Work

Personality and Public Administration: Policymaker Tolerance of Administrative Burdens in Welfare Services

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: While related fields have turned to personality to understand human behavior, we know relatively little about its role and impact in public administration. We review how personality has been studied in public administration and offer an empirical test of how it relates to policymaker attitudes about administrative arrangements. Using the “Big Five” framework and a sample of elected politicians, we conduct two studies showing how personality is associated with policymaker tolerance of the administrative burdens that social welfare recipients experience. Politicians with high conscientiousness are more tolerant of burdens, suggesting that they expect similar attention to detail from others. Conversely, politicians who score higher on the trait of openness to experience are less tolerant of burdens, implying that greater empathy toward the experience of others reduces burden tolerance. These relationships hold even after controlling for political ideology, the standard explanation for burden tolerance in welfare programs.

Source: Public Administration Review

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13381

Authors: Lene Aarøe, Martin Baekgaard, Julian Christensen, Donald P. Moynihan

Institutions: Aarhus University, Georgetown University

Language: English

Topic: Public Policy and Administration Research

Subfield: Public Administration

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: green

Funder: European Research Council