The Public Understanding of Political Integrity: The Case for Probity Perceptions

This book analyses citizens' perceptions of public integrity. It attempts to understand whether perceptions such as these are important substantively for questions of citizen disaffection, and begins the task of analyzing how citizens come to hold the perceptions they do. The book presents a systematic investigation into this topic, structured in two parts. Part 1 considers broad questions of the conceptualisation, measurement and structure of citizen beliefs about government in general, and perceptions of public integrity in particular. Part 2 investigates the causes of perceptions of public integrity, focusing upon three aspects of political ‘conditions’: partisan co-alignment, the ‘scandal’ concerning Derek Conway’s use of parliamentary expenses to employ his son to do essentially no work, and the MPs’ expenses scandal. The substantive conclusion of this book is that perceptions of political integrity matter: they are coherent, they relate to facts about the world, and they have important consequences for other political attitudes and behaviours.