Two Tales of Polarization?

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased scholarly interest in citizen (or mass) polarization and its associated socioeconomic and political consequences. Although substantial evidence supports that citizen polarization affects political (or grand) corruption through a variety of mechanisms, research remains fragmented and contradictory about the precise nature of these mechanisms. This article posits that two broad and relatively distinct types of citizen polarization—affective and ideological polarization—yield differing effects on political corruption. It was hypothesized that (1) moderate levels of affective polarization have minimal effects, whereas higher levels increase political corruption; and that (2) moderate levels of ideological polarization decrease corruption, while excessive ideological polarization leads to increased political corruption. Both hypotheses were validated through panel regressions on a sample of 153 countries with data from 2000 to 2021. The article also investigates the moderating effect of regime type.