Exploring the antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation

ABSTRACT

Meaningful and representative citizen participation depends greatly on administrators’ attitudes. This study examines antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation based on their perceptions of its likely contributions and costs. Using data from two American states – New Jersey and Pennsylvania – the research found that a manager’s professional identity and knowledge of successful peer group practices involving citizens influenced both perceptions. In addition, the research found that institutional factors such as red tape and city council diversity influenced a manager’s perceptions about the cost of citizen involvement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen participation
• attitude
• municipal manager
• perceived citizen contribution
• perceived cost

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An unfavourable attitude towards citizen participation does not necessarily indicate that managers are against other values of democratic governance, such as responsiveness and social justice (Fung 2015). Even if managers hesitate to engage citizens in the governing process, they may still want to safeguard and advance what they perceive as the public interest.

2. While attitudinal willingness has generally been viewed as the foundation of behavioural intention, we acknowledge that favourable attitudes do not necessarily lead to actual behaviour. Future study can test how managers’ positive attitudes could be translated into actual behaviour.

3. It should be noted that the antecedents of a municipal manager’s attitude towards citizen participation could be different from those influencing their actual behaviour.

4. A sample of municipal managers from two states may involve concerns about bias caused by state-level variables, such as political culture and state policies. However, we believe that this is not a big problem in our study for following reasons: First, along with other Middle Atlantic states, New Jersey and Pennsylvania share individualist political culture (Cronin and Loevy 2012). Second, relevant state laws on citizen participation are similar in both states. For example, both states passed the Sunshine Act which requires that public meetings must be open to the public; the state requirements for citizen participation in the local government budget process are highly similar for both states (Berner and Smith 2004). Finally, as a well-developed profession, the formal responsibilities of municipal managers in local management are constant across both states in terms of mission, policy, administration and management (Svara 1990). In order to confirm the potential bias caused by state-level variables, a model with a NJ dummy (New Jersey municipalities = 1) was also tested, which generated very similar results with our original model.

5. An OLS regression was also performed. No indication of multicollinearity was found in both models.

6. Among the 319 municipal managers in our final sample, 188 were from New Jersey.

7. The correlation matrix is not reported due to limited space, but it is available upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yuguo Liao

Yuguo Liao, PhD, is an assistant professor of political science and public policy administration at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. His research interests include public participation in administrative decision-making, organizational theory and behaviour, government performance management. His articles have appeared in Public Performance & Management Review, International Review of Public Administration.

Hindy L. Schachter

Dr. Hindy L. Schachter is a professor in the School of Management at New Jersey Institute of Technology. She is the author of Reinventing Government or Reinventing Ourselves: The Role of Citizen Owners in Making a Better Government (SUNY Press, 1997), Frederick Taylor and the Public Administration Community: A Reevaluation (SUNY Press, l989), and Public Agency Communication: Theory and Practice (Nelson Hall, l983). Her articles have appeared in Public Administration Review, Administration and Society, Public Administration Quarterly and other journals.