Andrew Wroe

The role of political trust in conditioning perceptions of corruption

Political trust and corruption have both elicited considerable academic and popular commentary in recent years. Much attention has been focused on the extent to which corruption has contributed to citizens’ increasing distrust of their politicians. But little attention has been paid to the possibility that distrust may condition responses to alleged corruption, and no work has hitherto demonstrated the veracity of this relationship in a mature democracy. Drawing on data from the United Kingdom, this paper finds that less trusting individuals are consistently more censorious of politicians’ misbehaviour and more likely to perceive the presence of corruption than are their more trusting peers. The paper further demonstrates that people who are less trusting become relatively more critical (compared with the more trusting) as the generally perceived corruptness of a certain scenario declines. It also demonstrates how trust increases in importance as a predictor of ethical judgements when behaviour is generally reckoned to be less corrupt. Further analysis suggests that this effect is partly connected to uncertainty. Less obviously corrupt acts are associated with higher levels of uncertainty, which appears to open up a space for trust to play an even more significant role in shaping individuals judgements of politicians’ behaviour.

Economic Insecurity and Political Trust in the United States

Extant research demonstrates that citizens’ evaluations of national economic performance play an important role in determining trust in politicians and political institutions, whereas evaluations of their own economic situation play a lesser or even negligible role. Utilizing American National Election Studies data and more apposite measures of personal economic privation during an age of globalization and de-industrialization, this article finds that the extent to which citizens perceive themselves and their families to be economically insecure has a statistically significant and substantial negative effect on political trust. Indeed, the effect at least matches those of macro-economic evaluations and party identification. This article therefore adds a new dimension to our understanding of the economy–trust nexus and contributes to the small but growing body of scholarship on insecurity’s effects on political behavior.

The Culture War and Issue Salience: An Analysis of American Sentiment on Traditional Moral Issues

Despite much talk of a culture war, scholars continue to argue over whether the American public is divided on cultural and social issues. Some of the most prominent work in this area, such as Fiorinas Culture War? , has rejected the idea. However, this work has in turn been criticized for focussing only on the distribution of attitudes within the American public and ignoring the possibility that the culture war may also be driven by the increasing strength with which sections of the population hold their opinions. This paper tests the strength, or saliency, hypothesis using individual-level over-time data and nonlinear regression. It finds (1) that there was a steady and significant increase in concern about traditional moral issues between the early 1980s and 2000, but (2) that the over-time increase was driven by an upward and equal shift in the importance attached to traditional moral issues by Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, evangelicals and non-evangelicals, and frequent and infrequent worshippers alike. While the first finding offers support for the saliency hypothesis and the culture war thesis, the second challenges the idea that Americans are engaged in a war over culture. Both findings enhance but also complicate our theoretical understanding of the culture war, and have important real-world consequences for American politics.

The Conventions and Debates

The 2008 party conventions and presidential debates were among the most eagerly anticipated in U.S. electoral history. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fought tooth and nail in the closest primary race in memory, setting the stage for a tense, emotional, and potentially self- destructive Democratic convention in late August. The rival candi- dates’ undoubted star power and Obama’s oratorical gifts added luster to an already intriguing event. On the other side, Republicans were less enthused by John McCain, but Sarah Palin energized the ticket and electrified the convention with her keynote speech. Adding further spice to the mix, Hurricane Gustav threatened Katrina-scale destruc- tion on both a physical and psychological level, reminding voters of the party’s and its leaders’ inadequate response to the wreckage in New Orleans.

Continuity and Change: Immigration Worksite Enforcement in the Bush and Obama Administrations

Immigration, and especially illegal immigration, has been one of the most divisive and contested areas of US public policy during the last two decades. It stirs the passions of Americans across the ideological spectrum. This chapter focuses on a neglected but crucially important aspect of executive action on immigration matters: workplace enforcement. Around eight million people work illegally in the USA, representing about 5 percent of the total workforce. Obama rejected the worksite enforcement practices of the Bush administration, promising a new approach focused on punishing employers, not employees. This chapter compares Bush’s and Obama’s worksite enforcement policies to assess the extent of the change across administrations, and it contextualizes and explains these differences with reference to the political calculations of the principals.