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Abstract

The debate about how corruption is linked to political trust is ongoing. The recent conceptualization of sexual corruption calls for the exploration of how gendered experiences of corruption affect trust levels. This study proposes that the sex in sexual corruption, compared to monetary bribes, changes the dynamics of the relationship between service-seeker and provider. The lock-in effects and feelings of betrayal break political trust in a more pronounced way than conventional corruption does. The cross-sectional analyses of individuals in 27 European countries show that both women and men exposed to sexual corruption have less trust in their government compared to non-victims and compared to service-seekers in conventional corruption. These findings enhance our understanding of the corruption-trust nexus and suggest that the magnitude of sexual corruption cases hitherto overlooked, more than causing individual suffering, might have far-reaching and negative consequences for the quality of democracy.

Keywords

sexual corruption political trust gender democracy victimization

Trust is relational; it involves an individual making herself vulnerable to another individual, group, or institution that has the capacity to do her harm or to betray her.

– Levi and Stoker (2000: 476)

Introduction

In 2018, a former county governor in Norway was sentenced to 5 years in prison for having obtained sex from three former asylum seekers by deceiving them to believe that he had ‘the power and authority to influence their right to residency in Norway’ (Lundgren et al., 2023: 140; NTT, 2019: 5).

In his capacity [as county governor], [the accused] sought out [the victim] at institutions under the county governor’s supervision and could bring [the victim] on trips to inter alia his cottage and his home (Lundgren et al., 2023: 136; NTT, 2019: 2).

One of the three young men had a Norwegian residence permit prior to the start of the abuse. The abuse was ongoing between 2011 and 2017 (Lundgren et al., 2023; NTT, 2019: 2–3, 11, 20, 26).

The above case illustrates a clear abuse of entrusted authority to gain sex or sexual favours in exchange of a benefit or service, what has recently been named sexual corruption (Bjarnegård et al., 2024). This type of corruption entails both gender-based violence and corruption (Eldén et al., 2020).

The exploitation of young asylum seekers in exchange for promising them residency forms part of a larger problem. A myriad of cases of men threatening, requesting or accepting sex in exchange for a service or benefit connected to their position of power have been unveiled in several sectors, such as schools – sex for grades (e.g. Morley, 2011), the health sector (e.g. in Mexico, during the Covid-19 pandemic where medical staff asked for sexual favours in exchange for oxygen masks) (Estrada, 2021) and law enforcement (there are several cases of how border officials request sex in exchange for letting migrants cross a border) (Caarten et al., 2022), to mention a few.

Attention to sexual corruption emerged when the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) began receiving phone calls from worried female judges in Uganda about instances of prison guards demanding sex from female visitors either to grant their application to visit their husbands, boyfriends, or sons or to deliver medicine (Hendry, 2020). IAWJ defined such acts as Sextortion.

Albeit the phenomenon has been present for a long time, it was first in 2015 that sexual corruption was coined as a concept in an academic article (Towns, 2015). Towns (2015: 51) presents two ways in which one can think of sexual corruption, either as a transaction between two parties where sex is exchanged with ‘services, benefits or goods tied to public office’ or as third-party sexual corruption. The first type of sexual corruption is illustrated with cases where diplomats demanded sex in exchange for visas. Sexual corruption as third-party bribery could, for instance, take place in cases of sex trafficking where traffickers exploit the victims as sexual bribes to the police so as not to press charges (e.g. Jonsson, 2019). Lindberg and Stensöta (2018) have also explored sexual corruption in a framework of exploitation.

The article defines sexual corruption between two parties as conceptualized by (Bjarnegård et al., 2024) – a transaction that ranges from oppressive – where the person in power threatens to withhold a service or benefit to opportunistic – taking the opportunity to grant an unwarranted benefit. Such conceptualization allows for broadening the scope of sexual corruption to include both cases of sexual extortion as well as sexual bribery, simultaneously as keeping the concept concrete to avoid concept stretching. The inherent abuse of power on part of the perpetrator, either to withhold something that is connected to his (or her) position of power if the service-seeker refuses to provide sex or to grant such service or benefit in return for sex, clearly differentiates sexual corruption from some forms of sexual harassment and prostitution. Hence, the abuse of entrusted authority combined with the transactional feature distinguishes sexual corruption from other forms of sexual violence (Bjarnegård et al., 2024).

