The Public Understanding of Political Integrity

The Case for Probity Perceptions

J. Rose

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137343741
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137343758
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Through detailed analyses of major and newly available datasets, this study examines the utility of a public probity-focused approach to understanding citizen disaffection with politicians. It shows that perceptions of public probity are coherent, substantively meaningful, responsive, and, most importantly, that they do matter.

1

Introduction

This book makes a case for the importance of citizens’ perceptions of public probity for our understanding of how citizens relate to their state. As it is conceived of in this study, ‘public probity’ can usefully be thought of as ‘playing by the rules’ or the ‘spirit of public service’: public probity is less about a set of formal, prescriptive rules, more an exhortation to the appropriate exercise of public office. Such a focus upon the ‘rules of the game’ results in the primary concern of this study being about the process of governing, as opposed to the outcomes governors can produce. Intuitively, we would expect how citizens evaluate governors on these dimensions to be particularly important for understanding citizen disaffection, and moreover how citizens relate to the political circumstances that confront them. Yet there has been little academic or practitioner-led investigation into such matters. Thus we are left with little more than the suggestion that ‘public probity’ is a useful tool (either conceptually or empirically) for evaluating perceptions of the political world. Using a series of detailed analyses upon a major newly available series of datasets, this study examines the utility of a public probity-focused approach to understanding citizen disaffection, and makes a case for deeper and more searching research into this area. In short: this book shows that perceptions of public probity matter: that they are coherent, substantively meaningful, responsive, and that they cannot be explained away simply by ephemeral political events. In doing so, this study also presents new substantive findings about the causes of political perceptions and the consequences of political realities.

The lack of attention paid to perceptions of the process of governing within academic literature is interesting, given that it remains an important evaluative criterion for political systems as a whole. Political systems can be evaluated on at least two criteria: whether the system can produce desired ‘outcomes’, and the process by which those outcomes are created. ‘Outcomes’ are evidently important for any political system. Indeed, it is plausible to claim that the primary purpose of any political system is to produce outcomes that are desired by the politically relevant actors (a similar point is noted by Easton, 1965, p.230). Yet procedural issues are also important; it matters how decisions come to be made and how policies are implemented (see Rothstein, 2011). Hitherto, much academic discussion has focused upon the ‘output’ question. In particular, there has been a strong focus upon the extent to which the policies espoused by political candidates and parties match the policy preferences of citizens, particularly the median voter, and the consequences of this (see for example Downs, 1957; Stimson, 1999; Powell, 2000; Klingemann et al., 2006; van der Eijk and Franklin, 2009).¹ Even within the less outcome-orientated, more explicitly attitudinal literature, the role of the political process is often under-considered (see for example, Miller, 1974; Citrin, 1974; Miller and Borrelli, 1991; Hetherington, 1998, p.795; Newton and Norris, 2000; Clarke et al., 2009, pp.296–301; for important exceptions see Tyler, 1994; Gibson and Caldeira, 1995; van den Bos et al., 1998; Tyler, 2000; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2001; Mishler and Rose, 2001; Carman, 2010; Lascoumes, 2010; Doherty and Wolak, 2012; Rose and Heywood, 2013; Licht et al., in press). Thus, we are left with relatively little information about whether, for example, a dictatorship that (more or less) consistently produced the desired outcome of the median voter would be an acceptable institutional arrangement for citizens. A priori, it may be assumed that if citizens are ‘rational’, and a dictatorship can deliver acceptable outcomes, a dictatorship would be as acceptable as a well performing democracy. Yet, even though citizens often express high levels of dissatisfaction with the functioning of their political systems (Hay, 2007), a large majority of citizens report that they consider democracy to the best form of government (Hay, 2007, p.32; see also Norris, 2011, p.93). Clearly something is missing when analyses focus so heavily upon outcomes. A narrow focus upon outcomes alone thus seems problematic. Analysing perceptions of public probity allows us to go some way towards understanding the importance of such procedural matters.

