A taste for government employment also rests on its political flavor

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gilad, Sharon; Sulitzeanu-Kenan, Raanan; Levi-Faur, David
• 署名单位: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13889
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1412-1425
• 关键词: public-service motivation; PERSON-ORGANIZATION; representative bureaucracy; attraction-selection; civil-servants; fit; job; politicization; CONSEQUENCES; polarization

摘要

The global experience of political polarization, and politicians' attacks on democratic institutions, render individuals' identification with the governing coalition, or with its opposition, a likely antecedent of their attraction to work in government. This article examines to what extent individuals' partisan alignment with the governing coalition, and perceptions of its actions as a threat to democracy, shapes attraction to government jobs. Findings are based on a two-stage survey with 1861 Israeli panel respondents, aged 21-30, carried out during the government's attempt to undermine the legal system (hereafter: the Judicial Overhaul), and a follow-up survey experiment with 1211 of the respondents. Against the politically neutral explanations of previous research, we show that partisan alignment affects the propensity to choose a job in a government ministry versus other sectors. We find mixed evidence in support of the proposition that perceptions of the Judicial Overhaul as a threat to democracy underlie this effect.