Meet the victim: Police corruption, violence, and political mobilization

Abstract

Recent literature has analyzed the relationship between governmental corruption and political behavior, focusing on voting turnout (Stockemer, LaMontagne, & Scruggs, 2013). Fewer studies have examined the impact of corruption on nonelectoral political participation. This article fills this gap by examining how nonelectoral political participation is influenced by corruption within one of the most important institutions dealing with citizens' welfare and safety: the police. We focus our research on Mexico because the effects of police corruption have been increasingly felt in the country in recent decades. We find that experiences of police corruption raise the likelihood of taking the streets to protest. Interestingly, we also find that corruption experiences specifically with police bureaucracies lead to greater likelihood of nonelectoral participation through institutional channels. We also report that the combination of police corruption and violent crime alienates citizens from the political sphere.