Corruption and support for decentralisation

Kuhn, T. and Pardos-Prado, S. (2021) Corruption and support for decentralisation. European Journal of Political Research, 60(3), pp. 625-647. (doi: 10.1111/1475-6765.12420)

Abstract

Existing explanations of individual preferences for decentralisation and secession focus on collective identity, economic considerations and party politics. This paper contributes to this literature by showing that preferences for fiscal and political decentralisation are also driven by concern about the quality of government in the face of corruption. It makes two claims. Firstly, information on national-level corruption decreases satisfaction with national politicians, and subsequently increases preferences for decentralisation and secession. Secondly, information on regional-level corruption pushes citizens of highly corrupt regions to prefer national retrenchment and unitary states. The effects of this political compensation mechanism crosscut national identities and involve regions that are not ethnically or economically different from the core. We test our argument using a survey experiment in Spain and confirm its cross-national generalisability with data from the European Values Study.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Theresa Kuhn gratefully acknowledges funding from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (VENI Grant No. 451–13‐029).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Pardos-Prado, Professor Sergi
• Authors: Kuhn, T., and Pardos-Prado, S.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: European Journal of Political Research
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 0304-4130
• ISSN (Online): 1475-6765
• Published Online: 17 September 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 The Authors
• First Published: First published in European Journal of Political Research 60(3): 625-647
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license