Prevalence and Consequences

In many states of the world, however, sexual corruption is still a phenomenon without a name (Feigenblatt, 2020). Being historically undefined and not problematized as a type of corruption, sexual corruption has only recently been included in surveys estimating its prevalence. Figures show that about 20% in Latin America (Pring and Vrushi, 2019), the Middle East and North Africa (Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine) (Kukutschka, 2019) have either recently¹ or sometime in their life experienced sexual corruption or know someone who has. Figures are lower in Asia (about 8%) (Vrushi, 2020), and in Europe the share of respondents varies from 18% in Bulgaria to 2% in Denmark (Kukutschka, 2021).

Above percentages might, however, only be the tip of an iceberg. Service-seekers who are faced with officials requesting a sexual bribe often encounter similar consequences as victims of sexual violence, such as unwanted pregnancies, fear, stigma and shame (Caarten et al., 2022). Victims of this act might thus be reluctant to talk about the exploitation due to the accompanying shame and stigma (also see Sundström and Wängnerud, 2024). Other severe psychological harms include post-traumatic stress and depression, similar to what has been documented as consequences from sexual harassment (Palmieri and Fitzgerald, 2005).

In addition to the shame and fear, the inherent power asymmetry, and dependence on the public official to receive the service or benefit, for example, health care for one’s children, or grades in school, constrains victims of sexual corruption from reporting the incident (Eldén et al., 2020). Paying for a public good or service with one’s own body thus leaves victims with lasting marks (Eldén et al., 2020). All in all, this makes sexual corruption a silent crime, where most perpetrators walk free.

Taking this vast number of insights about sexual corruption into account, it still remains unclear whether this phenomenon also have consequences outside the realm of the specific situation. What does it mean for the wider society that service-seekers around the world in a multitude of different sectors are exploited sexually in exchange for services or benefits? This article highlights another type of consequence that compared to the individual suffering, has received far less attention. The rest of the article explores if sexual corruption, more than causing psychological and physical hardship for the victim, also is associated with trust levels. In doing so the article develops an argument for why sexual corruption might bring about political consequences for the society at large.

The Hidden Consequence of Sexual Corruption – Low Trust in Government?

In this article, I explore if being exposed to sexual corruption, more than bringing about psychological suffering, such as shame, stigma and depression, and physiological harms, such as rape, venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies, might cause declining trust, or outright distrust in the institution that the perpetrator represents among the victims.

Corruption studies have long emphasized the interdependencies between corruption and trust (Anderson and Tverdova, 2003; Chang and Chu, 2006; Della Porta, 2000). Several scholars argue that corruption produces a vicious circle (e.g. Morris and Klesner, 2010) where corruption and distrust are mutually reinforcing so that individuals residing in high-corruption countries are low trusters, while being in an environment with low political trust enables corruption (Della Porta and Vannucci, 1999; Rothstein and Stolle, 2008). For example, Della Porta (2000: 205) emphasizes how low trust ‘transforms citizens into clients and bribers who look for private protection to gain access to decision-makers’ (for a discussion and empirical test on trust and tax paying obedience, see, for example, Marien and Hooghe, 2011).

Corruption scholars also emphasize that different types of corruption might affect political trust differently. From an experimental setting in Peru, Beesley and Hawkins (2022) found that knowing about petty corruption was more detrimental to trust than was being aware of grand corruption. According to the authors one of the reasons for their finding was that it may be easier for citizens to comprehend how petty corruption may affect them personally or people they know, and the costs it brings.

Albeit the argument about how corruption affect citizens’ trust has been largely articulated and tested (e.g. Beesley and Hawkins, 2022), no study to my knowledge explores how sexual corruption, a gendered form of corruption, is related to trust levels. Sexual corruption shares many features with other forms of corruption, but does this type of act reduce political trust among the victims? Sexual corruption could, for example, be classified as a form of petty corruption, since it is common in situations connected to the provision of welfare services or benefits. Simultaneously, because the transaction includes sexual favours it is also different to other forms of corruption (Bjarnegård et al., 2024). That sex is extorted, requested or accepted, compared to the handing over of other types of favours, gifts or currency, changes the dynamics of the relationship between service-seeker and service-provider (Bjarnegård et al., 2024). Hence, although corruption literature highlights a strong link between citizens’ exposure to corruption and levels of political trust, we do not know if being subjected to sexual corruption will affect trust levels in similar ways.

