. Allern and E. Pollack (eds.) Scandalous! The Mediated Construction of Political Scandals in Four Nordic Countries. Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordicom.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, B. (2010) The effects of scandalous information on recall of policy-related information. Political Psychology 31 (6): 887–914.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morton, R.B. and Williams, K.C. (2010) Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality: From Nature to the Lab. Cambridge, USA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Plutzer, E. and Zipp, J.F. (1996) Identity politics, partisanship and voting for women candidates. Public Opinion Quarterly 60 (1): 30–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Runciman, D. (2010) Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schudson, M. (2004) Notes on scandal and the watergate legacy. American Behavioral Scientist 47 (9): 1231–1238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarz, N. and Bless, H. (1992) Scandals and the public’s trust in politicians: Assimilation and contrast effects. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18 (5): 574–579.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slothuus, R. and de Vreese, C.H. (2010) Political parties, motivated reasoning and issue framing effects. Journal of Politics 72 (3): 630–645.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slothuus, R. (2010a) Framing og politiske partier: Kan den rette indpakning gore politiske forslag mere spiselige. Politica 42 (3): 345–360.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slothuus, R. (2010b) When can political parties lead public opinion? Evidence from a natural experiment. Political Communication 27 (2): 158–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, E.S., Powers, A.S. and Suarez, G.A. (2005) If Bill Clinton were a woman: The effectiveness of male and female politicians’ account strategies following alleged transgressions. Political Psychology 26 (1): 115–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sniderman, P.M. and Grob, D.B. (1996) Innovations in experimental design in attitude surveys. Annual Review of Sociology 22: 377–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stoker, L. (1993) Judging presidential character: The demise of Gary Hart. Political Behavior 15 (2): 193–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, D.F. (1999) Democratic secrecy. Political Science Quarterly 114 (2): 181–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, J.B. (2000) Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, J.B. (2005) The new visibility. Theory, Culture & Society 22 (6): 31–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tumber, H. (2004) Scandal and media in the United Kingdom: From major to blair. American Behavioral Scientist 47 (8): 1122–1137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Väliverronen, E. and Juntunen, L. (2010) Politics of sexting, renegotiating the boundaries of private and public in political journalism. Journalism Studies 11 (6): 817–831.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Dalen, A. and Skovsgaard, M. (2011) Er en politisk skandale en politisk skandale? Danske medierede politiske skandaler i et komparativt perspektiv. Tidsskriftet Politik 14 (3): 17–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woessner, M.C. (2005) Scandal, elites, and presidential popularity: Considering the importance of cues in public support of the president. Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 (1): 94–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zaller, J.R. (1992) The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the participants at the ECPR Joint Sessions in St Gallen 2011 and the NOPSA conference same year for their insightful and constructive comments. We also thank Ugebrevet A4 for funding the survey experiments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kasper M Hansen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bhatti, Y., Hansen, K. & Leth Olsen, A. Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations. Acta Polit 48, 408–428 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2013.6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2013.6

Keywords

Navigation