How Do Social and Political Identities Shape Party Members’ Attitudes Toward Corruption? An Experimental Study from Turkey

This study examines how social and political identities influence political party members' attitudes toward corruption in Turkey, employing an experimental methodology within a single-case study framework. Rooted in Social Identity Theory (SIT), the research explores the role of in-group favoritism and out-group denigration in shaping ethical judgments. The central hypothesis posits that party members exhibit greater tolerance for corruption when it involves their in-group but display harsher judgments toward out-group members. The study expands this analysis to other social identities, including ethnicity, religion, addressing questions about the interplay between partisan and broader social identities. The research uniquely focuses on municipal councilors who are formally political party members rather than voters, emphasizing the stronger, more concrete partisan identity within this group. Using a factorial experimental design, respondents are randomly assigned to vignettes in which the party affiliation and social identity of corrupt officials are disclosed. Subjects' responses to these vignettes-including their sentencing decisions-reveal the effects of identity on the perception of corruption. Turkey is an interesting case study because of the perceived high levels of corruption with strong tendencies toward party affiliations. The findings try to fill the gaps in the literature by explaining intra-party dynamics, contribute to SIT, and understand the crossroads that identity and ethics meet at. This methodological innovation also lays a foundation for future research on political behavior and corruption in similar socio-political contexts.