Citizen Evaluations Research Articles

Political Evaluations and Spousal Responses to Candidate Infidelity: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Previous research on political scandals has largely focused on the effects of different types of scandals or the means by which they spread and affect the world. Less work has examined how changes in specific, but common, elements of scandals can produce different results. This study is the first to evaluate how a spouse’s decision to either leave or stay with a male candidate embroiled in an infidelity scandal affects citizen evaluations of the candidate and spouse. We leverage an online survey experiment to test this. The data suggest that people punish candidates for infidelity more for those candidates whose spouse leaves them. Further, the effects on candidate and spousal evaluations are conditional on candidate and participant partisanship. The electoral consequences of political scandals involving cheating candidates go beyond the candidates’ choices.

Impact of traffic simulation parameters on the estimation of noise exposure in an urban environment

Since road traffic is the most impactful noise source in the European cities, the evaluation of citizens' exposure is crucial. Although the noise map accuracy is affected by uncertainties in traffic volume, to perform extensive traffic monitoring is not practical and expensive, even in small cities. Traffic simulation software uses routing algorithms to suggest the fastest path to distribute vehicles from an origin through a network to a desired destination which interacts within the urban environment. Therefore, it could represent an important tool for noise mapping in the critical task to fill the data gaps in traffic volumes, also for implementing action plans using a suitable traffic management approach. However, there is a lack of evidence on how the choice of traffic simulation parameters influences noise estimation. In this work, we design a simulation framework to evaluate the impact of routing algorithms on the estimation of population noise exposure in an urban area. Using an open-source pipeline based on public databases and open-source software SUMO and NoiseModelling, we evaluated the implication on the traffic distribution and resulting noise exposure for a set of traffic model key parameters.

Reward exploitation or exploration? The effects of local government sustainability strategies and performance information on citizen evaluation

ABSTRACT Given the growing attention on citizen involvement in local sustainability, this study explores how citizens evaluate government sustainability performance stemming from exploitation (established policies) and exploration strategies (pioneering initiatives). Our survey experiment finds that positive sustainability performance resulting from exploitation achieves more favourable citizen evaluations compared to exploration. Negative sustainability performance does not moderate the associations between sustainability strategies and public assessments. Furthermore, Republicans, individuals with low climate beliefs, Hispanics, and low-income citizens prefer exploitation over exploration. As an early attempt to examine citizen preferences for organizational strategies, this study extends performance management research by linking organizational strategies with performance.

When legitimacy drowned: waves of blame in the 2006 Swedish Parliamentary Election*

ABSTRACT Can a government be held accountable for a natural disaster on the other side of the planet? Research on political behavior shows that a government’s crisis response to a natural disaster is subject for citizen evaluation by the ballot. Though, thus far such findings are limited to national events. In this study, the geospatial coverage of such retrospective voting is tested. More specifically, I exploit the Swedish government’s poor international crisis response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Boxing Day Tsunami, to make a case for cross-border retrospection in the 2006 Swedish Parliamentary Election. As the tsunami struck where many Swedes were vacationing, the results of this case demonstrate that voter evaluation of a government’s crisis response to natural phenomena is a process that cuts across the border of states. In fact, such evaluations may involve how a government responds to a natural disaster, affecting its civilian population vacationing abroad, way outside of its national jurisdiction. In a meaningful way, then, the findings presented here suggest the expansion of voter accountability beyond the borders of the nation state due to increased citizen mobility in an era of globalization.

Cutback management: Strategy, blame attribution, and evaluation of government

AbstractCutback management literature examines how governments engage strategies and maintain organizational performance in times of resource decline. While much of this literature has focused on financial outcomes, in this study we incorporate citizen evaluation of government as the outcome of interest. Additionally, we assess how blame attribution for the resource decline influences citizen evaluations. Using an online survey experiment, we bridge the literatures of cutback management, citizen evaluation of government, and blame attribution to explore how citizens evaluate governments by financial decisions and blame for a deficit. Results show that less blame improves citizen evaluations for each cutback strategy.