The next part of the article explores the dynamics between service-seeker and service-provider in cases of sexual corruption, and how such dynamics might break victims’ political trust. I contrast these dynamics against the relationship between two parties in more conventional forms of corruption.

Causal Pathways to Declining Political Trust

Political trust is shaped throughout an interaction between citizens and political institutions (for a discussion see Levi and Stoker, 2000).² To make a judgement as to whether to trust or to what extent to trust the government rests upon an evaluation of how well the government performs, and is thus often individualized and relational in character (for a discussion see Mishler and Rose, 2001).³ Sometimes scholars refer to this type of trust as institutional trust (e.g. van der Meer and Hakhverdian, 2017). While political trust refers to trust in the state, studies on institutional trust often deal with citizens’ trust in one specific institution (see, for example, Sohlberg et al., 2022).

Political trust furthermore stems from the contract between state and citizens – an agreement about the transferral of power on the side of the citizen to the state, to give the state and its representatives the entrusted authority to administer this trust to do good, or at least, the best it can, to provide welfare services and protection in return (Levi and Stoker, 2000). In bureaucrat–citizen interaction, the service-seeker hence makes herself vulnerable to the bureaucratic institution that has the capacity to do her harm (e.g. Levi and Stoker, 2000: 476), in that, the bureaucrat can choose to treat her fairly, or to step away from the agreement. In cases of sexual corruption, the public official abuses such entrusted authority, not only by not providing a service that a citizen indeed is entitled to, but, in addition, violating the bodily integrity by demanding sex in exchange for such service or benefit. Norms of impartiality – a core feature of, and an expectation on the bureaucracy (Weber, 2019) – are clearly broken.⁴ The service-seeker becomes suddenly the object of sexual pleasure, reduced in her agency as a citizen, to a body.

In comparison with how distrust is shaped from experiences of sexual violence and trauma, the decline in trust following from sexual corruption victimization thus has its specific feature of often being associated with the state. The trust that is shaped and re-evaluated within this relationship is inherently connected with the position of power that the perpetrator possesses, and the victim depends on. Because the victim associates the perpetrator with the institution that the perpetrator represents, the remaining feelings from the act, might influence how the victim evaluates the institution. Hence, while sexual harassment indeed might break a victim’s trust in the harasser, a sexual corruption victim will, more than losing confidence in the perpetrator, also associate such lack of trust with the state.

Sexual corruption might as such severely hamper the contract between state and citizens. The state that initially should provide protection and welfare service to its citizens, is the actor doing the citizens harm, through the sexual abuse, and withdrawing services of necessity to the citizens. In what follows, I will outline how sexual corruption can be considered a form of betrayal as well as how ongoing perpetration might deepen feelings of distrust.

Sexual Corruption as Betrayal

When sex enters the picture, the service-seeker is harmed in a very different way than she or he would be if the currency had been money. Such harm can be compared with harm caused in victims of trauma. Betrayal trauma theory (BTT) might hence be particularly helpful to guide our thinking about the dynamics in a service-seeker–service-provider relationship in cases of sexual corruption. Betrayal trauma was theorized in order to understand why children being subjected to sexual abuse by a close relative often repressed memories of what has happened to them (Freyd, 1996).⁵ According to BTT, the consequences from a betrayal trauma become more severe when the perpetrator is someone close to the victim, for example, a father or husband, compared to when the act is perpetrated by a stranger (Freyd, 1996; Gómez, 2021). This is because close relationships are characterized by trust and sometimes dependence (Gómez, 2021). When someone is subjected to sexual violence by a close friend or relative, this also becomes a betrayal, a breach of interpersonal trust (Freyd, 1997). Examples of exacerbated negative mental health outcomes after this type of betrayal trauma include post-traumatic stress syndrome. Later, Freyd together with colleagues, extended the theory on betrayal trauma to also include trauma’s where an institution failed in preventing wrongdoings by, for example, refraining from reporting acts of sexual harassment (Smith and Freyd, 2013). The authors show how victims of sexual violence experience more severe trauma when the perpetration takes place at an institution that the victim somehow depends on (Smith et al., 2016: 352). A first important insight from BTT is thus that, more than focusing on the act of sexual abuse or violence, we need to consider to what extent trust is an important feature of the relationship between victim and perpetrator prior to the violation to fully grasp the severeness of the trauma that follows. Second, we need to examine the type of trust within such relationship. The trust-relationship between service-seeker and service-provider lays somewhere in between that of stranger and close family or friend. Where close relationships are based on interpersonal trust (or particularized trust), the relationship between service-seeker and the person abusing entrusted authority is thus based on institutional or political trust.⁶

