Bureaucratic Bashing and Praising: What Effect Does it Have on the Performance Citizens Assign Agencies?

Abstract

An online experimental survey was conducted to examine the impact of bureaucracy framing on respondents’ views regarding the performance of a local government entity. Several important findings emerged. First, bureaucracy bashing and bureaucracy praising were not found to have an effect on the performance respondents assigned to the entity. Second, political ideology was found to negatively influence the ratings assigned by respondents, with liberals more likely to give high ratings and conservatives more likely to give low ratings. Finally, political ideology was not found to influence the impact of either bureaucracy bashing or bureaucracy praising on perceived performance.