In addressing the ‘process’ question, this study adds to a relatively small literature concerning the impact of political processes, independent of outputs, upon citizens’ beliefs. Moreover, the focus of this study – perceived public probity – represents an under-utilised way of considering procedural questions. This is a shame, insofar as the breadth of concerns bundled within ‘public probity’ provides an opportunity to understand aspects of political beliefs that can be missed when investigations focus more narrowly. For example, investigating perceptions of corruption – which, at its broadest, is about conflicts of interest and partiality (see Philip, 1997, p.458) – does not intrinsically provide an opportunity to consider questions of inadequate levels of transparency or accountability in public life (for a more general discussion on the limitations of a corruption-focused analyses, see Rose and Heywood, 2013, pp.150–152). Political trust, another common analytic frame, similarly lacks the scope of public probity. Whilst considerations of political trust may tell us about the extent to which governors are trusted, such perceptions tell us far less about whether citizens perceive their governors as trustworthy. Probity, which can underwrite a view that governors are trustworthy, is therefore conceptually a prior concern to trust (although whether this is empirically the case will be tested in Chapter 2). Therefore, at the conceptual level, trust-focused accounts tell us only the end of the story, not the beginning. Going further, even ‘Quality of Government’, a more explicitly ethically-focused concept, is less useful than probity. In practice ‘Quality of Government’ is taken to mean ‘impartiality’, which in turn is defined as requiring that ‘when implementing laws and policies, government officials shall not take into consideration anything about the citizen/case that is not stipulated beforehand in the policy or law’ (Rothstein, 2011, p.13). Thus, high levels of Quality of Government do not inherently ensure high levels of probity; a great variety of actions violate public probity without being ‘partial’. Indeed, as Rothstein (2011, p.25) notes, this conceptualisation of impartiality is compatible with apartheid regimes, since in such systems racial factors are ‘stipulated beforehand in the policy or law’. Moreover, Quality of Government is compatible with systematic deceit by the government so long as it is the intention that the costs/benefits of such lies apply universally to all citizens.

Thus, whilst we may know a fairly significant amount about more specific concepts (such as political corruption, political trust, Quality of Government, etc.), we still do not have an adequate appreciation of more general questions about the process of governing as a whole. Indeed, as has been briefly noted above, we do not yet have an adequate understanding of whether it makes sense to use public probity perceptions as a means to evaluate citizens’ attitudes towards their state. This is partly a question of whether probity perceptions matter at all, although it would be highly surprising if they did not. However, it is also a question of whether probity perceptions matter enough to make it worthwhile to conceptualise citizens’ views in this way, rather than using one of the wealth of other ways of conceptualising citizen attitudes; especially the far more common concept of ‘political trust’. Indeed, we do not even fully understand if perceptions of pubic probity and political trust are empirically distinct, which leaves us with little understanding of whether we in practice miss something when we conceptualise citizens’ attitudes in, say, a trust-focused way.

Of course, some of the general themes contained within this study – political legitimacy, perceived probity, political trust – are quite literally ancient. These broad themes reoccur throughout the ages because of their importance, both to the citizenry at large and to political professionals. Yet, whilst the general themes are ancient, each new generation of citizens exists in a different political climate. This work is based upon an empirical analysis of survey data, collected in the United Kingdom between 2003 and 2011. This serves to make the context different to preceding analyses, and allows a sensible discussion of the extent to which previous findings still hold. Yet the findings are not only applicable to the UK, nor only to the specific period under study. Indeed, the UK during this period represents a case of the more general class of democratic regimes. The findings are thus potentially relevant to all other members of the general class of democratic regimes.

This introduction proceeds by first discussing the nature of the political ‘problem’ of hostile citizen perceptions. This is followed by a fuller exploration of the contextual background of citizen political perceptions. The data used within this study are then discussed in detail. Finally, the structure of the work is then presented, with a brief summary of the chapters.