Lock-ins and Deepened Feelings of Distrust

More than breaking down victims’ political trust, the abusive relationship in sexual corruption cases is often prolonged which will most likely intensify feelings of distrust towards the institution the perpetrator represents. In several cases of sexual corruption, it has been revealed how the exchange was ongoing, for example, how a teacher kept pressing his students to engage in sexual intercourse during their time at the university (Morley, 2011). Repeated transactions might thus be common, prolonging a bribery situation to becoming a relationship difficult for the victims to break free from. There is a handful of reasons (or lock-ins) for why victims of sexual corruption become trapped in this vicious circle.

First, the extreme dependency that many victims of sexual corruption feel towards their perpetrator both makes victims unable not to comply and adds to the constrains of putting a stop to the abuse. For example, in places of post-conflict, personnel working in refugee camps have demanded sex in exchange for basic goods, such as food (Caarten et al., 2022). From Nordic countries there have been two cases of what could be conceptualized as sexual corruption, where one Norwegian minister, and one person working for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Sweden, extorted sexual favours in exchange for promising migrants asylum (Lundgren et al., 2023).

Second, exiting sexual corruption is often connected to the fear that the person with entrusted authority might make the situation worse if the victim does not comply. The implicit or explicit threat prevalent in any act of sexual corruption – that the perpetrator has the power to make things worse, prevents victims of exiting the relationship. In the case opening this article, one of the victims expressed how both ‘feelings of being in debt, of having “promised himself” to a man of high status who could offer him benefits’, as well as how such status could be used against him if not complying, had prevented him to put a stop to the exploitation (Lundgren et al., 2023: 140; NTT, 2019: 16).

Third, in order to maintain a relationship with the victim, or to avoid detection, the perpetrator can use the transactional aspect, that sex is exchanged for a service or benefit, together with the absence of physical force, as a strategy to make the victim feel complicit (Eldén et al., 2020). The quid pro quo thus opens for the perpetrator to instil feelings of guilt and responsibility among the victims, blurring the lines between consent and coercion (Bjarnegård et al., 2024; Eldén et al., 2020). Victims of sexual corruption are thus trapped in a harmful situation. On the one hand, if the service-seeker chooses to withdraw she loses the service that she was entitled to, on the other hand, by complying she receives this service by being subjected to sexual violence, having her bodily integrity violated.

To summarize, it is plausible that being subjected to sexual corruption will severely hamper trust in political institutions. I expect that victims of sexual corruption will be less trusting towards the government compared to non-victims. Furthermore, I hypothesize that ongoing perpetration resulting from the mechanisms outlined will exacerbate feelings of distrust. Due to the persistence of sexual corruption, it is thus likely with even more damaging effects on political trust than what would come from monetary or other conventional corruption victimization. In the next section, I test above hypotheses on the first cross-country survey containing data on individual level experiences of – and perceptions about, sexual corruption as well as levels of trust in the government.

Method and Data

Data

To assess whether sexual corruption victimization is associated with individuals’ trust in political institutions I analyse individual-level survey data collected by Transparency International. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) for the European Union was fielded in 2020 (TI, 2021) and includes a question that ask respondents from 27 European countries to answer on a scale from 0 to 4 to what extent they trust their government (two separate items for local and national government) to do a good job (N = ~36,000). The question is specified accordingly:

How much trust and confidence do you have in the following institutions to do a good job in [COUNTRY] while carrying out their responsibilities.

The national government (including politicians, public servants, or any kind of government agency)

The local government.

To facilitate interpretation of the results, I recode these dependent variables – trust in the national government and trust in the local government – so that zero indicates a fair amount of trust or a lot of trust in the institution, whereas 1 indicates little trust or no trust at all in that institution. In the same survey, TI asks two questions about sexual corruption – one that is perception-based and one about experiences of sexual corruption:

Some people experience situations in which public officials make requests of a sexual nature in exchange for a government service or benefit. How often do you think this happens in [COUNTRY]?

