The Impact of Ethics on Voter Trust

Abstract

Recent election cycles and political movements have raised rhetorical and practical questions concerning public standards of professional ethics. Commentary echoes that corruption of “the political branch of a constitutional democracy” constitutes a threat to the country’s “very nature,” undermining the trust that citizens “absolutely must have...that decisions are being made on the merits.” This vulnerability to corruption is perceived most acutely in the executive and legislative branches. Traditionally, the judiciary has been imagined as independent and nonpartisan, uninvolved in the complex world of politics. Judges are pictured as “divorced from human life” on lifetime appointments; “above the fray” of special interests. However, a series of studies shows that US politics in general, and the takeover of the Republican party in particular, have changed how the public perceives the Supreme Court, raising the specter of a “troglodyte court.” suggests two terms to navigate the tortured and labyrinthine entanglement of “bioethics and morality”: “bioethics itself” and a genre of “ethical analysis or ethical study.” Over 1.5M minces of scholarly opinion and debate are returned. Electoral politics is defined by interpersonal rivalry and competition, and frequently hinges on accusations of ethical impropriety. Trust in politicians and political institutions is volatile: citizens “move in and out of trust.” The socio-political stain of Watergate originally incited a surge of “personal cynicism” and disillusionment with US institutions. Numerous studies have identified a sharp decline in public confidence in politicians following the Watergate scandal in 1973. Although trust partially recovered, particularly after the “patriotic glow” of the terrorist attacks of 2001; by 2014, faith in politicians hit the lowest-ever levels of public approval. This literature review examines the relationship between trust and approval as one between cognitive and affective responses at the public level, and analyzes the impact of popular political moods and sentiments on institutional stability in Western democracies.

Keywords ethics, voter trust, political corruption, public confidence, democracy, judicial independence, political sentiment, institutional stability.