How procedural experiences shape citizens' perceptions of and orientations toward legal institutions: evidence from a household survey in Bangladesh

Abstract

Integrating theories and research on procedural justice and policy design, this article provides insight about how institutional context and experiences shape citizens' perceptions about procedural fairness and trust and confidence in legal institutions. We address this question with data collected through a household survey in Bangladesh. The analysis shows that citizens' experiences with legal institutions vary across four separate justice venues. We find that openness of decision processes, perceived competency of the decision maker, and whether citizens needed to pay a bribe to obtain legal service affect procedural fairness perceptions. Moreover, the results show that perceptions of procedural fairness relate positively with citizens’ willingness to return to that justice institution but not with complying with authorities. Implications for research on effective governance are discussed.

Points for practitioners

We examined how institutional characteristics shape citizens’ perceptions of legal institutions in Bangladesh. The results direct attention to the importance of the decision makers’ legal and social competence and clarification efforts. Most prior procedural justice research has focused on the influence of voice. When examined alongside other characteristics, we found that voice was least influential. Competence of decision makers was strongest, with legal proficiency valued most. Citizen perception of procedural fairness influenced trust in the institution but compliance with legal decisions was motivated by outcome fairness. Governance improvements may be achieved by strengthening the legal and cultural competence of decision makers.

Keywords

Bangladesh legal institutions policy design procedural fairness

Many of the pressing problems that developing countries face today are due to weak institutions. That quality of institutions matter for increasing economic growth, improving public health and literacy at the national level and citizen well-being at the individual level are well documented. But a more intriguing question, ‘Why some institutions are perceived to be more effective than others’, has remained relatively unexplored. The dearth of research on the effectiveness of institutions is due to the slow progress in identifying specific criteria for assessing quality of governance processes. Rothstein and Teorell (2008), in a review of the literature, note that the extant definitions of ‘good governance’ are vague, too broad, and have a narrow functionalist stance. There is also no clear consensus on what actually constitutes ‘good governance’. In an effort to remedy this issue and move the research forward, they (2008: 165) propose a normative criterion, impartiality or fairness of institutions that exercise public authority. They argue that because fairness is a universal value, it should be the primary criterion for assessing quality of governance in a society.

While fairness is a fundamental issue to the concept of bureaucracy (Weber, 1922), it has received limited attention in research in public administration, particularly in the context of citizen–government interactions (Van Ryzin, 2011). The topic, however, has received considerable attention in research in social psychology (Lind and Tyler, 1988). Yet, much of this research focuses on the influence of voice and respect on citizens' procedural fairness perceptions. There are few studies on how institutional factors (transparency of decision processes and competence and neutrality of decision makers) affect citizens' perceptions of procedural fairness and to what extent such perceptions shape their orientations and beliefs about government.

Our research examines how procedural experiences affect citizens' perceptions of fairness of legal institutions in Bangladesh. We contribute to research by assessing how citizens' perceptions of procedural fairness depend, beyond voice opportunity, on the openness of processes, decision makers’ competence, and whether citizens need to pay a bribe while accessing legal services. Additionally, following research on policy design (Bruch et al., 2010; Heinrich, 2016; Moynihan et al., 2015; Moynihan and Soss, 2014; Soss, 1999), we explore how citizens’ procedural experiences vary across justice institutions: village courts, local governments, law enforcement, and formal courts. We also assess the extent to which procedural fairness affects citizens' compliance with decisions of legal authorities and willingness to return to the justice institution, factors that are critical to the effectiveness and legitimacy of legal institutions in any cultural context.

Overview of literature

There is a sizeable literature that examines the implications of procedural fairness when citizens interact with legal and bureaucratic authorities (for a review, see Tyler, 2006). This research shows that people distinguish between fair outcomes and fair processes and care about how the decision is made even when they receive a favorable outcome. Perceptions of procedural fairness have been found to have a stronger influence on people’s cooperative attitudes than perceptions of distributive and substantive fairness.

The criteria that people rely on to evaluate fairness of decision procedures have also been studied. Research shows that people view procedures as fair when they are afforded the opportunity to present their case or express concerns, and when treated with dignity and respect by the decision maker (Tyler, 2006). There is evidence that people are more attentive to these interpersonal factors than they are to the substantive aspects of the decision process, such as whether the evidence is applied consistently against a set of rules (Lens, 2009; Tyler and Huo, 2002). Moreover, people often equate procedural fairness with the opportunity to voice concerns and with the civility of the decision maker. As noted in Lens’ (2009: 830) study of administrative hearing procedures for a welfare program, fairness is being ‘given the opportunity to say what I have to say and replying to me a in a decent manner and treating me as a human being.’

