Public Administration, Democracy and Individual Belief Systems

• In Event: Public Administration and the Law in Democratic Contexts

Abstract

Understanding what conditions are conducive to promoting democratic values on a broad social scale is normatively important so long as the quality of democratic institutions rests on a coherent set of socially-reinforced norms. How do individuals’ understanding of governing institutions influence their valuations of principles of “good” public administration (i.e., impartiality, accountability, transparency, integrity, efficiency and legality)? Are these principles integrated into a coherent belief system? Does a college education increase the centrality of these principles in a political belief system? We examine these questions using original survey data from Italy and the United Kingdom that employs novel questions about administrative principles while leveraging well-established items of identifying political and moral beliefs (cf. Inglehart, et al. 2020; Fitzgerald, et al. 2023; Graham, et al. 2011; Schwartz 2012). To evaluate whether political and institutional knowledge may be a mechanism through which education may influence belief system structure, we build a metric of “institutional understanding” modeled on the open-ended question approach of Kraft (2023). To examine the structure of belief systems, we use a network analysis approach that has become common for studying the centrality of specific values within broader belief systems (e.g., Dalege, et al. 2016; Brandt 2022). This study will further our understanding of the way in which citizens of democracies internalize norms that inform their behavioral expectations for the elements of their governments that are not elected but which make important decisions about policy implementation.

Authors

• Anthony Michael Bertelli, Pennsylvania State University

• Silvia Cannas, Bocconi

• Marika Danielle Csapo, Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals