A political scandal occurs when a government official’s unethical or illegal behavior causes public outrage and calls for reforms. These events can damage a politician’s reputation and lead to loss of trust in institutions, heightened cynicism toward politics and elections, and decreased voting turnout. Studying political scandals helps us understand how people misuse power and why transparency matters in democracy.
Scandals often involve accusations of misbehavior—either bribery, nepotism, or other violations of norms and standards—by government officials or political parties. But what makes an incident a scandal? In this article, we investigate how political polarization shapes whether politicians’ actions are seen as misconduct or not. We find that scandals are not just a bad proxy for misbehavior, and that they may actually have more to do with partisanship than actual malfeasance.
Whether or not an event is considered a scandal depends on the degree to which media coverage aligns with the dominant view of the story, and how strongly observers’ own views are affected by these reports. Moreover, if media coverage is biased, voters’ ability to discern the truth will be diminished—especially for those who have a strong affinity for a particular party.
Using surveys of members of five competing unions and 122 journalists, we found that when media condemn an incident as scandalous, they tend to attract more support from their own base than those who disagree with them. This is because the dominant view incites a stronger emotional reaction from voters—especially among those with an affinity for the party in question—and because they are more likely to feel that if media reports are not neutral, they must be biased (Dziuda and Howell, 2017). The same pattern held true when our model was applied to German political scandals.