There are several perspectives on why perceptions of voice and respect strongly affect people’s judgments of procedural fairness. One view is that people’s interactions with authorities are shaped by a desire to gain benefits and that the voice provision gives people some indirect control over the procedure and the outcome (Lind and Tyler, 1988). Another perspective is that, because ceding control to another person creates an opportunity for exploitation, people feel uneasy in their interactions with authorities and look for cues about whether the authority can be trusted to not exploit them. The opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns reduces this uncertainty, which, in turn, leads people to view the decision maker as trustworthy and the procedure as fair (Lind and Tyler, 1988).

Civility of the decision maker affects perceptions of procedural fairness because the decision maker’s behavior provides important identity-relevant information to people about their standing in the community that the decision maker represents (Tyler and Huo, 2002). Specifically, when the decision maker is respectful, it signifies high social worth and sends a positive signal to people about their value in society. In contrast, when the decision maker is rude or abrupt, people perceive that they are marginal or excluded, leading them to infer that the legal processes and system are unfair (Tyler and Huo, 2002).

Another highly relevant body of work is the literature on policy design that provides important insight into how citizens form perceptions of government (Bruch et al., 2010; Moynihan et al., 2015; Soss, 1999). Schneider and Ingram (1997) suggest that policy design choices have broader ramifications than just attaining particular policy goals. While citizens interact with government officials, the institutional arrangements and practices shape their personal experiences with the state. These experiences have spillover effects on their attitudes about government, beliefs about social exclusion, and their civic engagement. Similarly, Soss et al. (2011: 284) note that citizens interact with government on issues that are very important to them and these encounters teach citizens important lessons about ‘their rights and obligations, power and authority and civic standing’. When these experiences exemplify values of social justice and convey respect, citizens are more likely to have confidence and engage in the governance processes (Moynihan and Soss, 2014).

Similar to the findings of procedural justice research, studies on policy design show that, while evaluating their interactions with frontline agencies, citizens focus on the accessibility of officials and procedures, whether the officials are responsive to their needs and treat with them dignity and respect (Moynihan and Soss, 2014; Moynihan et al., 2015). When citizens find the procedures excessively burdensome, that is, they have to wait for a long period, face administrative barriers, are not able to fully explain their circumstances, and the officials are intrusive or capricious, they feel powerless, tend to be cynical about government, and consider government decisions unfair (Moynihan and Soss, 2014). Furthermore, differences in program design can lead to substantively different experiences and reactions. Soss (1999), for example, found that clients of the Social Security and Disability Insurance (SSDI) program were much more positive and felt more involved in the process than the clients for the Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program due to differences in the programs' requirements.

In summary, studies in both procedural justice and policy design suggest that structural and interpersonal aspects of citizens’ experiences with government officials and procedures shape their views of procedural fairness. These, in turn, affect their broader orientations towards government and the extent to which they are likely to participate in governance processes (Moynihan and Soss, 2014). Moreover, these interactions are meaningful as they covey much about the nature of citizens’ relationship with the state and beliefs about their ability to influence government. While the extant research has provided valuable insight, some important issues remain under-explored. Most studies have focused on the influences of voice and respect on people’s reactions to government authority. While these factors are clearly critical, the influence of other institutional factors, for example, the extent to which the process is clear, understandable, bias free, and the decision maker is perceived to be competent, have not been thoroughly examined. We also know little about the importance of these factors on people’s perceptions of procedural fairness when compared with the effects of voice opportunity and respect. Most studies on procedural fairness focus on the legal systems in the United States or Europe. The extent to which the evidence accumulated from this research is generalizable to developing countries with different cultures and legal systems merits further exploration.

The current study and hypotheses

We integrate theories of procedural justice and policy design to elucidate how experiences with justice venues shape Bangladeshis’ attitudes to legal institutions. The institutional factors that we focus on are openness of decision processes, decision makers’ competence on legal issues and social norms, and whether citizens need to pay a bribe to access legal services. We compare how citizens’ experiences with these factors vary across justice venues in Bangladesh and assess the extent to which perceptions of procedural fairness relate to citizens’ compliance with legal authorities and willingness to return to the same venue in the future.

