Bureaucratic prioritizing among clients in the eyes of the public: Experimental evidence from three countries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hansen, Paw H.; Pedersen, Mogens Jin; Willems, Jurgen
• 署名单位: University of Copenhagen; Vienna University of Economics & Business
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13904
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1476-1494
• 关键词: street-level bureaucracy; social equity; welfare; Deservingness; VALUES; help; CONSTRUCTION; perceptions; heuristics; PSYCHOLOGY

摘要

In response to workloads and service demands, frontline workers often prioritize among their clients when delivering public services. This article examines the implications of such bureaucratic prioritization on democratic governance, specifically the public's attitudes toward how frontline workers prioritize among clients. Using data from a pre-registered, rank-based conjoint survey experiment conducted among residents (n = 2655) in Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, we explore two key aspects of bureaucratic prioritization from the public's perspective: (1) citizens' preferences on how teachers should prioritize among students and (2) citizens' beliefs about how teachers do prioritize among students. Our findings reveal general alignments between the public's normative preferences, their descriptive beliefs, and the prioritization tendencies of real-life teachers as documented in previous research. We discuss the implications of these results in terms of administrative legitimacy and the governance perspective of New Public Service.