electoral systems, corruption and satisfaction with democracy

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Electoral systems, corruption and satisfaction with democracy

Vincenzo Memoli

Department of Political and Social Sciences – University of Catania (Italy)

[email protected]

Alessandro Pellegata

Department of Social and Political Sciences – University of Milan (Italy)

[email protected]

Paper presented at the XXVII Annual Conference of the Italian Political Science

Association, University of Florence, 12-14 September 2013

Very preliminary draft. Please do not quote without permission

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Abstract

Corruption has been recognized as a detrimental factor of the citizens’ satisfaction with the way

democracy works in their country and their confidence with political institutions. On the contrary, the

direct impact of the institutional context on political support is less clear and previous studies present

contradictory results. However, from a recent literature emerges that the institutional context plays a

role in mediating the impact that the performance of the government authorities have on political

support. This paper aims to analyze if and how the restraints posited by the electoral systems on

political corruption affect the citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. The main argument advanced is

that those characteristics of the electoral systems that help to constrain corruption among elected

officials, strengthening the relation of accountability with the voters and favoring the monitoring by

the opposition parties, weaken the negative effects of corruption on the level of political support

expressed by citizens. Differently from previous studies that took into account the institutional context

along the traditional distinction between majoritarian and proportional/consensual democracies, this

paper focuses on specific aspects of the electoral system, such as the district magnitude, the ballot

structure, the electoral formula and the level of vote-seats disproportionality. Several research

hypotheses on the effect of corruption on political support conditional on the features of the electoral

system are tested through a comparative multilevel design on a sample of 34 countries taken from the

Module 2 of the CSES data. Results confirm that, even though there is not an electoral system that

outperform the others, those features that reduce incentives of politicians to cultivate personal vote and

extract rent from their position weaken the negative impact of perceived corruption on satisfaction

with democracy.

Keywords: comparative politics; corruption; electoral system; institutions; satisfaction with

democracy.

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Introduction

In comparative political studies satisfaction with the way democracy works in a specific

country is commonly considered an indicator of what Easton (1965; 1975) has defined as

“specific” support. This indicator refers to the citizens’ satisfaction with the conduct of the

political authorities and so incorporates an evaluations of the incumbents’ performance

(Klingemann 1999; Norris 1999; Dalton 2004; Memoli 2011). Among the various aspects that

citizens may consider in their performance evaluations we can include the estimation of the

level of corruption among public officials. Much has been written on the detrimental effects

of corruption on the macro-economic performance (Mauro 1995), the quality of governance

(Kaufmann et al. 1999) and the political support (among others, Seligson 2002; Anderson and

Tverdova 2003; Clausen et al. 2011).

Although most of the researches consider as determinants of political support the

political and economic performance, corruption included (Powell and Whitten 1993;

Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Bellucci and Memoli 2012), and voters’ ideology and political

preferences (Anderson et al. 2005; Kim 2009; Curini et al. 2012), only few studies take into

consideration the potential role played by the institutions (Lijphart 1999; Norris 1999; Aarts

and Thomassen 2008). Moreover, the empirical analyses conducted in these studies present

contradictory results on the direct effects of institutions on support.

This paper focuses on the interaction between political corruption and the institutional

framework in affecting political support. More precisely, the ultimate purpose of this study is

to assess if and how institutions, in particular the electoral system, mediate the impact of

citizens’ perceptions of corruption on their level of satisfaction with the way democracy

works in their country. Elections permit voters to hold their representatives accountable

(Powell 2000). However, some electoral systems strengthen the relation of accountability

between representatives and their voters, constraining politicians’ illicit rent-seeking, while

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other systems make more difficult for voters to recur to retrospective voting. Therefore, our

research question is: do electoral systems that contribute to constrain politicians’

malfeasances reduce the negative impact of corruption on democratic satisfaction?

This paper presents two main differences with previous research. First, differently by

other scholars which look at the direct effects of institutions on political support, this paper

analyzes how the institutional framework, in particular the characteristics of the electoral

system, interacts with political corruption. It has been proven that the impact of corruption on

democratic satisfaction is lower among “winners”, i.e. those citizens that had voted for one of

the government parties and among people that are ideologically distant from the government

(Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Kim 2009; Curini et al. 2012). Nevertheless, we have little

knowledge on how the effects of corruption change in different institutional contexts. Second,

most of the research on the relationship between institutions and political support have been

developed along the traditional distinction between Westminster and consensual democracies

and/or majoritarian and proportional electoral systems (Norris 1999; Powell 2000; Anderson

and Tverdova 2003; Criado and Herreros 2007). However, looking at these general

institutional framework may be misleading. In fact, these are the results of somewhat different

combinations of various elements that can present contrasting effects both on corruption

constraining and on political support. Thus, in this work we prefer to advance several research

hypotheses that look at the mediating effects on the impact of corruption on democratic

satisfaction played by different aspects of the electoral system. These are the district

magnitude, the ballot structure, the presence of open or closed party lists, the electoral

formula and the level of vote-seat disproportionality.

The conditional hypotheses advanced are tested making use of the Module 2 of the

Comparative Study of Electoral System dataset (CSES) which includes data on elections and

citizens attitudes toward governments between 2001 and 2006. The sample of analysis is

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composed by thirty-four countries that were democracies at the time in which the elections

were taken. The validity of our predictions is controlled for alternative explanatory factory of

democratic satisfaction both at the individual and at the country level and the statistical

technique used is a multilevel ordinal logistic regression. Empirical results confirm only some

of the hypotheses advanced. These indicate that electoral systems are complex aggregations of

various aspects that play different effects on corruption control and, as a consequence, on

satisfaction with democracy. We cannot identify a specific electoral system that outperforms

the others in weakening the negative impact of corruption.

In the next section we elaborate the main theoretical framework and advance the

research hypotheses, while in the following one we describe the sample of countries analyzed

and the data and the methodology used. Then, we discuss the empirical results obtained from

our analyses. Finally, in the last section we present the most important conclusions and the

implications we can draw from our research.

The role of the electoral system in mediating the impact of corruption

Corruption is expected to negatively affect the citizens’ evaluations of the way democracy

works in their country. When public agents are committed to extract illicit rents from their

privileged positions, human, social, and economic resources are diverted from the public

interest undermining the principles of democratic accountability and fairness and impartiality

of political institutions (della Porta 2000). This implies that the public is compelled to pay the

externalities of this misallocation process consisting in a distortion of public demand, an

increase of the cost and a reduction of the quality of public services. In other words,

corruption is unanimously recognized as a plague of “good democracy” (Morlino 2004).

