Is impartiality enough? Government impartiality and citizen’s perceptions of public service quality

Abstract

Government impartiality is considered a core feature of government quality that leads to favorable macro-level outcomes. We still have limited knowledge, however, of how impartiality affects citizens’ perceptions of public service quality. 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 (EQI) data for 56,925 citizens in 174 European regions, results of multilevel analysis show that impartiality positively influences perceived public service quality. However, we also find that such positive impacts of impartiality are contingent on the socioeconomic backgrounds of citizens. Impartiality does not lead to positive evaluations of public services among citizens with low educational background. The findings are robust across regions even after controlling for lagged service quality level and individual and regional factors. Results suggest the importance of impartiality, but all citizens do not benefit equally from impartiality.