Are We Underestimating the Crime Prevention Outcomes of Community Policing? The Importance of Crime Reporting Sensitivity Bias

One of the key policing innovations of the last three decades has been community-oriented policing. It is particularly important because it is one of the only proactive policing approaches that consistently improves citizen evaluations of the police. At the same time, a series of reviews have concluded that there is not persuasive evidence that community policing reduces crime. In this paper we argue that these conclusions are likely flawed because of what we term crime reporting sensitivity (CRS) bias. CRS bias occurs because community policing leads to more cooperation with the police and subsequently increased crime reporting. Such increased crime reporting bias adjusts crime prevention outcomes of community policing downward. We illustrate this process by reanalyzing data from the Brooklyn Park ACT Experiment (Weisburd et al., 2021). We begin by showing the specific crime categories that contribute most to CRS bias. We then use a difference-in-differences panel regression approach to assess whether the experimental intervention in Brooklyn Park led to significant CRS bias. Finally, we use bounded estimates from the Brooklyn Park Experiment to adjust meta-analytic results from prior community policing studies to examine whether the conclusion that community policing does not impact on crime would need to be revisited if CRS bias was accounted for. We find that adjusted estimates tell a very different, more positive, story about community policing, suggesting that future studies should recognize and adjust for CRS bias, or identify other measures not influenced by this mechanism.

Information on local financial reforms and cognitive processes of citizens

This study uses survey data from Kyoto citizens in Japan to examine the factors affecting citizen evaluations of local government finances. In particular, it probes whether information delivery alters citizen perceptions of government finances. In the pre-information condition. Fiindings indicate that citizens who rate performance, compliance and respect for rights, and accessibility to government information evaluate government finances more highly. The impact of information delivery formed the focus of this inquiry, and the results confirmed the learning effect of the modification of citizen perceptions after accurate financial information was received. Those who have higher or lower prior beliefs about the government are also more likely to revise their beliefs in cases of overestimation or underestimation when provided with information based on accurate fiscal indicators. In addition, when information is provided to citizens who have low accessibility to government information, they are more likely than other citizens to improve their evaluation. This study offers key directions for the exploration of the learning effects of information delivery by local governments and recommends methods for constructing desirable relationships between citizens and governments through such efforts. Points for practitioners This study elucidates the learning effects of the information provided by government officials on citizens. The finding that citizens dissatisfied with their access to government information evaluate the government more highly after receiving accurate information from the government is particularly significant. In addition, citizens focus on the performance of services provision, adherence to established rules and observance of the rights granted to them.

Towards people-centric smart cities: A comparative evaluation of citizens’ sense of gain in pilot cities in China

Although the citizens’ sense of gain (CSG) has become a vital standard reflecting the people-centric concept, taking into account both objective material gain and subjective spiritual happiness. However, the existing evaluation research on smart cities is still limited to a single objective or subjective perspective, and the CSG level that can reflect the sustainability of smart cities is not clear. This study addresses this gap by introducing a comprehensive method for evaluating CSG in smart cities. The proposed method combines the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), entropy weight method (EWM) and ideal solution similarity ranking preference method (TOPSIS) to evaluate the CSG in 19 pilot smart cities in China. The empirical findings explore the CSG level in China’s pilot smart cities, revealing that Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing exhibit the highest level of CSG, and a significant correlation is observed between smartness and CSG. The CSG also show variety in different smart cities (i.e. urbanization rate and region) and among heterogeneous citizens (i.e. age, education background, and cognition of smart city). At the same time, this study provides support for each pilot city’s CSG enhancement strategy. In general, this study addresses the existing gap in evaluating CSG in smart cities, and provides valuable implications for policymakers to ensure the sustainability of smart cities in China.

Summary: Political Legitimacy and Under-representation: How Do Citizens Evaluate the Political System?

Summary: Political Legitimacy and Under-representation: How Do Citizens Evaluate the Political System?

The Association Between Performance Information and the Satisfaction of Different Social Groups: Citizen Evaluation by Racial Groups

ABSTRACT Citizen satisfaction is an important instrument to assess the quality of public services and hold governments accountable to their citizens. Despite significant amount of research, few studies have examined whether citizen satisfaction is generalizable across social groups or whether different social groups interpret it differently. Based upon the ingroup preference theory, this study uses data from Chicago Public Schools to argue that citizen satisfaction varies across different social groups, such that different performance information influences each groups’ level of satisfaction differently. The findings suggest that different types of performance information (overall v. group performance) have different effects on citizens of different racial groups when they evaluate public services. Further, it is important to measure performance for each social group, and as each group’s performance increases, divergence in citizen satisfaction among racial groups may decrease, helping public managers reduce unexpected factors that harm citizens’ perception of their agencies.

