Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1 Why study perceptions of politicians’ conduct?
- 2 Thinking about political ethics and conduct
- 3 Ethics and misconduct in British politics
- 4 Expectations and the scope of ethical judgements
- 5 How people judge political conduct
- 6 What people think of their elected politicians
- 7 The political effects of ethical evaluations
- 8 Changing public perceptions: problems and remedies
- 9 Concluding remarks
- Appendix: data and variable construction
- References
- Index
7 - The political effects of ethical evaluations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1 Why study perceptions of politicians’ conduct?
- 2 Thinking about political ethics and conduct
- 3 Ethics and misconduct in British politics
- 4 Expectations and the scope of ethical judgements
- 5 How people judge political conduct
- 6 What people think of their elected politicians
- 7 The political effects of ethical evaluations
- 8 Changing public perceptions: problems and remedies
- 9 Concluding remarks
- Appendix: data and variable construction
- References
- Index
Summary
[The MPs’ expenses scandal] was a manifestation of the decline in morality of the level of representation, from which the general public will then take their lead. The politician will start fiddling his expenses, and then the public will start fiddling his [sic] expenses and the whole system of morality and direction becomes diluted.
(Male focus group participant, Egham)In the previous chapter, we saw how suspicious most British citizens appeared to be of their elected politicians and of standards of political conduct more generally. We also saw, somewhat surprisingly, that such suspicions were not greatly exacerbated, at least in the medium term, by the frenzied press coverage surrounding MPs’ expenses in May 2009. But if citizens are sceptical of their politicians’ conduct and integrity, there are also grounds for others to be sceptical about the general importance of such critical attitudes. For a start, politicians as a class have always been distrusted and derided, and yet democratic politics in advanced industrial democracies has still rubbed along. Far larger proportions of citizens regularly vote to choose their representatives than express confidence in their representatives’ standards, and most citizens are seemingly content with a representative model of democracy (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2001, 2002; Allen and Birch forthcoming). Put another way, dissatisfaction with the standards of politicians’ conduct has rarely translated into dissatisfaction with the ideals of democracy or diminished support for the political community. Nor has it resulted in a general lack of compliance with democratic decisions or a refusal to turn to politicians for help and advice (O’Neill 2002).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethics and Integrity in British PoliticsHow Citizens Judge their Politicians' Conduct and Why it Matters, pp. 143 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015