Apex Corruption Erodes Democratic Values
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Enrique Seira
Joe and Deborah Loughrey Professor of Economics
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow
We complement a field experiment with cross-country evidence to show that exposure to apex corruption— corrupt acts implicating top-level politicians—causes large decreases in democratic values and associated behaviors. Behaviors such as individual voter turnout, contributions to support elections, and honesty and trust in incentivized games all fall. The effects on voting are greatest for incumbents perceived to be honest when apex corruption is exposed close to elections. We show, both experimentally and across scandals in 17 national settings, that apex corruption also reduces explicit support for democracy in favor of authoritarianism. We test two restorative solutions.
The paper can be found at this link.
Enrique Seira
Enrique Seira is the Joe and Deborah Loughrey Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame and a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute since 2025. A development economist specializing in political economy, financial inclusion, and institutional reform, he brings a strong empirical approach to understanding how democratic institutions function in practice...
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