Combating corruption as a citizen priority for government action: the case of Chile, 2000-2019

Abstract

After a theoretical discussion on the determinants of perception of corruption and on the importance people give to fighting corruption as a priority for government action, we postulate 4 hypotheses and we test them for the case of Chile, a democracy with low levels perception of corruption, but with several corruption scandals in recent years. We use 43 (N=63768) national polls conducted by the Center for Public Studies (CEP) between 2000 and 2019 to estimate binary logistic models. The likelihood of mentioning corruption instead of other issues as a priority for government action is lower among people who approve of the president’s performance, higher in those who use more media to get their political information, lower in the first year and higher in the last year of every administration, and lower among those who think crime, employment and other social issues should be a priority for government action.

corruption; public opinion; trust in institutions; presidential approval; Chile