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Misuse of travel expenses and commuter housing, insider trading, sexual harassment, conflicts of interest, plagiarism and theft. There has been no shortage of political scandals in Norway in recent years.

But what do voters think about such politicians returning to ministerial positions?

Political scientists Ragnhild Muriaas and Torill Stavenes at the University of Bergen have examined this in the study “Gender, Political Orientation, and Public Reactions to Ministerial Comebacks after Scandals”, which will soon be published in the prestigious journal Political Behavior.

Voters are generally skeptical about giving politicians a second chance after scandals.

Nevertheless, the researchers find a clear bias:

“We find that female politicians on the right are more easily forgiven when they have made a mistake. This suggests that it may be easier for them to continue in a ministerial position,” says Ragnhild Muriaas.

“At the same time, female politicians on the left are somewhat more ‘punished’ by voters. People are less willing to accept that they should continue in a ministerial role after being involved in a scandal,” she says.

Participated in a survey experiment

The study is based on a survey of around 2,000 participants through the Norwegian Citizen Panel. In the survey, respondents placed themselves ideologically on the left-right scale.

Participants were asked to assess whether a politician should be allowed to return as a minister after a scandal. Gender and party affiliation were varied in a survey experiment.

“This allows us to see how people react to different types of politicians. We used the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, since these are the parties that most often form governments,” says Muriaas.

The researchers included five types of scandals: insider trading, misuse of travel expenses, plagiarism, spreading false rumors about a colleague in public, and sexual harassment.

“The point is that we see fairly similar patterns across these different types of scandals,” says Stavenes.

Primarily driven by left-wing voters

So why are politicians evaluated so differently by voters? Muriaas and Stavenes have some theories.

“The explanation lies particularly with voters on the left. They relate to female politicians on the right differently than to male politicians, and differently than to female politicians on their own side,” says Muriaas, and continues:

“Voters on the left are generally quite positive toward female politicians. But they also tend to be stricter toward their own side. This clearly has consequences for how politicians are judged in a scandal, which in turn may affect who gets the opportunity to continue their political careers in the long run.”

Among voters who identify with the political right side, there is also a pattern. They judge female politicians on the left somewhat more harshly, while female and male politicians on the right, and male politicians on the left, receive somewhat more support and forgiveness.

“These right-wing voters do not give their own politicians the same reduction in punishment. But they do punish women on the left somewhat more. For men, it doesn’t really make much difference – they are judged quite similarly regardless of whether the voters are on the left or the right,” says Muriaas.

She believes that female politicians on the right receive a kind of double advantage.

“They get support from left-wing voters as well as from their own side – because right-wing voters are somewhat more inclined to support their own politicians returning, regardless of what they have done,” she says.

The difference between Erna Solberg and Anniken Huitfeldt

Gender thus only affects the evaluation of women – not men. Men are judged similarly across party lines.

“That is somewhat surprising to us,” says Stavenes.

The researchers obtained their results during a period of intense debate about the conflict-of-interest case involving former prime minister, Erna Solberg, following her husband Sindre Finnes’ stock trading.

“At the same time, Labour politician Anniken Huitfeldt had to step down after a similar, but probably less serious case. In that sense, it became a clear example of this pattern,” says Stavenes.

Groundbreaking findings

Norway is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, and we are used to having many female politicians. As a result, both women and men are involved in political scandals.

“One might have thought that in Norway, a politician’s gender would not make a difference in how they are evaluated. But since we find these results here, there is reason to believe they may also apply in other countries where female ministers are less common,” says Muriaas.

There is already some research on women and political scandals, but the findings are mixed. Some studies suggest that women are punished more harshly, while others conclude with the opposite.

“But previous research has not examined whether politicians are on the left or on the right. We now see that the ideological background of both voters and politicians matters for how they are evaluated,” says Muriaas.

Torill Stavenes emphasizes that the key lies in the interaction between gender and ideology.

“This has not necessarily been studied together, and not in the context of scandals,” she says.

The findings thus suggest that how voters react to political scandals is not only about what the politician has done – but also about gender and political orientation.