Corrupt politicians have to a surprisingly high extent been found to go unpunished by the electorate. These findings are, however, drawn from case studies on a small number of countries. This paper, on the contrary, is based on a unique dataset from 230 parliamentary elections in 33 European countries between 1981 and 2011, from which the electoral effects of corruption are analyzed. Firstly, it examines the electoral performance of individual parties and candidates, which are being accused of or being involved in corruption scandals in connection with an election campaign as well as the extent to which governments being involved in corrupt behavior manage to remain in power. This part will thus reveal if corrupt candidates and parties are doing worse electorally than their clean fellow politicians. Secondly the paper explores what accounts for the differences between the cases, i.e. why parties and candidates are getting away with being corrupt under some conditions, while they are punished under other. It is hypothesized that incumbency, politicization of the issue, magnitude of the scandal, the level of corruption, party system, salience of the issue as well as policy performance are important factors in this respect.