Thinking about your own experience in the last 5 years, has it ever happened that an official in [COUNTRY] asked for something similar from you or from someone you know?

The second question captures contemporary history of receiving a request of sexual nature from a public official, or knowing someone who has. From the data at hand, it is not possible to distinguish at what level of government the bribery is taking place. Simultaneously, the sector, such as health, school or police, for example, is also unspecified. From how the questions are formulated it is also not possible to say whether the official who requested the bribe was male or female. However, evidence from qualitative literature so far points at the fact that perpetrators of sexual corruption are men (Bjarnegård et al., 2022). The survey item from the TI data set is thus a crude measurement on overall individual-level experiences of sexual corruption.

The question posed by TI is furthermore formulated as pertaining to you or someone you know, which limits the potential to separate experiences and knowledge about sexual corruption.⁷ The group of respondents answering affirmative to the experience-based question may include victims of sexual corruption, both people who have been asked for a sexual favour but refused and people who have accepted, as well as friends or family to people in these two categories. Simultaneously, the theoretical claim posed, that victims of sexual corruption would suffer from betrayal trauma with decreasing trust levels can partly be extended to close friends of victims. The degree of trauma ought to be much less among those who know about a sexual corruption incidence than the degree of trauma among actual victims. As this measurement indeed captures not only experience of sexual corruption, but also knowledge about it, the chosen data is a tough test of the hypotheses.

One could argue that the experience-based measurement might capture rumours about the existences of sexual corruption, however, comparing the item that asks how often the respondents think that sexual corruption ‘happens’ in their country with the experience-based measurement show that the two items seem to measure different things. To start, the perception-based estimate does not correlate with the experience-based measurement. Sundström and Wängnerud (2024) also reach a similar finding when analysing data from TI’s Survey in Latin American. While a majority of respondents think that sexual corruption happens in their country at least occasionally, few in comparison state that they or someone they know have had such experiences.

Despite some shortcomings with the TI data, this is one of the very first cross-sectional survey that includes questions about sexual corruption. The GCB survey is also unique as it includes both questions about sexual corruption exposure as well as trust levels, and other forms of corruption victimization. The few other surveys measuring sexual corruption tend to be surveys on sexual harassment, excluding trust or other corruption variables.

Although TI has surveyed other regions of the world and included items about sexual forms of corruption, the EU survey is superior in at least two ways. First, the item on sexual corruption in the GCB for the EU is more comprehensive than the item in the GCB for Latin America. The survey fielded in Latin America asks about sextortion, and might thus only capture instances of sexual extortion excluding sexual bribery. As such, comparing results from analyses based on the EU and Latin American samples would be misleading since the items do not capture the same phenomena. Another drawback with the Latin American Survey is that it does not include information about the gender of the interviewer, a piece of information that is important to rule out social desirability bias created by gender of interviewer effects.

Method

I start by regressing sexual corruption on low trust, or no trust in the national government. Trust in government is often associated with, age, income and education, and I include these individual-level characteristics as controls in model 1. Compared to some studies on the link between corruption and trust, this article is not mainly concerned about how ideas or perceptions about government quality translates into trust, but rather how actual experiences of this type of gendered corruption affect trust in the government. Still, I also control for perceived level of sexual corruption in model 2. Such inclusion is important in order to rule out that the main independent variable, sexual corruption victimization, is only a proxy for knowledge about sexual corruption, since the question is asked as pertaining to ‘you or someone you know’. The broad account of corruption studies highlights that corruption is associated with less trust. As such, in model 3, I include a dummy variable that captures if the respondent had or had not experienced other forms of bribery. In the fourth model (model 4), I control for the interviewer’s sex. The literature on survey methodology suggests that answers to sensitive topics, which a history of victimization indeed can be considered to be, may suffer from social desirability bias (Brenner, 2020; Yan, 2021). Asking about gendered topics may additionally be subjected to gender-of-interviewer effects (Huddy et al., 1997). The extent to which Transparency International had female or male interviewers varied considerably from country to country, from 98% in Lithuania to 24% in Luxembourg, with most countries having the vast majority of respondents being interviewed by a woman (73% of the respondents). It is plausible that those who support the incumbent party show higher political trust than those who support the opposition. Literature furthermore highlight that populist voting predicts political trust (Geurkink et al., 2020). Studies also stress that ideology can explain psychological patterns, for example, trust levels (Krouwel et al., 2017). The GCB does not include information on populist attitudes or voting behaviour; however, there is an item on left-right ideology, and I include this measurement in model 5.

