Democratic values, political trust, and corruption: a survey analysis

Corruption is often defined as a deviant conduct from established legal and formal norms and expected ways of behaving in the exercise of official duties and the discharge of official responsibilities. Readiness to accept or condone these conducts will hinge primarily upon the evaluator’s understanding of what those standards are. This means that citizens’ evaluation of the impact of corruption in their lives or in society is likely to be affected by their normative understanding of democracy. Based on new survey data and using three perception-based measures of corruption (egocentric corruption, sociotropic corruption and tolerance towards corruption) we demonstrate that democratic norms, trust in democratic institutions, corruption experience and holding a minimalist definition of corruption have a significant impact on citizens’ perceptions and tolerance towards corruption. Control variables – such as age, education, income, social media exposure – have also significant impact on perception-based measures of corruption. Overall, findings point to evidence that democratic values and trust in democratic institutions impact on citizens’ value systems and their propensity to normalise corruption. By associating perception-based measures of corruption to people’s preferences of democratic norms, this study contributes to the understanding of the resilience of this complex phenomenon in democracies.