Thus, the more the corruption is widespread, the more citizens tend to negatively evaluate the

performance of government authorities.

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However, institutions, understood as “the rules of the game”, can act as a restraint on

corruption interactions between politicians and business groups. Analyzing the relationship

between institutions and corruption a broad recent literature have focused especially on the

electoral system (Persson et al. 2003; Kunicovà and Rose-Ackerman 2005; Chang and Golden

2006). Elections allow citizens to hold their representatives accountable and to “throw the

rascals out” (Powell 2000). The effectiveness of elections as an accountability mechanism

depends primarily on the electoral system adopted. In fact, electoral systems affect the

incentives and the ability of voters and opposition parties to monitor incumbents’ behavior.

While voters prefer honest politicians, incumbents trade-off their re-election chances against

potentially illicit personal enrichment. These illegal forms of rent-seeking can help

incumbents to obtain the re-election, for instance increasing the amount of campaign

financing. Nevertheless, at the same time, the revelation of their corrupt scandals by voters or

opponents most likely reduce their re-election chances (Kunicovà and Rose-Ackerman 2005).

According to the literature (Persson et al. 2003; Kunicovà and Rose-Ackerman 2005),

majoritarian systems are more efficient in constraining corruption because generate a direct

link between voters and their representatives. Moreover, attributing a clear majority to a

single-party government or a minimal winning coalition, they favor a voters’ retrospective

evaluations of incumbents’ performance. On the contrary, electoral systems that impose

voters to vote on party lists reduce the monitoring abilities of voters and provide incentives to

the incumbents to recur to corrupt interactions. Furthermore, the formation of large and

volatile coalitions, typical in democracies that adopt PR electoral systems, makes more

obscure for voters to identify the responsibilities for the policy adopted. The lack of a clear

alternation at the government between fixed groups of parties deters inter-party monitoring.

Present opposition parties have less incentives to unveil incumbents’ malfeasance because

they may seat at the government with some of them in future coalitions (Pellegata 2012).

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The main argument advanced in this paper is simple but straightforward. Electoral

systems have an indirect impact on citizens’ support of political authorities through their

mediating role on political corruption. The more an electoral system helps to constrain

politicians’ illicit behaviors, the more it weakens the negative role that corruption has on

democratic satisfaction. The degree of citizens’ satisfaction with the way democracy works in

their country is intrinsically linked to the evaluation they make of the performance of

government authorities. If they perceive a high level of corruption among politicians they

most likely express a low level of political support. Nevertheless, in presence of an electoral

system that allows citizens to monitor and, eventually, punish politicians’ malfeasance the

impact of perceived corruption on political support should be less negative. Although

corruption is present, voters who are able to punish corrupt politicians feel confident about the

system.

However, as several scholars argued (Lijphart 1994), electoral systems are composed

by specific elements that regulate different aspects of the voting procedure and the translation

of votes into seats. These elements can play a different, and sometimes contrasting, role both

in constraining corruption and in shaping democratic satisfaction and institutional confidence.

Therefore, differently from most of previous studies (Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Kunicovà

and Rose-Ackerman 2005; Criado and Herreros 2007; Kim 2009) that focus on the main

distinction between majoritarian and proportional systems(visions), this paper analyzes the

main features that compose the electoral systems. The starting point of our theoretical

framework is represented by the Persson et al.’s (2003) research on the effects of the electoral

rules on corruption. Relying on the seminal studies of Myerson (1993) and Carey and

Shugart (1995), the authors identify three main features of the electoral systems that affect

politicians’ incentives to cultivate personal vote and citizens’ ability to monitor their

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behavior. These features are: (1) the district magnitude; (2) the ballot structure and (3) the

electoral formula.

The district magnitude lies at the basis of what Persson et al. (2003) call barriers-to-

entry effect. This argument posited that electoral rules promoting the entry of representatives

of many parties reduce politicians’ rent seeking. All voters prefer to vote for honest

candidates but disagree on their ideological preferences. If voters cannot find good

alternatives to a dishonest candidate who shares their same ideological preference they are

compelled to vote for her. Small electoral districts, together with majoritarian formulas that

favor strategic voting, reduce the number of political forces represented increasing the barriers

to entry in the electoral system and making more difficult to oust dishonest incumbents from

office (Myerson 1993; Persson et al. 2003). On the contrary, with large districts, and PR

electoral formulas, the availability of honest candidates for diverse ideological positions is

more presumable. This reduces the barriers to entry and, consequently, the chances of re-

election for dishonest candidates. The differentiation of political forces on the ideological

spectrum is one of the main arguments posited by those who claim that

proportional/consensual democracies are associated with higher level of democratic

satisfaction (Lijphart 1999; Powell 2000).1 Therefore, our first research hypothesis postulates

that:

H1: With increasing values of district magnitude the negative effects of the perceived

corruption on the satisfaction with democracy weaken (barriers-to-entry effect).

1 However, more recent studies show that higher level of polarization and of differentiation of parties’ policy

offerings increasing the gap around the position of the median voter reduce the level of democratic satisfaction

(Kim 2009; Ezrow and Xezonakis 2011).

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Career-concern effect rests on another important characteristic of the electoral system,

i.e. the ballot structure. The main argument is that voting over individual candidates

strengthens the relation of accountability that links the single representative to their voters. As

Persson et al. (2003) argue, this creates a direct link between the performance of the single

incumbent and his/her reappointment. To maximize the chance of being re-elected politicians

are incentivized to maintain a honest behavior avoiding abuse of power. On the contrary when

voters choose among party lists the relation of accountability is weakened because the number

of seats won depends on the votes collected by the whole list, rather than the performance of

each individual candidate. As a consequence, candidate are much more incentivized to behave

as free-riders. The second research hypothesis claims that:

H2a: With an increasing share of representatives elected on an individual ballot, rather than

on party lists, the negative effects of perceived corruption on the satisfaction with democracy

weaken (career-concern effect).

According to Kunicovà and Rose-Ackerman (2005) the weakest relation of

accountability is generated by the presence of closed party lists. Whit open lists voters can

express their preference to one or more candidates of the list. Thus, in order to be re-elected

candidates aims to maximize the preferences for their person and this makes more costly

behave as a free-rider. In presence of closed lists instead the individual’s chance of re-election

depends on his/her rank on the list and not on his/her performance (Personn et al. 2003). This

is why we advance a variant of the second hypothesis that takes into account the potential

corruption constraining role of PR-open list:

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H2b: With an increasing share of representatives elected on an individual ballot or PR-open

lists, rather than on PR-closed lists, the negative effects of perceived corruption on the

satisfaction with democracy weaken (open-lists effect).

Following the same reasoning we expect that, among countries that adopt a PR

electoral system, those that present open lists are more efficient in constraining the negative

effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy, than those with closed lists:

H3a: In presence of a PR electoral system with open lists the negative effects of perceived

corruption on the satisfaction with democracy weaken (open-lists effect).

However, Chang and Golden (2006), relying on the theoretical argument advanced by

the literature on personal vote (see Carey and Shugart 1995), provide empirical evidence that

the impact of PR electoral systems on corruption is different whether these are implemented

through open lists or closed lists. The idea is that intra-party competition is stiffer in presence

of open lists than with closed lists. The necessity to maximize personal vote provides

incentives to single candidates to amass resources, even illicitly, to out-campaign their

opponents during elections (Chang and Golden 2006). In an open list environment the

importance of establishing a unique personal reputation, distinct from that of the party, grows

as the number of candidates, namely the district magnitude, increases (Carey and Shugart

1995). In presence of closed list, by contrast, the relationship is the opposite. Single

candidates are not incentivized to recur to illegal funding because the reputation of the whole

party overshadows their personal one. Therefore, it is presumable that the role played by this

different implementation of a PR electoral system in mediating the impact of corruption on

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democratic satisfaction is affected by the district magnitude. An alternative third hypothesis

is:

H3b: The mediating impact of the presence of open or closed lists depends on the average

district magnitude. With low levels of district magnitude the presence of a PR electoral system

with open lists has a better performance than PR-closed lists in weakening the negative

effects of perceived corruption on democratic satisfaction. The relation is the opposite with

high levels of district magnitude (intra-party-competition effect).

As well as intra-party competition, also inter-party competition plays an important

indirect role on satisfaction with democracy via corruption control. Persson et al. (2003) argue

that real-world electoral systems can be generally subdivided into two main groups according

to the electoral formula they adopt: majoritarian systems with majority or plurality rules and

single-member districts and proportional systems with PR electoral formulas and multi-

member districts. The relation of accountability is stronger in the first type of systems because

candidates of different parties are focused on winning a majority, not of the whole electorate,

but of the voters of their districts. As these voters are more willing to change their preference

in response to policy, single candidates are more prone to maintain an honest and disciplined

behavior (Persson et al. 2003). The tougher inter-party competition typical of majoritarian

systems should induce to a better corruption control. The perception of voters in these

systems to have a direct control over the behavior of their representatives should positively

influence the level of democratic satisfaction. The fourth research hypothesis is the following:

H4: In presence of a majoritarian electoral formula the negative effects of perceived

corruption on the satisfaction with democracy weaken (inter-party-competition effect).

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Finally, there is another aspect of the electoral systems that is worth taking into

consideration in our analysis, that is the degree of disproportionality in translating votes into

seats (see Gallagher 1991). Two main arguments justify a positive impact of

disproportionality level in weakening the effects of corruption on democratic satisfaction.

First, a more disproportional translation of votes into seats tends to generate a bilateral

competition and durable single-party governments or minimum-winning coalitions. A

political-institutional framework of that kind is characterized by higher clarity of

responsibility, and this increases the capacity of voters to monitor and evaluate the

performance of the decision makers, and, eventually, punish those that are perceived as

corrupt. Second, with high disproportional electoral systems even small shifts in the choices

expressed at the electoral level generate substantial shifts at the legislative level. Thus, high

level of disproportionality increases the possibility of alternation making governments more

accountable to voters (Kaiser et al. 2002). Especially in those political systems in which

voters perceive a widespread corruption, highly disproportional electoral systems should

weaken the negative effect of corruption on democratic satisfaction. Our fifth and last

hypothesis is:

H5: With increasing values of vote-seats disproportionality the negative effects of perceived

corruption on the satisfaction with democracy weaken (possibility-of-alternation effect).

Each of these research hypotheses stresses a different mechanism according to which

one or more particular aspects of an electoral system should indirectly impact the satisfaction

with democracy attenuating the detrimental effects of corruption on it. Different aspects, such

as district magnitude and the electoral formula, are combined in a systematic pattern in real-

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world electoral systems (Persson et al. 2003). Majoritarian electoral systems, for instance

usually combine single-member districts, individual ballot and plurality or majority rule,

while proportional electoral systems combine multi-member districts, party lists and PR

electoral systems. However, the theoretical expectations that link district magnitude and

majoritarian formula (as well as the vote-seat disproportionality that is usually higher in

majoritarian system) to corruption control and, consequently, to democratic satisfaction are

divergent. As a consequence, we do not expect that an ideal type of electoral system

outperform the other in increasing political support, via corruption control.

Data and methods

Sample

To test the hypotheses advanced we make use of the final release of the CSES Module 2

dataset. This includes data on 40 elections taken in 38 countries between 2001 and 2006.2 For

the present study we have excluded one of the two studies conducted on the German

Bundestag in 2002 and the study conducted on the Portuguese elections of 2002, while we

have taken into account only the most recent (2005) of the two studies on Portugal.3

Moreover, we have excluded from the analysis the non-democratic regimes (Albania, 2005;

Hong Kong, 2004; Kirghizstan, 2005; Taiwan, 2001) taking into consideration only those

countries that in the year analyzed have reached the status of “Free” according the Freedom in

the World Index released by Freedom House.4 Thus, our analyses employ data on 34 elections

in 34 countries.

2 Data and documentation can be downloaded from http://www.cses.org/.

3 For Germany 2002, we have excluded the survey realized by phone and used the survey self-administered via

mail. Taking into consideration both these surveys could over-estimate Germany in respect to the other

countries.

