Direct and indirect effects of procedural justice on cooperation and compliance: evidence from South Korea

Abstract

Procedural justice now plays an important role in the study of policing. While most empirical research on the effects of procedural justice has been carried out in Western countries, there has been little empirical research on its effects in East Asia, where authority dynamics are thought to differ from those in the West. Using a sample of 301 South Korean citizens, this study examines the direct and indirect effects of procedural justice and other factors on cooperation and compliance with police and the law. The results show that procedural justice has a significant, positive direct effect on obligation to obey, but not on cooperation or compliance. Procedural justice has a significant, positive indirect effect on cooperation via obligation to obey, but it does not have a significant indirect effect on compliance. We discuss the implications of these results for procedural justice theory and its applications in different settings, including East Asia.