THE IMPACT OF CORRUPTION VICTIMIZATION ON ELECTORAL ALIENATION IN LATIN AMERICA

Abstract

In Latin America, corruption may lead individuals to believe they are unable to influence the course of politics, lowering their electoral participation and support for democracy. To investigate this assumption, this article tests whether corruption victimization impacts electoral alienation. I assess how personal experience with corruption affects the intention to vote with survey data from Latin America and the Caribbean. My results show that corruption victimization increases electoral alienation in all 18 Latin American countries under analysis. More specifically, this study’s core linear probability model (LPM) indicates that the likelihood of someone casting a valid vote in the upcoming national elections falls by 2.8 percentage points when this person is a recent victim of corruption, nullifying the engagement effect of three years of formal education, all confounding variables held constant. Following a series of robustness tests, this finding corroborates the hypothesis that corruption victimization lowers citizens' perception of their own power to influence political change, leading to more abstention or invalid voting. At the same time, the effect of corruption victimization extends to support for the entire political system as corruption victims are 2.1 percentage points less likely to support democracy as the best form of government and 7.1 percentage points more likely to support a military coup when corruption is deemed severe. These findings advance existing knowledge on the effects of corruption on democracy and political legitimacy, and may help policy-makers in the design of anti-corruption policies and programs. Keywords: Corruption victimization; electoral alienation; comparative political behavior; LAPOP; Latin America.