Consisting of informal institutions and authorities which have traditionally played a role in resolving civil and criminal disputes, the country’s legal system represents a propitious context for procedural justice research. This legal system reflects a British colonial legacy with modern laws made by Parliament. The Bangladesh constitution, adopted upon independence, includes numerous provisions ensuring the independence of the judiciary (Mollah, 2012). Interestingly, a colonial era act (i.e. the Police Act of 1861) continues to govern law enforcement organizations. Corruption is widespread and reports of law enforcement officials inconsistently implementing procedures or abusing authority are common. In recent years, community policing programs have been established to improve responsiveness and mitigate law enforcement corruption.

Muslims make up 89.5 percent of the population, and religious traditions officially bifurcate the law into constitutional codes and religious family law. To settle disputes concerning property, inheritance, and petty crimes, many Bangladeshis, particularly those living in rural areas, forgo the formal legal system and rely on informal village courts (World Bank, 2011a). In these venues, known as Shalish, community leaders adjudicate disputes.¹ In addition to village courts, many Bangladeshis also rely on local government officials, for example, Upazila Nirbahi Officers,² to mediate local or civic issues.

Our first hypothesis concerns differences in procedural experiences across the four justice institutions; variations exist in procedural fairness predictors (i.e. voice opportunity, procedural clarity, perceived competence of the decision maker). This hypothesis is based on Soss’s (1999) conclusions that clients of two welfare programs had fundamentally different experiences due to the programs’ designs and requirements. These differences, in turn, exerted important influences on their attitudes toward government. We suspect that Bangladeshis’ experiences with courts or law enforcement agencies are likely to differ from experiences with informal village courts or local government officials. We do not specify the directions of these differences due to limited prior research on legal institutions in Bangladesh.

Hypothesis 1: Citizens’ procedural experiences will vary across the four justice institutions.

In addition to voice opportunity, perceived openness of a process may depend on two interrelated factors: (1) whether the procedure is easy for people to understand and (2) whether the decision maker clarifies citizens’ questions or concerns. Soss (1999) identifies accessibility as an important determinant of citizens’ view of government through field research on the implementation of welfare programs in the US. Citizens’ interactions with government officials are marked by a sense of powerlessness, which is amplified when the officials are inaccessible or procedures are opaque. Lens (2009) notes that lack of clarity and openness creates a sense of suspicion and had a strong influence on people’s assessment of fairness of hearing procedures. We contend that accessibility of the decision maker and decision process are very important in the Bangladeshi context because a large segment of the population (almost 40 percent) is poor and illiterate and may not be well informed about legal processes.

New administrative burden research has extended beyond Western contexts and revealed disparities in service-related outcomes attributable to bureaucratic encounters as well as the influence of social processes. In South Africa, some citizens eligible for child support grants based their decision to pursue the grants on how others were treated by administrators (Heinrich, 2016). When citizens’ experiences with state procedures and officials convey fairness and respect, citizens are more likely to have confidence and engage in the governance processes (Moynihan et al., 2015).

A decision maker’s effort to help people understand the justice decision process may enhance perceptions of procedural fairness in several ways. First, transparency is a prerequisite of procedural fairness. Clarification is likely to enhance perceived transparency and, thereby, legitimacy of the procedure. A procedure may be considered fair simply because people often feel that governance institutions should be open and transparent rather than closed or secretive. Second, when the decision maker takes time to explain the process, people are more likely to conclude that the decision maker intends to be fair and balanced, thereby improving their perceived trustworthiness. Finally, clarification of the process may send a positive signal to people about their rights as citizens (Tyler, 2006), which will lead to a more positive assessment of the process. Accordingly, we test the hypothesis as follows.

Hypothesis 2a: A procedure that is easy to understand will be perceived as fair.

Hypothesis 2b: Clarification of the procedure will have a positive influence on people’s perceptions of procedural fairness.

Our third hypothesis focuses on decision-maker neutrality. Leventhal (1980) noted that whether the decision maker is impartial and makes decisions in a way that is consistent with existing moral codes and standards influences the formation of procedural fairness perceptions. Leventhal (1980) suggested that the decision procedure and outcome should not be influenced by the disputants’ personal characteristics such as age, race, gender, or religion. The decision should not be influenced by the decision maker’s prior views or assumptions, or favor one party over the other or do anything that is arbitrary, improper or dishonest.

