Determinants of Local Civil Servants’ Perceptions of Intergovernmental Tensions: Experimental Evidence from Korea

Abstract

Much research on intergovernmental tensions has focused on the central government’s perspective and concerns how to control the local government. Despite the increasing importance of the local government’s role in intergovernmental relations, the perspective of local bureaucrats has received relatively less attention, particularly outside the U.S. To better understand intergovernmental tensions from the local agents’ side, we explore several characteristics at the local level that may impact local bureaucrats’ decision making, including local bureaucrats’ perception of discretion, their commitment to the organization, and their career backgrounds. Our analysis of original data from survey experiments with over 2,200 local civil servants in Korea shows that such characteristics indeed play a role in distinguishing local bureaucrats’ perceptions of intergovernmental tensions. Our study has clear implications for public management literature and practice: local bureaucrats’ individual characteristics matter in intergovernmental relations and affect how the central government’s policies are implemented in local agencies.

Keywords:

• Intergovernmental tensions
• local bureaucrats
• survey experiment

Notes

1 In addition, bureaucrats need to find the meaningfulness of policies before being motivated or willing to implement them (Tummers et al., 2009). Meaningfulness here concerns bureaucrats’ perception that the policy is valuable for society and for their clients (Thomann et al., 2018). Recent studies also provide evidence that employees’ as well as managers’ perceptions in the public sector play not a meager role (e.g., Van Doninck et al., 2023; Grabner-Kräuter et al., 2023; Wynen et al., 2022).

2 The evidence of conflicts in the implementation of central policies at the local level is abundant. For example, President Kim Young-sam adopted economic reforms surrounding deregulation and privatization in 1993. However, the economic reform plan was resisted by some local bureaucrats who preferred to keep the status quo. To the civil servants who favored a more expansive economic policy, Kim’s reform plan was seen as an attempt to reduce their latitude.

3 Recent research—both experimental and non-experimental—shows that a single-item measure is sufficient to properly assess survey respondents’ behavior and has thus been used (e.g., Warren et al., 2014; Wright et al., 2016).

4 For example, a list of three and four (i.e. three common and one treatment) items were presented to a control group and a treatment group, respectively. Suppose that a respondent chose two items in the list when randomly assigned to the control group but chose three items in the list when randomly assigned to the treatment group (since randomization means respondents have an equal chance of being assigned to either group). Given the two assumptions described above, assuming that the respondent was not lying about her answer for a sensitive item and her answer was not affected by the design (having one more, sensitive, item in the list), her choice of answers when in the control and the treatment groups indicates that the respondent was likely to choose the sensitive item (coded 1). However, in the case that the respondent chose two items, instead of three, in the list when assigned to the treatment group, the respondent was not likely to choose the sensitive item, given the two assumptions (the no design effect and no-liars assumptions) were held (coded 0).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Yonsei Signature Research Cluster Program of 2022-22-0011.

Notes on contributors

Don S. Lee

Don S. Lee is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Governance and the Department of Public Administration, Sungkyunkwan University. His research focuses on the political economy of institutions and comparative bureaucracy.

Sangyub Ryu

Sangyub Ryu is an associate professor of public administration at Yonsei University in Korea. His research interests include public management, human resource management, and disaster management.

Soonae Park

Soonae Park is a professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. Her research focuses on public performance and management, and environmental policy.