Is impartiality enough? Government impartiality and citizens' perceptions of public service quality

Abstract

Government impartiality is considered a core feature of quality of government, and one that leads to favorable macro-level outcomes. We have limited knowledge, however, of how impartiality affects citizens' perceptions of public service quality. In particular, we do not know how the impacts of impartiality differ across citizens from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Understanding this relationship is important because citizens are the main beneficiaries of public services and are directly affected by administrative impartiality. Using the European Quality of Government Index data for 56,925 citizens in 174 European regions, the results of multilevel analysis show that impartiality alone does not lead to an increase in perceived public service quality. However, government impartiality leads to decreased public service quality for vulnerable citizens. The findings are robust across regions and countries even after controlling for individual, regional, and country-level factors. These results suggest that citizens do not benefit equally from government impartiality.