We examine the connection between paying a bribe and people’s perception of procedural fairness. We anticipate a negative connection because people are likely to perceive a legal authority to be dishonest and the procedure to be unjust when they are required to pay a bribe to receive a service. Even when paying a bribe is socially accepted (Jones, 1991), it is likely to have a negative influence on procedural fairness perceptions. This is because paying a bribe will signal that the legal authority may not act in an impartial manner, lowering the authority’s trustworthiness and the disputants’ sense of control over the procedure.

Hypothesis 3: Paying a bribe will have a negative relationship with people’s perceptions of procedural fairness.

Individuals’ perceptions of accuracy of the decision procedure are likely to influence their views of procedural fairness. Leventhal (1980) suggested that procedures should be applied based on as much valid information and informed opinions as possible to minimize errors and produce outcomes that are accurate. We do not focus on whether the procedure is based on accurate information, but whether it is based on informed opinions. Specifically, we assess whether people’s perceptions about whether the decision maker is knowledgeable on relevant laws and social customs influences their perceptions of procedural fairness. Such perceptions are likely influential because many Bangladeshis forgo the formal legal system in favor of informal institutions (World Bank, 2011a). We hypothesize that even when people engage formal legal institutions, perceptions about the decision maker’s knowledge on relevant laws and social customs are also likely to play an important role in their assessments of procedural fairness.

Hypothesis 4: A procedure will be perceived as fair when the decision maker is perceived as competent on (a) relevant laws and (b) social customs/norms.

Critical to the effectiveness of legal institutions is their ability to render decisions that will be accepted by the public (Tyler, 2006). Another related factor is public trust and confidence in legal institutions so that people don’t take the law into their own hands. We contend that procedural fairness experience is likely to be an important determinant of citizens’ compliance with the decisions of legal authorities and trust and confidence in legal institutions. As such, we focus on citizens’ willingness to return to the justice venue, an indicator of public trust and confidence in the legal institution.

Procedural fairness experience may influence citizens’ compliance and confidence in the institution in many ways. Procedural fairness is likely to improve citizens’ trust in legal authority and trust is a critical factor for people’s cooperation with legal authorities (Tyler and Huo, 2002). Because fairness is a universal value, it is also likely to provide legitimacy to legal authorities and institutions. Legitimacy increases the likelihood of people complying with the decisions of legal authorities (Tyler, 2006). Further, social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) suggests that fair treatment may improve compliance through engendering a sense of moral obligation. People are likely to have more confidence in legal institutions and abide by legal authorities’ suggestions when they are treated fairly because such behavior is consistent with people’s sense of what is ‘the right thing to do’. Accordingly, the final hypothesis is as follows,

Hypothesis 5: Procedural fairness will have a positive effect on citizens’ (a) compliance with the decision of a legal authority and (b) willingness to return to the same institution.

Data and measures

Figure 1 summarizes the hypothesized relationships between procedural fairness, the legal institutions, and the procedural fairness predictors and outcomes. We test the hypotheses with data collected through a 2009 survey sponsored by the World Bank. The survey collected data regarding citizens’ experiences of legal issues and about their experiences and perceptions of formal and informal institutions involved in conflict resolution. The sampling strategy ensured that the gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and geographic residency of respondents were representative of the population (World Bank, 2011a). This dataset remains the most comprehensive household survey of citizens’ experience with legal institutions in Bangladesh.

Figure 1.

Research hypotheses.

The data were collected through in-person interviews by a survey research firm in Bangladesh. The interviewers were trained on the administration of the questionnaire before visiting households in each administrative division. When household representatives were unavailable, two follow-up visits were made. The survey instrument and the dataset are publicly available on the World Bank website (World Bank, 2011b). The instrument was pilot-tested to ensure that the questionnaire concepts and the terminology could be understood by all respondents. For households that experienced some type of legal issue, the survey included questions about the single most serious incident, such as what action was taken in response, the fairness of the legal institution/authority, and whether or not the household complied with the decision. A final section surveys household representatives on treatment by institutions.

The dataset includes 9753 households, the unit of observation. The analysis for this study is restricted to the 1456 households that engaged with a village court, local leader, law enforcement official or formal court to resolve a legal incident. Each of the outcome variables corresponded to a single survey question and was coded yes = 1, no = 0. The questions and number of affirmative and negative responses are shown in Appendix B. We measured procedural fairness with the item asking household representatives, ‘Did you think that the procedure that the institution followed fair?’

