CES: "Gender and Corruption: The UK Parliamentary Expenses Scandal"

Professor of Politics, University of Manchester; Visiting Scholar, CES, Harvard University

Interest in the relationship between gender and corruption has burgeoned in the last two decades. The recent literature has generated some interesting hypotheses about the relative propensity of men and women to engage in corrupt behavior. Informed by this work, this paper presents the first in-depth qualitative study of one notorious example of political corruption: the UK parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009. It analyses the pre-scandal expense claims of male and female MPs as well as the scandal’s repercussions for both individual MPs and for the expenses of the regime in general.

Sponsors
Visiting Scholars Seminar: New Research on Europe