Partisan Co-alignment and Perceptions of Public Probity

Abstract

Hitherto in this study it has been shown that we can think of perceptions of public probity as something empirically and conceptually distinct from a range of other citizen beliefs. Moreover, we have seen that it is not necessary to conceptualise perceptions of public probity as being caused by other important beliefs about government, in particular political trust and perceptions of the ‘process performance’ of legislators. Yet such information does not guarantee the utility of the concept of public probity for evaluating citizens’ beliefs. As was noted in the introduction to this part, if citizens’ perceptions of public probity are largely a function of ostensibly irrelevant factors we still do not have a useful measure of probity perceptions. Moreover, whilst we know that it is not helpful to view political trust or more specific perceptions of legislators as causes, we have relatively little information as to what might be considered the causes of perceived probity. One potentially crucial factor is the role of partisan alignment. This chapter discusses the impact of partisan co-alignment upon perceptions of public probity, analysing individual-level data from Great Britain. Models are built and tested that analyse the effect of co-alignment at the national-level and (Scottish) sub-national level. This allows a more detailed consideration of the impact of partisan co-alignment in multilevel systems.