Abstract
Political corruption scandals can affect individuals’ ideological orientation and change their behaviors. This study examined how political ideology switching by moderates due to a political scandal mediates their charitable donations. To infer a causal relationship, we focused on the impeachment of Park Geun-hye—the former conservative president of South Korea—as a quasi-natural experiment. A difference-in-difference estimation showed that the charitable donations of those who changed their political ideology from moderate to progressive after the corruption scandal increased by 16.9-18.1%. A battery of robustness tests supported the basic results. Our findings suggest that political scandals can affect moderates’ charitable behaviors through the channel of political ideology switching.

Keywords: political ideology; charitable behavior; political scandal; South Korea