Why voters do not (always) punish government parties for corruption

Fighting corruption is a vital aspect of good governance. Yet, it is also a highly persistent phenomenon, indicating that tackling corruption is not always at the top of incumbent’s agenda. One way to solve this problem is to engage in corruption performance voting; that is, to use elections to punish incumbents for high levels of corruption. But do citizens actually engage in this kind of voting behavior? Alejandro Ecker, Konstantin Glinitzer and Thomas M. Meyer show that while some voters do engage in corruption performance voting, the segment of voters that are willing to hold incumbents accountable is limited by their partisan preferences, their expectations about future governments, and by the characteristics of the country they live in.