Cutback management strategies and citizen evaluation of government

AbstractThrough a behavioral approach, citizen evaluations of government performance have been an area of study in public administration. Research has explored how different factors influence citizens’ perceptions of public organizations, such as public sector bias and reference points. Understudied in this literature is how citizens evaluate government based on their use of financial management strategies. The Pandemic and other economic challenges have forced governments to engage in cutback management strategies to balance the budget. How do citizens evaluate governments based on their cutback strategies? To answer this theoretical question, we employ a survey experiment design with over 1600 respondents from the U.S. to explore how four cutback management strategies can influence citizen evaluations of government. Our findings suggest that cutback management strategies do influence citizens’ evaluation of government in trust, satisfaction, performance, and fairness. Citizens are more favorable to infrastructure or materials and contractor cuts than increasing taxes or reducing personnel. Further analysis by respondent partisanship indicates Democrats are more accepting of tax increases. Republicans rate governments lower when they cut capital and infrastructure and rate governments higher when they decrease personnel expenditures.

Ideology, knowledge, and the assessment of science policy agencies

Abstract In the USA, politics often dominates the conversation surrounding science and related technologies. We also live in times of high political polarization, leading to political debate over scientific discoveries and subsequent policy implications. Given these dynamics, there is much to be learned about the politicization of science, individuals’ policy views, and the public’s relationship with the communication and interpretation of scientific findings. Agencies are often responsible for facilitating scientific research and framing its policy relevance for decision makers and the public. This paper uses data from a large national public opinion survey to investigate citizen attitudes about government science agencies. We theorize that disparities between objective and self-assessed scientific knowledge coupled with ideological cues help frame citizen evaluations of agencies. We find that individuals’ political ideologies and disparities between knowledge types shape citizen assessments of energy-related scientific agencies. These findings have important implications for our understanding of public acceptance of the work of government science agencies.

Social Media for Sustainable Development: Challenging Participatory Development Practices to Re-learn and Realign Stakeholder Practices in Tamale Metropolis, Ghana

This study aims at finding out how social media has been explored for the enhancement of sustainable development in the Tamale Metropolis. It was based on Uses and Gratification Theory (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch,1974). It adopted a mixed approach and relied on questionnaires and interview guides for collecting data. Local community leaders (N. 25) were interviewed. A hundred questionnaires were also administered with Google Forms. The interview data were analysed qualitatively and the results were presented based on content and themes. The data obtained through the questionnaires were processed and presented descriptively in percentages. Findings showed that social media was highly used among the participants (92%). Those within higher education were 44% while those without higher education numbered 57%. It was found that there was males dominance in local community development support groups. Sixty-one percent of the participants used social media to support sustainable community development. They employed the media to foster citizens’ participation and contribution to sustainable development. The study, therefore, proposed to community groups to have their social media groups registered with the authorities to promote their visibility. The study also called for proper evaluation of citizens' media activities in order to support their contribution to sustainable development, which it argued will strengthen efforts to achieve SDGs 11 and 17.

Do citizen perceptual measures align with archival performance measures: a meta-analysis

While archival performance measures and citizen perceptual measures are widely used to gauge government performance, the relationship between the two remains inconclusive due to conflicting empirical evidence, which obscures the role of citizen evaluation in government performance measurement. This study conducted a meta-analysis of 362 effect sizes from 36 existing studies to estimate the relationship between archival and perceptual measures. The findings show that, in general, the two measures are weakly correlated. This correlation stays relatively weak even when the measures are related to output and outcomes. These results underscore the distinctions between citizen perceptual measures and archival performance measures in evaluating government performance and advocate for the integration of subjective and objective measures to comprehensively capture government performance.

The persistent impact of electoral incentives on the quality of infrastructure

What determines the quality of a nation’s infrastructure? We show that electoral incentives at the time of construction have persistent effects on the functionality of contemporary African water systems. We apply a common event-study approach to the universe of water points in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania built over the period from 1970–2014. Across all three settings, we find that infrastructure installed in the run-up to an election is significantly more likely to be functioning today than those installed shortly after elections. Our results suggest that politicians respond to electoral incentives by adjusting the provider of installed water systems. Together, the findings suggest that public officials optimally respond to responsive but myopic citizen evaluations of public performance.

Justice as fairness or retribution? Citizen reactions to domestic trials of wartime violence

How do domestic trials addressing wartime violence affect public opinion of government? The legitimation functions of national courts are well studied in liberal democracies, but less is known about the effects of trials that address abuses committed during large-scale conflict. This article investigates how the extent to which such trials achieve procedural justice (fairness in process) and retributive justice (allocation of punishment) affects perceptions of political legitimacy. I provide survey-experimental evidence from post-conflict El Salvador that leverages the repeal of a longstanding amnesty law. Although a trial in general improves citizen evaluations of state competence, fairness and punishment serve crucial – and distinct – legitimation functions. Procedural fairness significantly increased citizens’ willingness to comply with state authorities, regardless of trial outcome. Yet, an unfair trial, when coupled with punishment, bolstered trust in politicians and the judiciary. This suggests a trade-off between public preferences for fairness and an ‘iron fist’ approach to violence. The findings reveal the limits of procedural justice in a post-conflict environment and furnish new insights on the multifaceted functions of human rights trials.

