Political scandal involves actions or omissions by political actors that undermine public trust and harm the interests of the broader society. Although there are many underlying causes, greed and lust—for power and money as well as for sex—often lie at the root of such behavior. The consequences of such ill-gotten gains can range from financial self-enrichment to warped policy making, where government funds are misdirected and public services like education, healthcare, and infrastructure suffer. These outcomes can also lead to the erosion of citizen morality and a deterioration in democratic institutions.
Despite the widespread prevalence of political scandal, little is understood about how and why the phenomenon occurs. Among the issues that remain to be addressed are the factors that determine whether a scandal is reported or not, what sorts of norm transgressions are considered scandalous, and how these norms are interpreted by audiences in different media environments.
The bulk of previous research on political scandal has focused on individuals’ reaction to mediated information about a particular politician. These findings suggest that, irrespective of the specific details of a particular scandal, people’s preexisting evaluations of candidates are negatively affected. Moreover, such negative information can spill over and affect perceptions of politicians in general (Taber & Lodge, 2006).
In this special section, we focus on two important new contributions to the field. First, we use the case of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sex-related misbehavior and misuse of office to highlight some of the key lessons from recent research on the nature of political scandal. Second, we employ a novel, empirically grounded theoretical approach to investigate how polarization drives political scandal and encourages dishonesty among the aligned parties—to the detriment of voters.