CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Calvo, Esther Mary Lerma |
|---|---|
| Title | Unpopular Corruption and Popular Corrupt Politician: A Survey Experiment on Electoral Support for Corrupt Candidates in the Philippines |
| Summary | Why do corrupt candidates enjoy and maintain electoral support? This remains an undying puzzle in Philippine politics. Previous research has focused on ethnical identity, partisan bias, clientelistic networks, and the lack of credible information, only few have looked upon the characteristics of the corrupt candidate in explaining the lack of electoral consequence of corruption. To fill this gap, I build on the logic of Thompson’s applied populism and test the hypothesis that candidates’ origin (humble, elite or humble and competent) is one of the keys to understanding why corrupt candidates enjoy electoral popularity in the Philippines. Using online survey experiment data collected in the Philippines, I find that participants to the survey are more likely to support a corrupt candidate of humble origin with a good legislative performance record. However, this support varies depending on whether the individual treats the corruption accusation as serious or not, irrespective of treatment. My findings also suggest a novel mechanism of why Filipinos continue to support tainted candidates: individuals seem to perceive that a corrupt candidate can be hardworking, which could be why they are willing to make a tradeoff between acts of corruption and a good performance record. |
| Supervisor | Lup, Oana |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/calvo_esther.pdf |
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