Study: Crooked politicians typically get re-elected – except where there is independent mass media

The lead article in the latest issue of the journal World Politics is an interesting one:

One compelling justification for democracy is that public officials can be held accountable. Elected representatives who betray the public trust by extracting excessive rents are vulnerable to electoral retribution with loss of office. Perhaps surprisingly, however, evidence from a variety of countries documents that elected officials who are charged with or convicted of criminal wrongdoing are typically re-elected rather than repudiated by the electorate. This finding resonates with studies that suggest in various ways that political accountability may be realized only imperfectly even in well-established democracies, either because voters hold politicians responsible for things patently not under their control or because voters fail to take unresponsive or malfeasant representatives to task. In this article we argue that electoral retribution for allegations of criminal behavior by national legislators hinges on the dissemination of relevant information by the mass media. Without media reports that inform voters of judicial allegations that public officials have engaged in criminal activities, the electorate’s response to charges of malfeasance is one of apparent indifference. We thus identify the informational environment as a critical factor that affects the ability of voters to hold politicians accountable.

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