When the survey was administered, many of the households experiencing an abuse, dispute or crime were still in the process of resolving the issue. For these households, there was no legal outcome to consider or to comply with. For households with a resolved legal incident, outcome fairness was measured with the item, ‘Do you think the outcome was fair?’ Compliance with the decision was measured with the item, ‘Did you comply with the decision?’ Citizens’ willingness to return to the institution was measured with the item, ‘Would you go to the same institution for any future problem?’ Any ‘do not know’ responses were coded missing.

The six predictor variables were each measured using a dummy variable (yes = 1, no = 0) related to a single item from the questionnaire. Voice opportunity was measured using the item, ‘Did both parties get a chance to tell their side?’ The measure for bribes was constructed from responses to, ‘How much money (approximately) did you spend to resolve this dispute as bribe or speed money?’ The variable was coded 1 if the household paid any amount of bribe, otherwise it was coded 0.³ Clarification of the procedure was measured with the question, ‘Did someone explain it to you/answer your questions about the procedure?’ Accessibility of the procedures was measured with, ‘Were the procedures easy/difficult to understand?’ We relied on two questions from the survey to measure perceived competence of the decision maker, ‘Do you think that the police/shalishikar/judge considered/understood the relevant laws in your case?’ and ‘Do you think that the police/shalishikar/judge considered/understood the community norms in your case?’

We created four dummy variables (yes = 1, no = 0) to measure and control for the four justice institutions. These were from the survey question asking households with experience of multiple institutions to identify the one playing the most influential role in resolving the legal conflict. The variables are law enforcement, village court/Shalish, and local government officials, with formal courts as the reference category.

We control for respondents’ gender, religion, marital status, and level of education.⁴ Perception of procedural fairness may be contingent on whether the conflict was resolved, so we included this as a control. To account for the possibility that perceptions of procedural fairness may vary across types of legal incidents, we control for the type of legal incident.⁵

Results

To test the first hypothesis, procedural experiences vary across justice venues in Bangladesh, we performed chi-square analyses for each variable. Table 1 shows the percentage of affirmative responses for each fairness indicator, for each justice institution. The first three rows include the three openness indicators.

Table 1.

Differences in citizens’ procedural experiences across four justice institutions.

Indicators	Court(a)	Law Enforcement (b)	Local Government (c)	Village Court(d)	p > chi²
Procedure was easy to understand	56.52^d	61.09	66.96	76.71	.00
Procedure was explained	75.74^b,c	65.12	59.82	64.38	.00
Both sides had a voice	83.29^b,c	59.18^c,d	43.93^d	80.56	.00
Decision maker was competent (laws)	94.93^b,c	89.27	86.90	95.38	.00
Decision maker was competent (norms)	91.20^b	83.50	85.54	93.85	.00
Bribe	66.67^b,c,d	51.61^d	40.18	27.40	.00
Procedure was fair	84.30^b	71.60	74.19	74.24	.00

Notes: Percentages are shown in each cell. Superscripts show significant (p < .05) differences between justice venue institutions for each indicator. For example, the percentage difference between village courts (d) and courts (a) is statistically significant for the indicator ‘procedure was easy to understand’.

Looking at the first row of Table 1, 76.7 percent of households with village court experience felt that the procedures were easy to understand. In contrast, 56.5 percent with experience of formal courts felt that the court procedures were easy to understand. This difference was the only statistically significant result (p < .01) for this indicator. Although court procedures did not appear as easy to understand, court procedures were explained more frequently. Regarding formal courts, 75.7 percent acknowledged that the procedure was explained, as opposed to 65.1 percent of those with law enforcement experience (p < .01) and 59.8 percent consulting local government (p < .01).

More variation was observed for the voice opportunity indicator. Courts again had the highest affirmative percentage, 83.3 percent, while local government was the lowest, 43.9 percent. The differences between court and law enforcement and local government were statistically significant (p < .01). The differences between law enforcement and local government and village court (p < .05) were also significant. Together, these results suggest that with respect to voice opportunity, citizens’ experiences in formal courts were similar to their experiences in informal village courts, but were significantly different from local government and law enforcement.

Table 1 rows four and five show differences in perceived competence of authorities. Responses for courts (94.9 percent) and village courts (95.4 percent) were similar. Significant differences in perceptions of the legal competence of decision makers existed between courts and law enforcement (p < .01) and between courts and local government (p < .05). Although the law competence of village courts was high, differences between the other institutions were not significant when controls were added. Like legal competence, the social norms competence of decision makers in village courts was highest (93.9 percent), while 91.2 percent of those with experience of formal courts felt that decision makers were competent on social customs.

