5 - Fighting Corruption, Curbing Cynicism?

Summary

This chapter theorises the impact of crusades on voters’ attitudes and emotions towards politics. Optimists expect a message of regeneration that instils hope. Pessimists think crusades tell an all too familiar story of decay, triggering anxiety, fear, anger, and disaffection. The actual outcome, however, is likely more conditional and variable as the crusade progresses. No one likes corruption, so citizens should in principle welcome crusades, but not everyone sees these efforts with the same eyes or draws the same conclusions. First, it matters whether citizens fixate on the crimes revealed during the process, and therefore experience a negative information shock, or also pay attention to the proposed judicial solution to corruption. Second, when voters pay attention to the investigative effort, how do they evaluate it? Fairness and effectiveness evaluations are shaped by voters’ partisan attachments to defendants. Unorthodox investigative tactics can also trigger fairness concerns among partisans and neutral observers. Hope can therefore quickly fade as the inquiry progresses and the consensus around the merits of anti-corruption suffers.