{"title":"Scandal","authors":"Slade Mendenhall","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3189788","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite its salience in modern politics, political scandal has yet to be treated as a subject of inquiry in political economy. This paper offers a rational choice theory of scandal as the result of the strategic production and use of scarce knowledge regarding politicians, parties, and organizations. It argues that given voters' limited memories and politicians' desire to maximize votes, scandalous information will be an object of speculative investment, produced and stored in order to maximize its return via optimally timed release to the public. The incentives of parties and campaigns in both primaries and general elections are considered, and an empirical test is conducted on the coincidence of scandal and election seasons.","PeriodicalId":223724,"journal":{"name":"Political Behavior: Cognition","volume":"138 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Political Behavior: Cognition","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3189788","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite its salience in modern politics, political scandal has yet to be treated as a subject of inquiry in political economy. This paper offers a rational choice theory of scandal as the result of the strategic production and use of scarce knowledge regarding politicians, parties, and organizations. It argues that given voters' limited memories and politicians' desire to maximize votes, scandalous information will be an object of speculative investment, produced and stored in order to maximize its return via optimally timed release to the public. The incentives of parties and campaigns in both primaries and general elections are considered, and an empirical test is conducted on the coincidence of scandal and election seasons.
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