Sexual corruption is by its nature a form of gendered corruption. Simultaneously, although qualitative accounts highlight that victims of sexual corruption are mostly female with male perpetrators, there is still no quantitative evidence that supports this claim. Regardless of whether women are more affected by sexual corruption victimization than men, their experience from such act might differ. Fitzgerald et al. (1995), for example, point out that because ‘women are disproportionately victims of rape and sexual assault, women have a stronger incentive to be concerned with sexual behavior. Men, who are rarely victims of sexual assault, may view sexual conduct in a vacuum without a full appreciation of the social setting or the underlying threat of violence that a woman may perceive’ (Fitzgerald et al., 1995: 125). To examine whether there is a difference in trust levels between men and women who responded affirmative to the question about sexual corruption experience, I also run separate regressions including only female (model 6) and male respondents (model 7). Unfortunately, the TI dataset lacks information regarding respondents’ level of generalized trust, a variable that could have improved the model. All above models additionally include country-specific fixed effects and country clustered standard errors.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Approximately 9% of the respondents in the GCB EU survey had a history of sexual corruption or knew someone who had during the last 5 years. This share varies across countries, with Denmark being among the countries with the smallest proportion (approximately 2%) and Bulgaria having the largest share at 19% (Table A1 and A2 in the Online Supplementary Material).

A bit more than half of all respondents (54%) display little or no trust in the national government, and 35% distrust, or show little trust in the local government. This is true for both women and men (Table A1 and A3 in the Online Supplementary Material).

Victims of sexual corruption, or people who know someone who has been victimized, are less inclined to trust both their national and local government, compared to respondents without such experience. Shares are similar across gender (Table A4 in the Online Supplementary Material, Figures A1 in the Online Supplementary Material and Figure 1). Seventy percent of those respondents who had a history of victimization, or know someone who had, distrust in the national government (Figure 1). In terms of local government distrust, about half of the victims of sexual corruption or those who know of such event say that they do not trust, or have very little trust in their local government, this can be compared against those who did not have experienced sexual corruption, 33% of these respondents do not trust their local government (Figure A2 in the Online Supplementary Material). Again, these percentages are similar across gender groups.

Figure 1.

Sexual Corruption and National Government Distrust.

The spread of trust levels among victims of sexual corruption and people who knew about such event is clearly reversed in comparison with trust levels among non-victims with a difference of about 20 percentage points.

Do levels of trust among sexual corruption victims and their friends or family differ from trust levels among those who have experienced conventional forms of bribery? Formulated differently, does type of corruption seem to matter for declining levels of trust in government? About 73% of those who had been exposed to conventional bribery displayed little or no trust in the national government, while approximately 51% of the respondents who had not experienced bribery had no or little trust in national government (details in Table A5 in the Online Supplementary Material).

Importantly, among those who reported conventional bribery, only 28% had also reported sexual corruption experience of knowledge about sexual corruption. Hence, an overwhelming majority of this group (about 72%) has not experienced conventional bribery (Table A6 l and Figure A3 in the Online Supplementary Material). As such, a large portion of corruption cases that are gendered have not been included in estimates of corruption. It should also be noted that the question about conventional bribery asks about direct experiences. At a first glance, sexual corruption seems to have a similar association with levels of distrust as does conventional corruption, however, to fully grasp how different corruption types relate to trust in government I proceed with the analyses.

Analyses

A previous history of sexual corruption, or knowledge thereof, increases the probability of having little or no trust in the government. The results are significant in all models. Having been exposed to sexual corruption, or knowing someone who has, is associated with a greater likelihood to distrust or have little trust in both national and local government (Table A7 and A8 in the Online Supplementary Material). Younger respondents and respondents without a university degree were slightly less likely to trust their national government, while people in the highest income category were more likely to trust their national government, compared to people in the lowest income category.

