Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T11:26:02.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Will citizens take no for an answer? What government officials can do to enhance decision acceptance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2010

Peter Esaiasson
Peter Esaiasson*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
*
* E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To what extent can the conduct of government officials help make unfavourable decisions acceptable to those that are affected by them? To provide an answer to this under-explored question, this paper presents findings from two scenario experiments that allow the conduct of individual officials to vary according to a pre-determined standard, while keeping an unfavourable decision constant in a setting that approaches the real world. There are three main findings. First, both actual conduct and perceived fairness of treatment affect decision acceptance. Second, actual conduct matters much less for decision acceptance than perceived fairness of treatment. Third, citizens’ beliefs about the moral right to a favourable outcome condition the effect of actual conduct (but not of perceived treatment fairness). In particular, morally disappointed citizens are less likely to accept the decision irrespective of how they are treated.

Keywords

decision acceptanceprocedural fairnessopinion-policy researchlegitimacy beliefsadministrative behaviour
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 351 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrose, M.L. (2002), ‘Contemporary justice research: a new look at familiar questions’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 89: 803–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayles, M. (1990), Procedural Justice: Allocating to Individuals, Dordrecht: Kluiwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bies, R.Moag, J.S. (1986), ‘Interactional justice’, in R.J. Lewicki, B.M. Sheppard and M.H. Bazerman (eds), Research on Negotiations in Organizations, Greenwich, CT: JAI, pp. 43–55.Google Scholar
Brewer, B. (2007), ‘Citizen or customer? Complaints handling in the public sector’, International Review of Administrative Sciences 73: 549–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brockner, J. (2002), ‘Making sense of procedural fairness: how high procedural fairness can reduce or heighten the influence of outcome favorability’, Academy of Management Review 27: 58–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brockner, J.Greenberg, J. (1990), ‘The impact of layoffs on survivors: insights from procedural and distributive justice’, in J.S. Carroll (ed.), Applied Social Psychology and Organizational Settings, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 45–75.Google Scholar
Campbell, A.L. (2003), How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State, Harvard, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, D. (2000), ‘Public service reform: a comparative West European perspective’, West European Politics 23: 25–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, E.S., White, S.O.Sanders, J. (2000), ‘Distributive and procedural justice in seven nations’, Law and Human Behavior 24: 553–579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colquitt, J.A. (2001), ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: a construct validation of a measure’, Journal of Applied Psychology 86: 386–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folger, R. (1998), ‘Fairness as a moral virtue’, in M. Schminke (ed.), Managerial Ethics: Moral Management of People and Processes, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 13–34.Google Scholar
Gangl, A. (2003), ‘Procedural justice theory and evaluations of the lawmaking process’, Political Behavior 25: 119–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J. (2008), ‘Judicial institutions’, in R.A.W. Rhodes, S. Binder and B. Rockman (eds), Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 514–574.Google Scholar
Grimes, M. (2005), Democracy’s Infrastructure: The Role of Procedural Fairness in Fostering Consent, Gothenburg: Department of Political Science.Google Scholar
Hood, C. (1991), ‘A public management for all seasons’, Public Administration 69: 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keiser, L., Wilkins, V., Meier, K.Holland, C. (2002), ‘Lipstick and logarithms: gender, institutional context and representative bureaucracy’, American Political Science Review 93: 553–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klosko, G. (2000), Democratic Procedures and Liberal Consensus, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kumlin, S. (2004), The Personal and the Political: How Personal Welfare State Experiences Affect Political Trust and Ideology, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leventhal, G. (1980), ‘What should be done with equity theory?’, in K.J. Gergen, M.S. Greenberg and R.H. Willis (eds), Social Exchange: Advances in Theory and Research, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 27–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, M. (1997), Consent, Dissent and Patriotism, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lind, A. (2001), ‘Fairness heuristic theory: justice judgments as pivotal cognitions in organizational relations’, in J. Greenberg and R. Cropanzano (eds), Advances in Organizational Behavior, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 56–88.Google Scholar
Lind, E.A.Tyler, T.R. (1988), The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice, London: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupfer, M., Kelly, B., Weeks, P., Doan, K.A.Houston, D.A. (2000), ‘Folk conception of fairness and unfairness’, European Journal of Social Psychology 30: 405–428.3.0.CO;2-U>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCoun, R. (2006), ‘Voice, control and belonging: the double-edged sword of procedural fairness’, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 1: 171–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, J. (1997), ‘Taking coercion seriously’, Constellation 3: 407–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mettler, S.Soss, J. (2004), ‘The consequences of public policy for democratic citizenship: bridging policy studies and mass politics’, Perspectives on Politics 2: 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. (1999), Principles of Social Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, D.T. (2001), ‘Disrespect and the experience of injustice’, Annual Review of Psychology 52: 527–553.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mullen, E.Skitka, L.J. (2006), ‘Exploring the psychological underpinnings of the moral mandate effect: motivated reasoning, group differentiation, or anger?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90: 629–643.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mullen, E.Skitka, L.J. (2008), ‘Moral convictions often override concerns about procedural fairness. A reply to Napier and Tyler’, Social Justice Research 21: 529–546.Google Scholar
