How Personalist Parties Shape Public Perceptions of Corruption

Personalist parties often rise to power on anti-establishment platforms, promising to dismantle entrenched corruption and restore integrity to political systems. Despite their growing influence, the impact of personalist parties on public perceptions of corruption remains underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing a comprehensive dataset of public opinion surveys from over 140 countries (2006–2019), original data on high-profile convictions, and experience-based measures of corruption, employing causal inference methods. We argue that personalist parties in government strategically use anti-corruption rhetoric and symbolic actions to shape public perceptions and enhance their popularity. Our findings show that these parties effectively lower public perceptions of corruption, leveraging anti-corruption rhetoric to sway public sentiment—a trend further amplified by the conviction of a former leader for corruption. Such convictions enable the incumbent government to present itself as an anti-corruption champion, leveraging personalist rhetoric and reinforcing its image as the solution to corruption, even when institutional reforms are minimal or anti-corruption mechanisms are being undermined. In contrast, several expert-based and experience-based measures of corruption remain unchanged, suggesting that shifts in public perception do not reflect actual improvements in institutional integrity. This underscores the disconnect between subjective views and objective measures of corruption. Our study advances the literature on populism and anti-corruption by revealing how personalist parties in government shape perceptions and limit accountability.