Respondents who perceived that sexual corruption happens in their country at least occasionally did not seem to be less trusting towards either the local or national government. In fact, believing that sexual corruption occurs in one’s country was associated with more, not less, trust in the government (Table A7 and A8 in the Online Supplementary Material). At first glance, this finding might be seen as counterintuitive. However, the very recent conceptualization of sexual corruption might inform this finding. Respondents who think that public officials request sexual bribes might not immediately perceive this as a form of corruption, and thus, does not link this to the trustworthiness of the state. Studies in fact stress that sexual corruption often is mistaken for an act of sexual violence alone, without focusing on the abuse of entrusted power (Lundgren et al., 2023). The finding furthermore suggests that the relationship seems to go via direct interaction with the state, rather than depend on perceptions about government’s involvement in sexual corruption.

The results from the analyses were in odds ratios, and for interpretation I calculated the predicted probability based on the full model. The difference in predicted probability between a victim or people who knew of such act and the remaining respondents to have low trust or no trust in their national government is 0.13. These differences in probabilities are displayed in Table 1 and Table A9 in the Online Supplementary Material.

Table 1.

Difference in Probabilities to Distrust the National Government.

Sexual corruption women	Sexual corruption men	Other corruption women	Other corruption men
0.121***	0.135***	0.0652*	0.105***
(6.39)	(5.91)	(2.18)	(4.86)

Margins dydx after logistic regression on Low Trust and Distrust in National Government. Results are based on the full model from Table A7 in the Online Supplementary Material. The stars indicate a statistically significant relationship.

t statistics in parentheses.

p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

I ran the same models on little or no trust in the local government (Table A8 in the Online Supplementary Material), and the results were also significant across all models and were similar in that having been subjected to sexual corruption, or knowing about such violation, was associated with little or no trust in the local government. However, compared to previously, the probability of distrusting and showing little trust in local government due to such previous experience was smaller (0.09) (Table 1 and Table A9 in the Online Supplementary Material). This can possibly be due to the fact that respondents in the sample were more trusting towards the local government compared to the national government to start with.

When comparing differences in probability to distrust the government between corruption types we can see that no trust, or little trust in government is more pronounced when having been subjected to sexual corruption, or knowing of such violation compared to when having been exposed to other forms of corruption, although results are slightly similar. Women’s trust in national government seems to be more affected by corruption types. Among women, having been exposed to sexual corruption or knowing of such event raises the probability to distrust national government with 0.12, compared to having had an official requesting a conventional bribe (0.06). For illustration see Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Difference in Probability to Have Low or No Trust in National Government Depending on Type of Corruption Victimization and Gender.

All in all, there was a higher probability to distrust both local and national government when the respondent had experienced sexual corruption or knew someone with such experience. These respondents are also more likely to put little trust or no trust in their government compared to the respondents who had experienced conventional corruption. Results were robust to the inclusion of country-specific fixed effects and country-clustered standard errors.

One important insight from the analyses is that although the item on sexual corruption is imperfect as it captures not only those who had direct experiences of sexual corruption victimization but also those who know someone being a victim, the relationship between independent and dependent variable is rather strong showing significant results. Among affirmative answers hide various levels of trauma. Such levels will range from low to high, as the traumatic experience will vary from those who know someone who has been victimized, those who have been asked to perform a sexual service but have refused, to those who have accepted. The analyses cannot disentangle various levels of trauma among affirmative responses; however, the limitations of the data are not necessarily limitations of the evidence, rather the contrary. The broadness of the measurement has most likely diluted the correlation. In other words, it is possible that the probability of a victim of sexual corruption to distrust their government might increase once one separates victims from those who know a victim of sexual corruption.

Discussion

Research on gender and corruption has foremost examined the relationship between the share of women at various levels in government and the degree of corruption both within and across countries (Grimes and Wängnerud, 2018; Stensöta et al., 2015; Sundström and Stockemer, 2015; Swamy et al., 2001). As such, the focus of scholars has mostly been on understanding why societies with a larger share of female representatives (both legislatures and bureaucrats) are less riddled with corruption compared to understanding the link between male dominance in government and potential effects for societies (for a discussion on the importance of studying male political dominance, see, for example, Bjarnegård, 2013). Although there is an emerging literature on gendered effects of corruption stressing how marginalized groups are especially harmed by corruption (Bullock and Jenkins, 2020; Camacho, 2021), the societal and political consequences of such acts are yet to be explored. This article thus adds to the gender and corruption literature by highlighting how the newly conceptualized form of gendered corruption – sexual corruption – might have detrimental effects on the functioning of the state via declining trust in government. Thus, rather than focusing on women’s under-representation in legislation or bureaucracy, this article emphasizes how one type of corruption, explicitly ‘performed’ by men in powerful positions as public officials, might deepen feelings of distrust among victims towards the requesting party.