Murphy, K. (2004), ‘The role of trust in nurturing compliance: a study of accused tax avoiders’, Law and Human Behavior 28: 187–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mutz, D. (1998), Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Napier, J.Tyler, T.R. (2008), ‘Does moral conviction really override concerns about procedural justice? A re-examination of the value protection model’, Social Justice Research 21: 509–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, K., Hall, T., Van den Bos, K., Hunton, J., Lovett, S.Tippett, M. (2001), ‘Features of the value function for voice and their consistency across participants from four countries: Great Britain, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United States’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 84: 95–121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1999), ‘Traditions and public sector reform. Comparing Britain and Denmark’, Scandinavian Political Studies 22: 341–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, B. (1991), ‘Demokrati, förvaltning och legitimitet’, in B. Rothstein (ed.), Politik som organisation, Stockholm: SNS, pp. 7–51.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B. (2009), ‘Creating political legitimacy: electoral democracy versus quality of government’, American Behavioral Scientist 53: 311–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, B.Eek, D. (2009), ‘Political corruption and social trust. An experimental approach’, Rationality and Society 21: 81–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, B.Teorell, J. (2008), ‘What is quality of government? A theory of impartial government institutions’, Governance 21: 163–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, A.L.Ingram, H. (1997), Policy Design for Democracy, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Skitka, L.J. (2002), ‘Do the means always justify the ends, or do the ends sometimes justify the means?’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28: 588–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skitka, L.J.Houston, D.A. (2001), ‘When due process is of no consequence: moral mandates and presumed defendant guilt or innocence’, Social Justice Research 14: 305–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skitka, L.J.Mullen, E. (2002), ‘Understanding judgments of fairness in a real-world political context: a test of the value protection model of justice reasoning’, Personality Social Psychology Bulletin 28: 1419–1429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1994), ‘From social security to health security? Opinion and rhetoric in US social policy-making’, Political Science and Politics 27: 21–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soss, J. (1999), ‘Lessons of welfare: policy design, political learning, and political action’, American Political Science Review 93: 363–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thibaut, J.Walker, L. (1975), Procedural Justice: A Psychological Analysis, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tyler, T.R. (1990), Why People Obey the Law: Procedural Justice, Legitimacy and Compliance, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, T.R. (1994), ‘Governing and diversity: the effect of fair decision-making procedures on the legitimacy of government’, Law and Society Review 28: 809–831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T.R. (2000), ‘Social justice: outcome and procedure’, International Journal of Psychology 35: 117–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T.R. (2006), ‘Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation’, Annual Review of Psychology 57: 375–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyler, T.R.Folger, R. (1980), ‘Distributional and procedural aspects of satisfaction with citizen-police encounters’, Basic and Applied Social Psychology 1: 281–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T.R.Lind, E.A. (1992), ‘A relational model of authority in groups’, in M.P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 25, New York: Academic Press, pp. 115–191.Google Scholar
Tyler, T.R., Casper, J.Fisher, B. (1989), ‘Maintaining allegiance toward political authorities: the role of prior attitudes and the use of fair procedures’, American Journal of Political Science 33: 629–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T.R., Degoey, P.Smith, H. (1996), ‘Understanding why the justice of group procedures matters: a test of the psychological dynamics of the group value model’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70: 913–930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T.R., Boeckmann, R., Smith, H.Huo, Y. (1997), Social Justice in a Diverse Society, Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Van Parijs, P. (1996), ‘Justice and democracy: are they incompatible?’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 4: 101–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van den Bos, K. (2005), ‘What is responsible for the fair process effect?’, in J. Greenberg and J.A. Colquitt (eds), Handbook of Organizational Justice, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associations, pp. 273–300.Google Scholar
Van den Bos, K.Lind, E.A. (2002), ‘Uncertainty management by means of fairness judgments’, in M.P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 34, New York: Academic Press, pp. 1–60.Google Scholar
Van den Bos, K.Spruijt, N. (2002), ‘Appropriateness of decisions as a moderator of the psychology of voice’, European Journal of Social Psychology 37: 57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar