Court performance and citizen attitudes toward fighting corruption

Abstract This article investigates the relationship between court performance and citizen attitudes toward corruption. We develop a framework inspired by signaling theory that focuses on the need for institutional actors to send credible signals about their commitment against corruption if they seek to engage citizens. We suggest two channels that link court signals to citizen attitudes, an “institutional channel” linking signals to trust in courts and attitudes about state‐driven anti‐corruption measures and a “citizen channel” linking signals to citizen efficacy and norms about bribe paying. We investigate these channels with a survey experiment about a fictional court case in low income areas in South Africa and Tunisia. We find evidence that impartiality and efficiency by courts in corruption cases activate the institutional channel. Our findings suggest that courts can play an important role in the fight against corruption, not just by acting as deterrents but by affecting citizen attitudes toward corruption.