Definition of Key Performance Indicators for Noise Monitoring Networks

The European Noise Directive fixed a well-defined schedule on a five-year basis for the noise exposure evaluation of citizens. Noise monitoring is needed to validate noise maps of the main transportation infrastructures and it can also represent an improvement. By comparing with average noise maps, a properly set sensor network can report noise information in a more case-specific way, including time variations. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, key performance indicators (KPIs) evaluating the technical performance and financial sustainability of acoustic networks have never been presented in the scientific literature. Therefore, in the present work, a set of KPIs are proposed on the basis of KPIs defined for monitoring networks of other pollutants. It is then tuned according to noise monitoring, in line with the current legislations. As a case study, the performance of three monitoring networks installed in ports are evaluated and discussed. The resulting investment and maintenance costs can be helpful for decision makers to calculate the cost–benefits in the installation of new monitoring stations and also to evaluate the performance of the already-existing ones.

Sector-Switching, Bureaucratic Reputation, and Citizen Evaluation of Performance: Evidence From a Large-Scale Experiment in India

Amid crises of trust in government, the legitimacy of public organizations has never been more important. In this context, access to performance information ensures democratic control and thus legitimacy. However, performance evaluation is hindered by transaction costs in accessing and cognitive biases in interpreting performance. We examine two antecedents of citizen evaluations of performance: sector and bureaucratic reputation. Utilizing two experiments on a representative sample of Indian citizens, we situate our paper amid the increasing privatization of public services, and reputation management strategies used to influence performance evaluations. We discuss our findings and their implications for public management theory and practice.

Citizen evaluation of the informative attributes in traditional and digital media

El periodismo en los últimos diez años ha perdido su esencia de autonomía a través de los medios de comunicación con internet y la irrupción de la tecnología digital. También se ha perdido esa labor tradicional de cobertura y se ha generado desinterés por seguir los medios convencionales debido a los cambios de hábitos de las audiencias que siguen las noticias en medios digitales. El presente estudio examina la complejidad que vive en la actualidad el periodismo en Chile en su ejercicio profesional a través de los medios de comunicación tradicionales y la pérdida de credibilidad que tienen con la irrupción masiva de medios digitales. En la metodología, desde una perspectiva cuantitativa, se realiza un estudio descriptivo en el que se aplican encuestas a personas que siguen información mediática para conocer la percepción que tienen sobre el estado actual del periodismo en la Región de Valparaíso, Chile. Como resultado de la técnica realizada, los medios de comunicación a nivel tradicional no fueron bien evaluados, siendo su falta de credibilidad la que deteriora la imagen de los periodistas. Se logran respuestas múltiples que permiten pensar que, necesariamente, el periodismo en la actualidad ha perdido sus raíces en la rigurosidad y uso de fuentes y se hace preciso superar el deterioro de la calidad informativa de los productos periodísticos donde los medios digitales son los más creíbles al momento de seguir alguna información periodística.

Evaluation of Jordan's citizens' awareness of the emerging Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease: A mixed analysis of the symptoms, transmission, and preventive measures.

This study aimed to evaluate Jordan citizens' awareness, knowledge, and practice concerning Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) symptoms, routes of transmission, and preventive measures. An online self-administered questionnaire was filled out completely by participants (N = 328) from mainly four major cities in Jordan during the period beginning of May-end of September 2020. Participants' main sources of knowledge about COVID-19 were the government websites (87.8%), social media (87.5%), and Television (TV) (81.1%). The majority of participants valued the drizzle of cough from infected individuals (96.3%), direct contact with contaminated surfaces (91.5%), and direct contact with infected individuals (84.5%) as the highest rates of the route of transmission. The highest rates chosen as symptoms of COVID-19 viral infections were high-grade fever (99.1%), troublesome breathing (96.6%), coughing (92.7%), headache (91.2%), and loss of smell and taste (80.8%). The majority of participants (>92%) strongly agreed on the behavioral protective measures such as no face touching, wearing a mask, the use of alcoholic hand disinfectants, and the need for self-isolation. This study showed that the Jordanian citizens were aware of the epidemiology of COVID-19 and related infection preventive measures. This agrees well with the efforts done by the Ministry of health and governmental organizations to spread the necessary information about the virus among citizens.