Performance Measures and Democracy: Information Effects on Citizens in Field and Laboratory Experiments
Performance Measures and Democracy: Information Effects on Citizens in Field and Laboratory Experiments
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DOI：
10.1093/jopart/muq057
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发表时间：
2011-07
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
O. James
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
O. James
关于提供公共服务的机构的业绩的公开信息大量增加，但关于其对公民的影响的研究却很少。关于信息和政治参与的研究表明，信息线索使公民能够节省对充分信息的需求，影响他们的看法和态度，并帮助他们追究民主政府的责任。本文采用实地和实验室实验，随机分配给公民有关地方政府绩效的信息线索，以评估其效果。研究发现，相对较好的绩效提示提高了公民的感知绩效和满意度，而相对较差的绩效提示降低了感知绩效和满意度。对公民投票给当地现任者的意愿的直接影响不明显，关于良好表现的线索对已经支持现任者的公民的感知和满意度更有影响。然而，总的来说，调查结果表明，公共业绩信息系统对公民来说是可信的。未来的研究应评估不同形式的绩效信息在不同的服务背景下，来自不同的信息源，与公民的可信度的来源可能会有所不同的影响。
There has been a massive expansion in published information about the performance of bodies delivering public services but little research about the effects on citizens. Research on information and political participation suggests that information cues allow citizens to economize on the need for full information, influencing their perceptions and attitudes and helping them hold democratic governments to account. This article uses field and laboratory experiments with random allocation to citizens of information cues about local government performance to evaluate their effects. It finds that a cue about relatively good performance raises citizens’ perceived performance and satisfaction and a cue about relatively bad performance lowers perceived performance and satisfaction. Direct effects on citizens’ intention to vote for the local incumbent are not evident and the cue about good performance is more influential on the perceptions and satisfaction of citizens who already supported the incumbent. However, overall, the findings suggest that public performance information systems can be credible to citizens. Future research should assess the effects of different forms of performance information in different service contexts coming from different information sources, with the sources potentially varying in credibility to citizens.