Americans agree on corruption, but partisanship shapes who is blamed

Campaigns & Elections Congress Courts & Law Political Parties Political Polarization Presidency Public Opinion

竞选与选举 国会 法院与法律 政党 政治两极分化 总统选举 公众舆论

Americans agree on remarkably little these days, but they largely agree on what corruption looks like.

如今，美国人在什么问题上达成的共识少之又少，但他们在腐败的本质上却大体达成了共识。

Taking a campaign contribution in exchange for a vote?

用竞选捐款来换取选票？

Corrupt.

腐败。

Using public office to enrich yourself?

利用公职来充实自己？

Corrupt.

腐败。

Changing election rules to help your party win, or using federal agencies against political opponents?

改变选举规则以帮助你的政党获胜，或利用联邦机构对抗政治对手？

Large majorities call those corrupt too, even when explicitly told that no law has been broken.

大多数人也称这些人为腐败，即使他们被明确告知没有违法。

The harder question is what happens when Americans learn who is doing it.

更难的问题是，当美国人知道是谁在干这件事时，会发生什么。

Our recent UMass Poll suggests an uncomfortable answer.

我们最近的麻省大学民意调查提出了一个令人不安的答案。

Americans possess fairly robust norms about the proper use of public power, but partisanship can substantially alter how they apply those norms.

美国人对于正确使用公共权力拥有相当严格的规范，但党派之争可能会极大地改变他们应用这些规范的方式。

The same conduct looks much more corrupt when the president committing it belongs to the other party.

当总统犯下的同样行为属于另一党时，看起来更加腐败。

Yet our findings also reveal something more encouraging: Across party lines, Americans still overwhelmingly want institutions to investigate public officials who abuse their power.

然而，我们的研究结果还揭示了一些更令人鼓舞的事情：无论党派界限，美国人仍然绝大多数希望机构调查滥用权力的公职人员。

Many Americans believe Washington is rife with corruption.

许多美国人认为华盛顿腐败丛生。

When we asked voters how much corruption they believe exists in the federal government today, 75% said “a great deal” and another 22% said “some.” Unlike many political issues where we see significant gender, class, generational, or racial divides, we see near unanimity across these groups on perceptions of corruption.

当我们询问选民他们认为当今联邦政府存在多少腐败时，75% 的人说“很多”，另外 22% 的人说“一些”。与我们看到显着的性别、阶级、代际或种族分歧的许多政治问题不同，我们看到这些群体对腐败的看法几乎一致。

Even majorities of Republicans (69%) and Democrats (81%) report that they see a great deal of corruption in Washington.

甚至大多数共和党人 (69%) 和民主党人 (81%) 也表示，他们看到华盛顿存在大量腐败现象。

Such widespread agreement is highly unusual in American politics today.

如此广泛的共识在当今的美国政治中是极不寻常的。

It is also unusual in recent history.

这在近代史上也是不寻常的。

Gallup has been asking U.S. adults a slightly different question over time: Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?

随着时间的推移，盖洛普一直在向美国成年人提出一个略有不同的问题：腐败在这个国家的整个政府中是否普遍存在？

Eighty-nine percent of Americans say “yes,” up from 59% in 2006.

89% 的美国人说“是”，高于 2006 年的 59%。

Much of this surge is from Democrats, who rose from 57% in 2024, when Biden was still president, to 91% this year.

这一激增大部分来自民主党，他们的支持率从 2024 年拜登仍担任总统时的 57% 上升到今年的 91%。

Gallup also reports that the U.S. is well above the median level of perceived corruption among the advanced economies of the OECD, and in 2025 it ranked highest of all member countries for the first time, surpassing nations like Greece, Hungary, and the Czech Republic that once held that dubious distinction.

盖洛普还报告称，美国的腐败程度远高于经合组织发达经济体的中位数，并且在 2025 年首次在所有成员国中排名最高，超过了希腊、匈牙利和捷克共和国等曾经保持这一可疑地位的国家。

Not surprisingly, 90% of Americans say illegal self-dealing—such as officials breaking the law to financially benefit themselves or their family—is corrupt.

毫不奇怪，90% 的美国人认为非法的自我交易（例如官员为了自己或家人的经济利益而违法）是腐败的。

However, our findings indicate that Americans view corruption more broadly than the boundaries of the law.

然而，我们的研究结果表明，美国人对腐败的看法比法律的界限更为广泛。

When we explicitly tell people that no law has been broken, they still overwhelmingly call behaviors that look like abuse of power corrupt—both Democrats and Republicans equally.

当我们明确告诉人们没有违反任何法律时，绝大多数人仍然认为看似滥用权力的行为是腐败——民主党人和共和党人都是如此。

Not all acts are viewed as equally corrupt, however.

然而，并非所有行为都被视为同样腐败。

As Figure 1 shows, the public ranks quid pro quo exchanges as most corrupt, followed by examples of (legal) abuses of power, and lastly some murkier practices that are routine in American politics.

如图 1 所示，公众将交换条件交易列为最腐败的，其次是（合法）滥用权力的例子，最后是美国政治中常见的一些阴暗做法。

Overall, 78% of Americans think providing a vote in exchange for a political contribution is extremely/very corrupt.

总体而言，78% 的美国人认为以选票换取政治捐款是极其/非常腐败的行为。

Seventy-three percent see the use of power to help yourself win elections as corrupt, and 65% view using federal agencies against your political opponents similarly.

73% 的人认为利用权力帮助自己赢得选举是腐败行为，65% 的人认为利用联邦机构来对付政治对手也是腐败行为。

These figures indicate that Americans don’t assign the corruption label only to enrichment while in office.

