Perceptions and attitudes about corruption and democracy in Mexico

Corruption is one of the most significant challenges confronting processes of democratic governability in Mexico. This article brings a methodological focus to bear on three sets of topics: (1) In what activities or instances of daily life do respondents claim to encounter corruption? (2) Who cares about corruption? That is, what is the salience of corruption to various groups? (3) What are the effects of perceptions of corruption on satisfaction with/support for democracy? Based on a secondary analysis of three data sets, our principal findings are that (1) the term, "corruption," has several different meanings for respondents; (2) government is viewed as only slightly more corrupt than society; (3) if we include bribes as corruption, a rather small subset of the samples (about a quarter) claim to have directly experienced bribery; and (4) perceptions of corruption negatively influence satisfaction with democracy, and those who perceive corruption to be a significant problem are less likely to trust institutions or individuals. In addition to these findings, we speculate about a puzzle: If rather few respondents claim direct experience with corruption in their daily lives, why do so many express such firm and pessimistic views about corruption in so many distant spheres of political and social life?