Does everyday corruption affect how Russians view their political leadership?

Do Russians’ personal experiences with corruption influence how they evaluate their political leaders and, if so, in what direction? In addressing this question, we focus specifically on small-scale corruption that arises when Russians encounter employees of service provision organizations. We analyze survey data gathered in the summer of 2015 from Russia to trace the links between personal corrupt behavior and political attitudes. We show that participation in everyday corruption lowers a person’s support for the political regime, both as a bivariate relationship and in a multivariate model with controls. Being involved in corrupt transactions reduces support for the regime through two indirect mechanisms: by making the political leadership’s performance seem worse and by heightening perceptions that corruption is widespread among the country’s leaders. We find no support for arguments in the literature that bribery and other forms of bureaucratic corruption help citizens pursue their needs in the face of inefficient state institutions and less developed economies. In Russia, those who frequently encounter corruption are less, not more, happy with the regime.     

The dynamite charge

When juries report they are deadlocked, judges may deliver a supplemental instruction known as thedynamite charge which urges jurors to reexamine their views in an effort to reach a unamimous verdict. To examine the impact of this instruction, 72 mock jurors were led to believe they were participating in a controlled deliberation by voting and passing notes. Subjects were randomly assigned to the majority or minority faction of a 3-to-1 split. After the third round of deliberation, half the subjects received the dynamite charge, half did not. Results provided support for the hypothesis that the dynamite charge causes jurors in the minority to feel coerced and to change their votes and encourages those in the majority to exert increasing amounts of social pressure. These findings are discussed for their practical implications, limitations, and directions for further research.We would like to thank Rebecca Buchanan and Craig Gangi for their role as experimenters in a pilot study.