这些数字表明，美国人不仅仅将腐败标签贴在执政期间的致富上。

Their perception of corruption also includes manipulating the rules of democratic competition for partisan advantage.

他们对腐败的看法还包括操纵民主竞争规则以获取党派利益。

In other words, Americans’ conception of corruption extends beyond money.

换句话说，美国人对腐败的理解超越了金钱。

For most of them, corruption can also mean using government to entrench yourself in power.

对于他们中的大多数人来说，腐败还可能意味着利用政府来巩固自己的权力。

But on these types of issues, we begin to see evidence of partisan divides—even as large majorities agree.

但在这些类型的问题上，我们开始看到党派分歧的证据——尽管大多数人都同意。

Republicans are 13 percentage points less likely than Democrats to view changing the rules to help their party as corrupt and 20 percentage points less likely than Democrats to see corruption when using federal power to investigate opponents.

在利用联邦权力调查对手时，共和党人认为改变规则以帮助其政党腐败的可能性比民主党人低 13 个百分点，比民主党人认为腐败的可能性低 20 个百分点。

Both are acts that President Donald Trump has engaged in during his second term .

这两件事都是唐纳德·特朗普总统在其第二任期内所采取的行动。

These results suggest that partisan attachments shape assessments of corruption, raising normative concerns about democratic accountability.

这些结果表明，党派依恋影响着对腐败的评估，引发了对民主问责制的规范性担忧。

Among all Americans, 57% of voters are concerned about contributors getting greater access to officeholders, and 43% believe it is corrupt when officials get a lucrative job after leaving office.

在所有美国人中，57% 的选民担心捐助者能够更多地接触公职人员，43% 的选民认为官员在离任后获得一份利润丰厚的工作是腐败行为。

These are potentially offensive but common acts, and more Americans appear to accept them as part of the institutional landscape.

这些行为可能具有冒犯性，但很常见，而且越来越多的美国人似乎接受它们作为制度景观的一部分。

So, Americans largely agree on what corruption is in principle.

因此，美国人在原则上对腐败的定义基本上达成了共识。

But partisanship becomes a powerful filter in specific cases.

但在特定情况下，党派之争会成为强大的过滤器。

To better understand when partisanship shapes perceptions of corruption, we fielded a survey experiment where we held the corrupt behavior of a president constant but changed only the partisanship of the president in question and asked respondents to assess whether the behavior was corrupt or not corrupt.

为了更好地了解党派偏见何时影响人们对腐败的看法，我们进行了一项调查实验，在该实验中，我们保持总统的腐败行为不变，但仅改变有关总统的党派偏见，并要求受访者评估该行为是否腐败。

Half the sample was told that a Democratic president directed federal agencies to investigate prominent Republicans, and the other half saw exactly the same scenario with a Republican president targeting Democrats.

一半的样本被告知民主党总统指示联邦机构调查知名共和党人，而另一半则看到了与共和党总统针对民主党人完全相同的情况。

Figure 2 illustrates that both parties judge a president of the opposing party more harshly, but the partisan double standard was much larger among Republicans.

图2表明，两党对对方总统的评价都更加严厉，但共和党人的党派双重标准要严重得多。

Democrats’ assessments shifted by 30 points depending on the president’s party (48% for an in-party president to 78% for the out-party); Republicans’ shifted by 42 points (22% to 64%).

民主党人的评价因总统所在政党的不同而有 30 个百分点的变化（党内总统为 48%，非党派总统为 78%）；共和党的支持率上升了 42 个百分点（22% 至 64%）。

Strikingly, fewer than one-quarter of Republicans regarded the conduct as highly corrupt when committed by a Republican president.

引人注目的是，只有不到四分之一的共和党人认为共和党总统的这种行为是高度腐败的。

For independents, the partisanship of the president had very little effect on perceptions.

对于独立人士来说，总统的党派偏见对他们的看法影响很小。

Regrettably, democratic accountability rests considerably on which team is doing the corrupting.

遗憾的是，民主问责在很大程度上取决于哪个团队在进行腐败。

To understand how partisanship gets applied to different institutions of government, we also asked people to rank four parts of the federal government from most to least corrupt.

为了了解党派之争如何适用于不同的政府机构，我们还要求人们对联邦政府的四个部门从最腐败到最不腐败进行排名。

Overall, 53% put the presidency first, followed by the federal bureaucracy at 23%, Congress at 18%, and the Supreme Court at 7%.

总体而言，53% 的人将总统职位放在首位，其次是联邦官僚机构（23%）、国会（18%）和最高法院（7%）。

But the aggregate numbers conceal an extraordinary partisan divide, seen in Figure 3.

但总数掩盖了巨大的党派分歧，如图 3 所示。

Eighty-seven percent of Democrats locate the greatest corruption in the presidency.

百分之八十七的民主党人认为总统职位腐败最为严重。

Republicans overwhelmingly locate it elsewhere: 44% bureaucracy, 30% Congress, and only 18% presidency.

共和党人绝大多数把它放在其他地方：44%是官僚机构，30%是国会，只有18%是总统。

For Republicans, this pattern is consistent with years of party rhetoric portraying the federal bureaucracy as a partisan “deep state.” Meanwhile, independents appear to see the presidency as most corrupt (51%), followed by Congress (22%) and the federal bureaucracy (19%).

对于共和党人来说，这种模式与多年来将联邦官僚机构描绘成党派“深层政府”的党派言论是一致的。与此同时，独立人士似乎认为总统职位最腐败（51%），其次是国会（22%）和联邦官僚机构（19%）。

Overall, and among Republicans and independents, the Supreme Court is the institution least often named as the most corrupt.

总体而言，在共和党人和独立人士中，最高法院是最不常被称为最腐败的机构。