Ignorance or trade-off? Testing three explanations for the re-election of corrupt politicians using data from an embedded survey in Turkey

Using data collected from an embedded survey administered to a nationally representative sample in Turkey, we test three common explanations for the re-election of corrupt politicians: Lack of Reliable Information, Efficiency Corruption Trade-Off, and Co-partisanship. We find that when voters receive reliable information that the incumbent mayor is corrupt, an electoral punishment (a decrease in the incumbent's vote share in the coming elections) follows. This decrease, however, does not necessarily result in the incumbent being voted out, as we also find that many voters sufficiently value efficiency and co-partisanship in a corrupt politician to vote to re-elect.