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Scientific article 2019

Citizens’ Evaluations of the Public Sector

Evidence from Two Large-scale Experiments

Authors:

  • Ulrik Hvidman
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The performance of public sector agencies constitutes a longstanding concern in both policy and academia. Recent research suggests that citizens associate the public sector with ineffectiveness and wastefulness. This article approaches this debate by examining how citizens’ perception of whether an organization is public or not affects their performance assessment. The study is based on two large-scale experiments conducted among representative samples of Danish citizens. The findings show that citizens’ attitudes towards the public sector can be multifaceted and may not always be negative. First, public organizations may be perceived to be less effective than private organizations, but their distribution of outputs is perceived to be more equitable. Second, as evaluations of public sector performance are conditional on respondents’ personal beliefs, negative perceptions appear to be concentrated among a subgroup of citizens.

Authors

  • Ulrik Hvidman

About this publication

  • Published in

    Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
VIVE – The Danish Centre for Social Science Research provides knowledge that contributes to developing the welfare society and strengthening quality development, efficiency enhancement and governance in the public sector, both in municipalities, regions and nationally.
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