4 See www.freedomhouse.org.

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Dependent Variable

Our dependent variable is the respondents’ level of satisfaction with democracy (SWD). This

variable is gathered from the responses citizens give to the following question: “On the whole,

are you very satisfied (1), fairly satisfied (2), not very satisfied (3) or not at all satisfied (4)

with the way democracy works in [country]?” We reversed the original scale so that higher

values correspond to greater satisfaction with democracy. Figure 1 plots the percentage of

people in each sample country that are fairly or very satisfied with democracy. As we can see,

the figure displays a high cross-national variation across the sample. “Satisfied” people range

from less than 30 per cent in Bulgaria up to 95 per cent in Denmark.

Figure 1 about here

Independent Variables

Our main independent variable is the level of corruption. The variable originates from the

citizens’ perceptions obtained from the responses they gave to the following question: “How

widespread do you think corruption such as bribe taking is amongst politicians in [country]?:

very widespread (1), quite widespread (2), not very widespread (3), it hardly happens at all

(4)”. As we did for SWD, we reversed the original coding so that higher values represents

perceptions that corruption is more widespread.

To test the conditional hypotheses advanced in the previous section we make

corruption interact with different features of the electoral system. The average district

magnitude is computed as the overall number of seats allocated through elections over the

number of districts present in the country. To test H2a and H2b we calculate the proportion of

legislators elected on individual ballot rather than party list (H2a) and the proportion of

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legislators elected on individual ballot and PR-open list rather than on PR-closed list (H2b).

both these indicator range between 0 and 1. While the first assume value of 1 only in presence

of the traditional first-pass-the-post system, the second assume value of 1 also in presence of

PR electoral systems with open lists.5 To operationalize the presence of a majoritarian

formula we include a dummy variable that assumes value of 1 for those countries that adopt a

pure majority or plurality electoral system and 0 otherwise. The level of vote-seats

disproportionality is measured through the Gallagher’s (1991) least squares index.6 A dummy

variable distinguishes, among countries that adopt a PR electoral systems, those that present

open lists (1) from those that present closed lists (0). All the variables that refer to the

electoral system are taken from the World Bank’s Database of Political Institutions (DPI) or,

if not available, are the result of personal calculations using data gathered from the Parline

Database of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).7 Table 1 lists the values presented by all the

sample countries for each of the characteristics of the electoral system described.

Table 1 about here

Control Variables

The validity of our research hypotheses are controlled for a set of alternative explanatory

variables of the satisfaction with democracy both at the individual level and at the country

level. At the individual level we include in the model three socio-demographic factors. Age

measures the age of respondents in years excluding people that are less that sixteen years old,

5 For a more complete description of these two variables see Persson et al. (2003).

6 For semi-presidential systems, we estimate Gallagher’s index following the method proposed by Lijphart

(1999), i.e., by taking the geometric mean of the index computed for presidential and for legislative elections.

7 For information on DPI see Beck et al. (2001). For the IPU Parline database see http://www.ipu.org/parline-

e/parlinesearch.asp.

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while education is a categorical variable that measures their level of education. Gender is a

dummy variable that assumes value of 1 for females and 0 for males. Moreover, we include

two categorical variables that relate to the respondents’ political attitudes, namely, how much

people think that democracy is better than any other forms of government, and that politicians

in power can make a difference. Higher values represent a stronger feeling toward democracy

and toward the political efficacy of those who are in power. In line with a consolidated

literature, we include a dummy variable that distinguishes between “winners” and “losers”

(among others, Anderson and Guillory 1997; Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Curini et al.

2012). Citizens who have voted for a government party tend to present higher levels of

democratic satisfaction. This variable assumes value of 1 for those respondents that in the last

elections voted for one of the parties at the government and 0 otherwise. Another variable

measures the distance, in absolute values, between the left-right self-reported position of the

respondent and the position of the government. The latter is measured as the median point of

the range of the government coalition, obtained by the absolute distance between the left-right

position of the two extreme parties. Finally, other two dummy variables measure whether

respondents feel close to a particular political party and whether they usually join protests or

demonstrations. People which identify themselves or feel close to a party should express

greater satisfaction, while people that participate in political demonstrations tend to be less

satisfied.

At the country level we include a dummy variable that distinguishes between

consolidated and newly established regimes. We expect lower levels of democratic

satisfaction in new democracies because they tend to present a poorer political and economic

performance. We consider a democratic regime as consolidated if did not experience any

interruption in their status in the last twenty-five years according to the Przeworski’s et al.

(2000) classification. Among new democracies there are countries from East Europe, Central

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and Latin America and East Asia (apart from Japan). We want to take into account also the

quality of formal institutions because it is supposed to be positively correlated with

democratic satisfaction. For this reason among the control variables we include an indicator

that measures the enforcement of the rule of law in each country taken from the Worldwide

Governance Indicators (Kaufmann et al. 1999).8 Finally we take into account the economic

performance of different countries. The better the economic performance of a political

system, the higher the satisfaction with democracy. We include three different variables: the

natural logarithm of the GDP per capita and the inflation rate, measured in the year before the

elections, and the average growth in GDP in the five years before the elections. Data are

gathered from the World Development Indicators collected by the World Bank.9

Method

Considering that our dependent variable, satisfaction with democracy, is an ordinal measure

neither an OLS nor a multinomial logit or probit model are appropriate methods of analysis.

We apply an ordinal regression model that has been developed for analyzing ordered response

variable, as in our case (Long 1997). As we have seen our dataset combines information at the

individual level of respondents nested with information at the aggregate level of the thirty-

four countries analyzed. To take into account the hierarchical structure of the data we

compute heteroskedasticity consistent standard errors clustered at the country level (Rabe-

Hesket and Skrondal 2012).10

In any ordinal regression model the dependent variable is

8 Data and documentation can be downloaded from http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp.

9 See http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.

10 As a robustness check we also estimate a model by dichotomizing the dependent variables and running a

multilevel logistic regression model. The modalities “not at all satisfied” and “not very satisfied” are aggregated

into the category “not satisfied” (0), while the modalities “fairly satisfied” and “very satisfied” are aggregated

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regarded as a latent variable that is estimated as a linear function of the independent variables

and a set of thresholds defined as cutpoints. The probability of observing a given outcome

therefore corresponds to the probability that the estimated linear function is within the range

of the cutpoints estimated for the outcome.

Empirical results

Table 2 reports the results of seven statistical models that test the validity of the research

hypotheses advanced. Every model includes a two-way interaction (three-way in Model 6)

between the citizens’ perception of corruption and a characteristic of the electoral system, and

all the control variables, both at the individual and at the country level, described above.

Given that multiplicative interaction models aim to test conditional hypotheses, regression

coefficients cannot be interpreted as in additive linear models (see Brambor et al. 2006).

Thus, results reported in tables 2 are in some sense uninformative for the control of the

validity of our conditional hypotheses. This is why we compute the marginal effects of

corruption on democratic satisfaction (and the relative confidence intervals) as the different

characteristics of the electoral system change and we have summarized the results in Table 3

and 4 and in Figures 2 through 6.

Table 2 around here

Figure 2 plots four graphs with the marginal effects of corruption on the four different

modalities that the dependent variable, satisfaction with democracy, can assume as the

average district magnitude increases. As we can note, H1 is confirmed by the results obtained.

into the category “satisfied” (1). Results obtained are very similar to the ones presented below and are available

upon request.

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With increasing values of district magnitude the positive effect of corruption on being not at

all or not very satisfied with democracy does not change or slightly decrease, while the

negative effect of corruption on being very satisfied with democracy weaken. In all but one

graph the relationship is significant for all the possible values of district magnitude. These

results are obtained excluding Israel which presents a unique nationwide district (average

district magnitude=120) that makes it an outlier in the distribution. However, we have run

Model 1 and computed marginal effects also including Israel and the results remain the

same.11

Figure 2 about here

Figure 3 reports four graphs with the marginal effects of corruption on the four

outcomes of the dependent variable as the proportion of legislators elected on individual

ballot increases. The career-concern effect advanced in H2a is confirmed by these results.

With an increasing share of representatives elected on individual ballot the positive impact of

corruption on the probability of being not at all or not very satisfied decrease, while the

negative effect on the probability of being fairly and, above all, very satisfied weaken.

However, it is worth noting that the relationship is significant only until a proportion of

representative elected on individual ballot around .5-.6. This means that pure plurality or

majority systems in which the whole set of representatives is elected on individual ballot does

not contribute in weakening the detrimental effect of corruption on democratic satisfaction. It

rather seems that this positive mediating role is played by mixed electoral systems in which

around a half of legislators are elected in single-member districts.

11

Results are available upon request.

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Figure 3 around here

On the contrary, H2b is not confirmed by the results reported in Figure 4 in which the

mediating variable is the proportion of legislators elected on individual ballot or PR-systems

with open lists. With increasing values of this variable the positive effect of perceived

corruption on the probability that respondents are not at all or not very satisfied increases or

remains the same, while its negative impact on the probability that they are fairly or very

satisfied does not change or becomes stronger. As a consequence, PR systems with open lists

not only have a worse performance in reducing the negative effect of corruption on

democratic satisfaction than majoritarian systems, but also seem to exacerbate it.


Even though we focus only on countries which adopt PR electoral systems, as reported

in Model 5 in Table 2, the presence of open lists contributes to worsen the detrimental effect

of corruption on satisfaction with democracy. This result is evident from the marginal effects

of corruption on the dependent variable in presence of closed or open list reported in Table 3.

For three out of four outcomes of the dependent variable with both the variants of party lists

corruption displays a significant positive correlation with the probability of being not at all or

not very satisfied and a negative correlation with the probability of being fairly or very

satisfied. However, switching from a PR electoral system with closed lists to a system with

open lists the relation between corruption and democratic satisfaction becomes stronger.

Therefore, H3a is not confirmed by the empirical results.

Table 3 around here

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Figure 5 reports the results of the test of H3b which advances the intra-party-

competition effect developed by Carey and Shugart (1995) and is alternative to H3a. The

figure plots four graphs. The two graphs on the left side of the figure show the marginal

effects of corruption in presence of a PR electoral system with open lists on being not at all

satisfied with democracy (at the top) and being very satisfied (at the bottom) as the average

district magnitude changes. The two graphs on the right side display the same marginal

effects with the only difference of the presence of closed lists. What emerges from the

analysis of Figure 5 is that in presence of PR electoral systems with closed list, rather than

open list for each value of district magnitude the size of the impact of corruption on

satisfaction with democracy is generally lower or, at least, not higher. However, with

increasing values of district magnitude the presence of closed list weakens the negative effect

of corruption on democratic satisfaction. These findings do not confirm H3b which lies on the

Carey and Shugart’s (1995) prediction according to which closed lists have a better

performance in reducing intra-party competition and illegal rent seeking only with high levels

of district magnitude. In fact, closed lists have a stronger impact on satisfaction with

democracy, via its corruption-constraining role, with every potential value of district

magnitude.


The role of majoritarian formula in mediating the effect of corruption on satisfaction

with democracy is not clear. Table 4 reports the marginal effects of corruption on the

dependent variable in presence or not of a majoritarian formula. As we can note, in line with

our prediction, adopting a majoritarian formula the effect of corruption on the probability of

22

being not at all satisfied is less positive as well as the effect on being fairly satisfied is less

negative. Nevertheless, switching from a non-majoritarian formula to a majoritarian one we

have a worse performance in weakening the positive effect of corruption on being not very

satisfied and its negative effect on being not at all satisfied. As a consequence we cannot

confirm the validity of H4.

Table 4 around here

Finally, Figure 6 plots four graphs reporting the marginal effects of corruption

perception on democratic satisfaction at different values of the level of disproportionality. As

predicted by what we call the possibility-of-alternation effect advanced in H5, with increasing

values of disproportionality the positive impact of corruption on being not at all or not very

satisfied decreases, while its negative impact on being fairly or very satisfied weakens. The

relationship is significant only until a disproportionality level more or less equal to 10.

However, this does not invalidate our result because only 4 out of 34 countries included in the

sample (11%) display a level of disproportionality higher than 10.


Looking at the Table 2 presented above we can note that some of the control variables

tested are significantly correlated with the dependent variable. At the individual level the two

variables that reflect the citizens’ political attitude positively influences their level of

satisfaction with democracy. People who think that democracy is better than any other forms

of government, and that politicians in power can make a difference tend to be more satisfied.

Also winners, i.e. citizens who had voted for one of the government parties, express higher

23

level of satisfaction in all but one of the model tested. On the contrary, the regression

coefficient of the distance between the ideological preferences of the citizens and the

government, though presents always a negative sign, is never significantly related to

satisfaction with democracy. Finally, people who feel close to a political party tend to express

higher levels of satisfaction, while people who usually join protests or demonstrations are

more unsatisfied. Socio-demographic variable, instead, are never significantly related to

democratic satisfaction.

Among the alternative country-level explanatory factors, newly established

democracies only in some models are associated to lower levels of satisfaction with

democracy. The quality of formal institutions, instead, positively impacts democratic

satisfaction. In all but one of the models tested the rule of law variable is positively and

significantly associated with the dependent variable. Among the three variables chosen to

operazionalize the economic development of different sample countries, the natural logarithm

of GDP per capita is never significantly correlated with satisfaction. On the contrary, the

average growth of real GDP in the five years before the elections is significantly associated to

higher levels of satisfaction with democracy. In conclusion, inflation rate is inversely

correlated with the dependent variable.

Concluding remarks

The present paper investigates the role of the electoral system in mediating the

negative impact of corruption on citizens’ satisfaction with the way democracy works in their

country. While, it has been proven that corruption has detrimental consequences on

democratic satisfaction and institutional confidence, we have little knowledge about the direct

effects of the political and institutional context on political support. However, a broad

literature explains how electoral systems can help to constrain corruption, understood as an

24

indicator of (bad) performance of the political authorities. In this study we hypothesize that

those characteristics of the electoral system that contribute to constrain corruption and

strengthen the relation of accountability between representatives and their voters weaken the

negative effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy. More precisely, we advance

several research hypotheses which test the effects of corruption on democratic satisfaction

conditional to different aspects of the electoral system. These characteristics are the district

magnitude, the ballot structure, the electoral formula, the presence of open or closed party

lists and the level of vote-seat disproportionality. The validity of the research hypotheses have

been tested through the CSES Module 2 dataset which includes data on 34 elections in 34

consolidated and newly-established democracies employing a multilevel ordinal logistic

regression.

Empirical results confirm only some of the hypotheses advanced. The negative effects

of corruption on democratic satisfaction are weakened by increasing levels of district

magnitude and vote-seat disproportionality, and a moderately high share of legislators elected

on individual ballot rather than with party lists. The implementation of a PR electoral systems

with open lists, instead, does not help to reduce the negative consequence of corruption.

Irrespective of the average level of district magnitude present in a country, the presence of

closed lists has a better performance than open lists. Finally, the adoption of a majoritarian

formula seems to play any significant role in mediating the impact of corruption on

satisfaction with democracy.

From these findings we can draw two main general conclusions. Firstly, we find

evidence that citizens’ levels of satisfaction with democracy are strictly connected to an

evaluation of the performance of the political authorities, represented here by their perception

of the spread of corruption among public officials. However, not all those electoral systems

mechanisms that constrain corruption automatically help to weaken its impact on satisfaction

25

with democracy. Of course corruption is not the only aspect that citizens take into account in

their evaluations of the governments’ performance. There are several other elements of

political performance, such as the state of the national education system and the welfare state,

that play an important role in affecting their degree of democratic satisfaction and presumably

counterbalance the impact of corruption (Criado and Herreros 2007).

Secondly, empirical results confirm the complexity of electoral systems in affecting

the perceptions that citizens have of the general government performance and the quality of

the democratic system. What emerges is that there is not a specific electoral system that

outperforms the others in weakening the negative impact of corruption on the citizens’

satisfaction with democracy. The adoption of a pure plurality or majority electoral rule does

not guarantee a better performance on democratic satisfaction via its corruption-constraining

role than the adoption of a proportional rule. Our analysis rather confirms that single aspects,

that are generally combined in a specific electoral system, may present contrasting effects and

should be analyzed separately. In fact, it seems that to weaken the impact of corruption on

democratic satisfaction a country should adopt a combination of single-member districts in

which the representative is elected on individual ballot and multi-member districts regulated

by a PR electoral system with closed lists. Moreover, this kind of system should imply a

moderately high level of vote-seat disproportionality. Looking at the real-world electoral

systems, this combination, though in different variants, is implemented by mixed-member

electoral systems. Eight out of thirty-four countries in our sample have a mixed electoral

system. Most of them have reformed (or emended) the electoral system adopting this formula

during the nineties. However, it is difficult to derive from our results that adopting a mixed

system would contribute to improve the quality of contemporary representative democracies

(Massicotte and Blais 1999; Shugart and Wattemberg 2001). Although, mixed systems help to

26

reduce the negative effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy, further research that

analyzes their impact on different elements of democratic quality are required.

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30

Table 1. Characteristics of the electoral system for the sample countries.

Country Year

Average

district

magnitude

Prop.

elected

individual

ballot

Prop. elected

individual

ballot/PR-

open

Majoritarian

formula

Open

lists

Disproportionality

index

Australia 2004 1 1 1 1 - 8.6 Belgium 2003 13.63 0 0 0 0 5.16 Brazil 2002 19 0 1 0 1 3.07 Bulgaria* 2001 7.7 0.13 0.13 0 0 7.82 Canada 2004 1 1 1 1 - 9.81

Chile 2005 2 1 1 1 - 6.82 Czech Republic 2002 25 0 1 0 1 5.73 Denmark 2001 10.5 0 1 0 1 1.58 Finland 2003 13.33 0 1 0 1 3.16 France 2002 1 1 1 1 - 21.95 Germany* 2002 1.9 0.49 0.49 0 0 4.61 Great Britain 2005 1 1 1 1 - 16.73 Hungary* 2002 1.96 0.46 0.46 0 1 8.2

Iceland 2003 7.9 0 0 0 0 1.85 Ireland 2002 4 0 1 0 1 6.62 Israel 2003 120 0 0 0 0 2.53 Italy 2006 22.5 0 0 0 0 3.61 Japan* 2004 2.52 0.63 0.63 0 0 8.52 Korea* 2004 8.6 0.82 0.82 0 0 12.39 Mexico* 2003 16.6 0.6 0.6 0 0 4.74 Netherlands 2002 8.3 0 0 0 0 0.88

New Zealand* 2002 24 0.58 0.58 0 0 2.37 Norway 2001 10 0 0 0 0 3.22 Peru 2006 4.8 0 0 0 0 13.95 Philippines* 2004 1.24 0.78 0.78 0 0 6.52 Poland 2001 16.7 0 0 0 0 6.33 Portugal 2005 10.5 0 0 0 0 5.75 Romania 2004 7.8 0 0 0 0 3.74 Slovenia 2004 11 0 1 0 1 4.79 Spain 2004 6.9 0 0 0 0 4.25

Sweden 2002 11.6 0 0 0 0 1.52 Switzerland 2003 9.1 0 1 0 1 2.47 Taiwan 2004 11.5 0 1 0 1 2.81 United States 2004 1 1 1 1 - 2.99

Notes: *the country adopts a mixed-member electoral system.

Sources: Database of Political Institutions; IPU’s Parline dataset.

31

Table 2. Results of multilevel ordered logit on satisfaction with democracy.

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Coeff. (Std. err.) Coeff. (Std. err.) Coeff. (Std. err.) Coeff. (Std. err.)

Corruption

2 -.687(.247)*** -.563(.157)*** -.2853(.123)** -.487(.157)***

3 -1.254(.267)*** -.955(.214)*** -.510(.227)** -.843(.207)***

4 -1.973(.284)*** -1.640(.228)*** -1.247(.250)*** -1.470(.213)***

District magnitude -.041(.016)**

Corruption X District magnitude

2 .015(.015)

3 .034(.017)

4 .046(.017)

Prop. elected on individual ballot -.281(.503)

Corruption X

Prop. elected on individual ballot

2 .424(.354)

3 .356(.451)

4 .571(.505)

Prop. elected on ind ballot/PR-open .916(.387)**

Corruption X

Prop. elected on ind ballot/PR-open

2 -.406(.222)*

3 -.774(.357)**

4 -.551(.428)

Majoritarian formula .214(.312) Corruption X Majoritarian formula 2 1 .014(.209) 3 1 -.200(.250) 4 1 -.254(.245)

Age -.002(.001) -.002(.001) -.002(.001) -.002(.001)

Gender -.011(.028) -.019(.028) -.010(.028) -.018(.028)

Education -.011(.022) -.021(.022) -.023(.020) -.021(.022)

Democracy better .715(.057)*** .695(.056)*** .688(.056)*** .693(.058)***

Political efficacy .050(.017)*** .046(.018)** .050(.015)*** .043(.018)**

Winner .288(.109)*** .292(.109)*** .275(.107)** .283(.107)***

Distance -.002(.028) -.012(-029) -.013(.030) -.011(.029)

Party closeness .163(.031)*** .159(.036)*** .148(.033)*** .154(.037)***

Join protest -.319(.051)*** -.308(.051)*** -.307(.052)*** -.309(.052)***

New democracy -.427(.229)* -.298(.225) -.424(.246)* -.293(.228)

Rule of law .457(-243)* .451(.236)* .351(.200)* .495(.234)**

logGDP -.271(.346) -.150(.342) -.131(.287) -.213(.337)

GDP growth .140(.039)*** .143(.034)*** .127(.034)*** .140(.036)***

Inflation -.072(.027)*** -.054(.028)* -.048(.033) -.056(.029)*

Cut point 1 -3.694(3.347) -2.092(3.368) -1.634(2.754) -2.617(3.301)

Cut point 2 -1.565(3.334) -.001(3.353) .456(2.743) -.527(3.290)

Cut point 3 1.673(3.355) 3.160(3.368) 3.646(2.749) 2.633(3.307)

Observations 27,206 28,011 28,011 28,011

Countries 33 34 34 34

Log-likelihood -27292.266 -28574.117 -28465.525 -28581.514

Notes: Robust standard errors clustered at the country level in parentheses. *p<.1; **p<.05; ***p<.01.

32

Table 2. Results of multilevel ordered logit on satisfaction with democracy (continued).

(5) (6) (7)

Coeff. (Std. err.) Coeff. (Std. err.) Coeff. (Std. err.)

Corruption

2 -.264(.116)** -.485(.169)*** -.545(.239)**

3 -.435(.208)** -.803(.246)*** -1.000(.297)***

4 -1.105(.212)*** -1.522(.288)*** -1.649(.348)***

District magnitude -.033(.014)**

Corruption X District magnitude

2 .011(.010)

3 .024(.022)

4 .033(.028)

Open List 1.171(.369)*** 1.135(1.177)

Corruption X Open List

2 1 -.629(.127)*** -.466(.893)

3 1 -1.160(.298)*** -.987(1.193)

4 1 -1.049(.332)*** -1.004(1.252)

District Magnitude X Open List -.0009(.113)

Corruption X Open List X District magnitude

2 1 -.008(.081)

3 1 -.006(.110)

4 1 .002(.116)

Disproportionality -.025(.050) Corruption X Disproportionality

2 .022(.034) 3 .032(.043) 4 .034(.049)

Age -.002(.002) -.003(.002) -.002(.001)

Gender -.035(.026) -.026(.025) -.018(.028)

Education -.014(.023) -.001(.021) -.020(.021)

Democracy better .659(.057)*** .684(.057)*** .693(.057)***

Political efficacy .039(.018)** .045(.017)** .043(.019)**

Winner .189(.115)* .191(.118) .287(.108)***

distance -.007(.032) .002(.033) -.011(.028)

Party closeness .148(.041)*** .168(.037)*** .162(.036)***

Join protest -.300(.057)*** -.304(.056)*** -.311(.052)***

New democracy -.428(.340) -.602(.341)* -.280(.243)

Rule of law .449(.250)* .357(.280) .489(.201)**

logGDP -.237(.341) -.261(.333) -.182(.341)

GDP growth .134(.036)*** .123(.046)*** .143(.036)***

Inflation -.049(.031) -.064(.034)* -.054(.034)

Cut point 1 -2.711(3.257) -3.495(3.144) -2.395(3.496)

Cut point 2 -.633(3.249) -1.371(3.139) -.304(3.486)

Cut point 3 2.594(3.254) 1.955(3.144) 2.854(3.495)

Observations 23,455 22,640 28,011

Countries 28 27 34

Log-likelihood -23892.741 -22596.612 -28587.749

Notes: Robust standard errors clustered at the country level in parentheses. *p<.1; **p<.05; ***p<.01.

33

Table 3. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy in presence of PR-

open lists and not.

(5)

Marginal effect (Std. err.)

