Political scandals are increasingly visible but decreasingly consequential. Despite elaborate integrity frameworks, political actors across European democracies often survive major scandals untouched, while legislative and institutional responses remain episodic and poorly understood. This paper presents the coding instrument and operationalization strategy for a database of political scandals (2000–2024), and stress-tests its variables through two cases that illustrate contrasting accountability trajectories: the Rato/Bankia scandal in Spain and the Sócrates/Operação Marquês case in Portugal.

The database focuses on the supply side of scandal politics, i.e. what political institutions, regulations, and political actors do in response to scandal, rather than its demand-side effects on voters, electoral outcomes, or media dynamics. It tracks three dimensions for each episode: (i) personal and career consequences for implicated actors, (ii) institutional responses from parties, parliaments, and oversight bodies, and (iii) legislative and regulatory outcomes. Rather than treating scandal as an independent variable with potential effects on public opinion, the project conceptualizes it as a mechanism operating through an accountability sequence, from norm violation through exposure, institutional response, personal consequence, and legislative reform.

The paper invites discussion of three operationalization challenges the cases expose: how to code institutional response sequencing when actors respond reactively rather than proactively; how to distinguish genuine from symbolic legislative reform; and how to handle accountability failure driven by systemic judicial capacity rather than political will.