1.1 The political ‘problem’ of citizen disaffection

Negative depictions and representations of the political are pervasive within many contemporary democratic societies. Periodically this antipathy may ‘peak’, insofar as it reaches an unsustainable height, only to recede to a more ‘standard’ level. In the UK, the recent experience of the MPs’ expenses scandal showed an example of a peak. As Michael Kenny (2009b, p.663) notes, at the time politicians were ‘on the receiving end of a tidal backlash of public aggression, the like of which is normally reserved for child murderers, Big Brother contestants and managers of the English football team’. Yet even outside a ‘peak’ in public antipathy, perceptions of ‘politics’ are very rarely positive. As Hay (2007, p.5) rightly notes, even the word ‘political’ carries deeply negative connotations. For the public, it seems, ‘political’ actions amount to little more than facile gestures and dishonesty mounted for personal gain. The case of trust in professionals provides a useful way to consider this hostility over time (for a general discussion see Pharr and Putnam, 2000). Table 1.1 shows the percentages of citizens in Britain expressing trust in politicians, government ministers and doctors. Despite a rough consistency in attitudes over time, which may at least go some way towards assuaging fears that current attitudes represent unprecedented lows,² the figures show a deep suspicion of politicians. It is also interesting to note that the suspicion with which citizens hold politicians is not replicated for doctors; the effect is not simply a general hostility towards all authority figures.

This problem of citizen hostility is perhaps most keenly felt within representative democracies, where the representatives themselves are a vanishingly small fraction of a percentage point of the population, and thus cannot base their legitimacy upon sheer force of numbers (Rehfeld, 2005, p.5). For the representatives to claim a legitimacy to govern there is a need for the representatives – in some sense – to represent the people. There ought to be some congruence between what the people desire and what is enacted; even though that is not the only criterion by which their legitimacy can or should be judged. This issue has been noted as far back as ancient times, when Cicero noted:

We should, therefore, in our dealings with people show what I may almost call reverence toward all men — not only toward the men who are the best, but toward others as well. For indifference to public opinion implies not merely self-sufficiency, but even total lack of principle. (Cicero, 1913 [44BC], I.99)

Table 1.1 Percentage of British citizens expressing trust in three groups of professionals³

	Politicians generally	Government ministers	Doctors
1983	18	16	82
1993	14	11	84
2000	20	21	87
2005	20	20	97
2009	13	16	92
2011	14	17	88

More seriously, without ‘principle’, it is difficult to understand why citizens should voluntarily lend support to governments. Importantly, such statements rest upon perceptions to a far greater degree than they rest upon objective actions. Politically, the hostile perceptions noted above thus pose a problem insofar as we desire to see political systems based upon the consent of a people, who see the system itself as (more-or-less) fully legitimate. Such a problem not only speaks to the normative issues surrounding legitimate governance (Warren, 2006), but also has direct empirical implications.

Steven van de Walle (2008, p.215) re-tells a joke about corruption in Belgium in which a foreigner, newly resident in the country, requires a telephone line installed in his apartment. Told by his friends that it is essentially impossible to get a phone line installed if you have no connections to local politicians or the public telephone company, but lacking any connections, he instead decides to follow the ‘standard’ applications procedures. The man is surprised to be the only customer requesting a telephone line, and to find the staff helpful. He and his friends are even more surprised when the telephone line is installed the following day. To repay the kindness of the staff, and for the prompt installation, the man takes a bottle of wine to the telephone company. Interested, he asked why the service was so prompt, when the reputation of the company was so bad. He was told ‘you were the first customer in weeks following the normal procedure, and not having some local politician call us. We really appreciated that, and decided to connect your telephone right away’ (cited in van de Walle, 2008, p.216). The joke neatly highlights how perceptions of loose ethics – even if not underpinned by ‘reality’ – can have important consequences for the efficient operation of public services.

When the expectation of corruption is taken to extremes, corruption itself can become effectively legitimised. Elements of the Indian civil and health services provide a clear example of the effect of corruption becoming seen as legitimate in this way. Holmberg and Rothstein (2011) tell the story of a new mother being openly asked for a large bribe before hospital staff would give her the baby. Indeed, direct experience with bribery and corruption is so common in India that an effort is being made to catalogue those times where citizens did not need to pay bribes to access government services.⁴

Perceptions are thus very important. Indeed, expectations of a lack of probity are harmful to the very concept of democracy (Warren, 2006). Where people feel their representatives are not honourable, what incentive is there to seek their help when an issue arises? More seriously still, if the choice at an election is between two candidates who are both perceived to be equally bad in this respect, what is the point in voting? Citizens have very little reason to prefer a democracy that fails in this regard to several other, less representative, forms of government. To the extent that we view democracy as intrinsically good, these concerns are grave indeed.

Yet, as has been alluded to, the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Tables and Figures
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Foundations
• Part II Causes of Perceptions of Public Probity
• Notes for Policymakers
• Appendices
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index