On Prob. not at all satisfied (SWD=1) Not very widespread (2) | Closed list (0) .014(.004)***

Not very widespread (2) | Open list (1) .019(.003)***

Quite widespread (3) | Closed list (0) .025(.011)**

Quite widespread (3) | Open list (1) .050(.008)***

Very widespread (4) | Closed list (0) .086(.016)***

Very widespread (4) | Open list (1) .091(.012)***

On Prob. not very satisfied (SWD=2) Not very widespread (2) | Closed list (0) .036(.016)**

Not very widespread (2) | Open list (1) .082(.007)***

Quite widespread (3) | Closed list (0) .060(.029)**

Quite widespread (3) | Open list (1) .173(.019)***

Very widespread (4) | Closed list (0) .147(.030)***

Very widespread (4) | Open list (1) .250(.025)***

On Prob. fairly satisfied (SWD=3) Not very widespread (2) | Closed list (0) -.027(.009)***

Not very widespread (2) | Open list (1) .049(.037)

Quite widespread (3) | Closed list (0) -.050(.022)**

Quite widespread (3) | Open list (1) .003(.050)

Very widespread (4) | Closed list (0) -.162(.028)***

Very widespread (4) | Open list (1) -.076(.052)

On Prob. very satisfied (SWD=4) Not very widespread (2) | Closed list (0) -.023(.011)**

Not very widespread (2) | Open list (1) -.151(.029)***

Quite widespread (3) | Closed list (0) -.035(.018)*

Quite widespread (3) | Open list (1) -.227(.051)***

Very widespread (4) | Closed list (0) -.071(.016)***

Very widespread (4) | Open list (1) -.265(.057)***

Notes: the other variables are set at the means. *p<.1; **p<.05; ***p<.01.

34

Table 4. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy in presence of a

majoritarian formula and not.

(4)

Marginal effect (Std. err.)

On Prob. not at all satisfied (SWD=1) Not very widespread (2) | No majoritarian formula (0) .020(.004)***

Not very widespread (2) | Majoritarian formula (1) .010(.003)***

Quite widespread (3) | No majoritarian formula (0) .041(.007)***

Quite widespread (3) | Majoritarian formula (1) .031(.004)***

Very widespread (4) | No majoritarian formula (0) .094(.012)***

Very widespread (4) | Majoritarian formula (1) .072(.005)***

On Prob. not very satisfied (SWD=2) Not very widespread (2) | No majoritarian formula (0) .061(.016)***

Not very widespread (2) | Majoritarian formula (1) .047(.014)***

Quite widespread (3) | No majoritarian formula (0) .110(.023)***

Quite widespread (3) | Majoritarian formula (1) .120(.014)***

Very widespread (4) | No majoritarian formula (0) .193(.025)***

Very widespread (4) | Majoritarian formula (1) .224(.025)***

On Prob. fairly satisfied (SWD=3) Not very widespread (2) | No majoritarian formula (0) -.023(.007)***

Not very widespread (2) | Majoritarian formula (1) -.020(.003)***

Quite widespread (3) | No majoritarian formula (0) -.061(.011)***

Quite widespread (3) | Majoritarian formula (1) -.003(.007)

Very widespread (4) | No majoritarian formula (0) -.159(.021)***

Very widespread (4) | Majoritarian formula (1) -.092(.011)***

On Prob. very satisfied (SWD=4) Not very widespread (2) | No majoritarian formula (0) -.057(.025)**

Not very widespread (2) | Majoritarian formula (1) -.078(.020)***

Quite widespread (3) | No majoritarian formula (0) -.089(.032)***

Quite widespread (3) | Majoritarian formula (1) -.148(.013)***

Very widespread (4) | No majoritarian formula (0) -.127(.034)***

Very widespread (4) | Majoritarian formula (1) -.201(.009)***

Notes: the other variables are set at the means. *p<.1; **p<.05; ***p<.01.

35

Figure 1. Average levels of satisfaction with democracy.

Source: CSES Module 2

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1Avg. of people fairly or very satisfied with democracy

DenmarkIreland

AustraliaUnited States

NorwaySpain

SwitzerlandSweden

Great BritainJapan

CanadaBelgiumFinlandIceland

GermanyNew ZealandNetherlands

ChileFrance

PhilippinesTaiwan

PortugalHungary

Czech RepublicRomania

PolandItaly

SloveniaIsrael

MexicoPeru

BrazilKorea

Bulgaria

36

Figure 2. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy as the average district

magnitude changes.

0

.02

.04

.06

.08

.1

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20

avg. district magnitude

Marg eff corruption C. I. 95%

Pr. not at all satisfied (SWD=1)

0.1

.2.3

.4

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20



Pr. not very satisfied (SWD=2)

-.3

-.2

-.1

0.1

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20



Pr. fairly satisfied (SWD=3)-.

3-.

2-.

10

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20


Marg eff corruption C. I. at 95%

Pr. very satisfied (SWD=4)

37

Figure 3. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy as the proportion of

legislators elected on individual ballot changes.

0

.05

.1.1

5

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1

prop. elected on individual ballot



-.1

0.1

.2.3

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1




-.2

5-.

2-.

15

-.1

-.0

5

0

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1




2-.

15

-.1

-.0

5

0

.05

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1




38

Figure 4. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy as the proportion of

legislators elected on individual ballot or PR-open lists changes.

0

.05

.1.1

5

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1

prop. elected on individual ballot / PR-open list



0.1

.2.3

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1




-.3

-.2

-.1

0.1

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1




3-.

2-.

10

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1




39

Figure 5. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy in presence of open

or closed lists as the average district magnitude changes.

0

.05

.1.1

5

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20


Marg eff corruption/OL C. I. 95%


-.0

5

0

.05

.1.1

5

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20


Marg eff corruption/CL C. I. 95%


-.8

-.6

-.4

-.2

0.2

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20


Marg eff corruption/OL C. I. 95%

Pr. very satisfied (SWD=4)-.

15

-.1

-.0

5

0

.05

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20


Marg eff corruption/CL C. I. 95%


40

Figure 6. Marginal effects of corruption on satisfaction with democracy as the level of vote-

seats disproportionality changes.

-.05

0

.05

.1.1

5

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20

level of disproportionality



-.2

0.2

.4

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20




-.3

-.2

-.1

0.1

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20




2-.

10

.1

marg

inal eff

ect

of

corr

uption

0 5 10 15 20




electoral systems, corruption and satisfaction with democracy

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