The recent decline in political trust – the extent to which citizens trust, or are confident in their local or national government, including both legislative and bureaucratic bodies (Newton et al., 2018)⁸ – have spurred a debate among political scientists. On the one hand, scholars emphasize how political trust is essential for democratic quality (e.g. della Porta and Vannucci, 1997), and that indeed, citizens’ perceptions about the extent to which the government is trustworthy may also spill over into generalized trust. Low generalized, or out-group trust, may in turn erode the very social capital that is a necessary feature for societies to function (e.g. Rothstein and Stolle, 2008). Recent literature furthermore highlight how political trust can predict populist voting (Geurkink et al., 2020). On the other hand, scholars argue that sceptical trust is a healthy sign in democracies and thus follows logically from well-informed citizens reacting on malpractices within democracies.

The type of distrust that can be anticipated to arise from sexual corruption acts could indeed be considered a logical consequence from unprofessional, unethical and violent behaviour on part of the person representing the state, and thus, indeed deserves to be taken seriously and as a sign of the malfunction of a specific sector. Simultaneously, the distrust that arises might also hinder the victim from seeking help from the wider society after the exposure, choosing to disconnect herself from the social contract that indeed is necessary for a democracy to function well.

Conclusion

This article has explored the relationship between sexual corruption and political distrust, and the findings suggest that a history of sexual corruption victimization, or mere knowledge of such, is associated with perceptions about the trustworthiness of the local as well as the national government. People who have had an official requesting a sexual bribe, or know someone who has, are more likely to have no trust or little trust in their government compared to non-victims. The finding is important because it indicates that sexual corruption victimization, more than giving rise to harm similar to that suffered by victims of sexual violence, also have political consequences. Sexual corruption experiences also seem to be more strongly associated with the propensity to distrust, than conventional bribery experience, especially among female victims. As a majority of those who had been exposed to sexual corruption had no previous history of conventional corruption this last finding can be seen as even more alarming. The evidence taken together thus have important implications for how we until now have conceptualized and measured corruption.

When exposure to sexual corruption makes victims feel more alienated towards their government, they might also refrain from engaging politically with the state. Hence, such gendered experiences with the bureaucracy may severely hamper the relationship between citizens and the state. Cases of sexual corruption tend to go under the radar due to the unlikeliness to report the crime, and most countries do not address sexual corruption in their legislation. As such, the negative consequences of sexual corruption, being seriously underestimated, might constitute a considerable threat to the quality of democracy.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-psx-10.1177_00323217251335758 – Supplemental material for Sexual Corruption and Political (Dis)trust

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psx-10.1177_00323217251335758 for Sexual Corruption and Political (Dis)trust by Sofia Jonsson in Political Studies

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for valuable advice throughout the editing process. I am furthermore grateful to the Department of Government at Uppsala University for hosting me during the writing of this paper. My special thanks go to Elin Bjarnegård, Dolores Calvo, Åsa Eldén and Silje Lundgren, for thoughtful and intriguing conceptual discussions about sexual corruption. The paper was presented at the Gender and Politics (UPPGAP) seminar at Uppsala University and at the 2023 Annual conference of the Swedish Political Science Association (SWEPSA) at Gothenburg University, working group on Politics and Gender, where I received invaluable feedback. I would also like to thank Monika Bauhr for particularly useful comments and suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sofia Jonsson

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author biography

Sofia Jonsson is a researcher at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University. Jonsson’s research focuses on gender, violence and corruption. In her dissertation, ‘Sex, crime and politics. How organized crime influences and adapts to political institutions, with a particular focus on sex trafficking’ (Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg) Jonsson examines the interlinked relationship between prostitution policy, human trafficking and democratic development. Jonsson is furthermore specialized in survey methodology on sensitive and gendered issues.

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