ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the political consequences of corruption scandals. There are an increasing number of studies that analyze the political consequences of corruption on citizens’ political attitudes and behaviour. A burgeoning literature about the political consequences of corruption scandals has developed over the last two decades thanks to greater data availability, methodological innovations, and growing concerns about the deleterious effects of corruption. Corruption provides a clear example of negative performance of political authorities, since procedural performance and fairness are undermined by the authorities’ misuse of public office. A competitive media market and a minimum level of media independence that facilitates the disclosure of corruption scandals are, therefore, of the utmost importance. In media systems with a high degree of political parallelism and audience segmentation, media outlets will offer different, or even contrasting, images of corruption scandals, which will be targeted to the preferences of their particular audience.