The row showing the bribe indicator reveals several notable differences between the institutions. Those paying a bribe when accessing formal courts (66.7 percent) differed from every other institution (p < .01). Only 27.4 percent of those accessing the village courts reported paying a bribe. Altogether, Table 1 shows that the four justice institutions differ significantly on many of the institutional characteristics that influence perceptions of procedural fairness. This provides support for the first hypothesis.

We performed probit regression analysis to test Hypotheses 2–4. The results appear in Table 2. Model 1 shows estimates for the procedural fairness predictors for all justice venues. Models 2 and 3 report estimates for courts and law enforcement, the two most frequented justice institutions.⁶ As indicated in Model 1, the predicted probabilities for ease of understanding the procedure (0.40) and clarifying the procedure (0.53) were positive and significant (p < .01). These effects also hold in courts and law enforcement, confirming Hypotheses 2a and 2b.

Table 2.

Probit estimates for the predictors of procedural fairness.

Predictors	Procedural Fairness(All Institutions)	Procedural Fairness (Courts)	Procedural Fairness(Law Enforcement)
Procedure was easy to understand	.40***	.31*	.34*
Procedure was easy to understand	(.12)	(.17)	(.20)
Procedure was explained	.53***	.67***	.56***
	(.13)	(.19)	(.20)
Both sides had a voice	.34***	.26	.35*
	(.12)	(.19)	(.19)
Decision maker was competent (laws)	1.61***	1.12***	2.19***
Decision maker was competent (laws)	(.25)	(.35)	(.37)
Decision maker was competent (norms)	.61***	1.12***	.14
Decision maker was competent (norms)	(.18)	(.26)	(.26)
Needed to pay a bribe	−.41***	−.35**	−.44**
	(.12)	(.18)	(.19)
Abuse	−.04	.12	−.38*
	(.12)	(.17)	(.22)
Crime	.24	−.17	.04
	(.21)	(.31)	(.29)
Observations	1065	584	353
Pseudo R²	.30	.27	.35

Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses. Controls included but not shown are: if the issue was resolved, Male, Muslim, Rural, Married, and No Education. The institutions (Law Enforcement, Local Government, and Village Court) are included as controls in Model 1. Results for Abuse and Crime control variables should be compared to Dispute, the excluded incident type category. ***p < .01; **p < .05; *p < .10.

Hypothesis 3 specified that paying a bribe would negatively influence perceptions of procedural fairness. This predictor was significant (p < .01) when all justice institutions are considered (Δ predicted probability = −0.41) and in courts (−0.35) and law enforcement (−0.44). Hypothesis 3, therefore, is confirmed.

The results related to Hypothesis 4, procedural fairness and perceived law and norms competence, appear in Table 2. Predicted probabilities for these measures were positive and exhibited the largest effect sizes. In Model 1, decision maker competence in the area of law increased the probability of considering a procedure to be fair by 1.61 (p < .01). The effect size for law enforcement procedures (Δ predicted probability = 2.19, p < .01) was larger than the effect size for formal court procedures (1.12, p < .01). The influence of social norms competence on procedural fairness, while smaller than that of legal competence, was statistically significant in the first model (p < .01). Interestingly, this result appeared to be driven by the relationship between norms competence and procedural fairness for formal courts, specifically. Perceiving the decision maker to be competent on social customs/norms increased the probability of considering the court proceedings to be fair by 1.12 (p < .01).

Hypotheses 5a and 5b suggested positive connections between procedural fairness and people’s willingness to return to the justice venue and compliance with the legal authority. Table 3 shows the results while controlling for outcome fairness. As expected, we found a positive link between procedural fairness and outcome fairness (Δ predicted probability = 1.81, p < .01). Procedural fairness, as shown in Model 2 in Table 3, appears to be unrelated to decision compliance (0.54, p>.10), but outcome fairness was related (0.84, p < .05). While Hypothesis 5a was not supported, support for Hypothesis 5b was found. The influence of procedural fairness on a citizen’s willingness to return to the same institution in the future, a measure of confidence, was positive and substantial (1.11, p < .01). Perceiving the outcome to be fair also shows a positive effect on institutional confidence (0.80, p < .05).

Table 3.

Probit estimates for the influence of procedural fairness on citizens’ compliance with and confidence in legal institutions.

Predictors	Outcome Fairness	Compliance with the Decision	Return to the Same Institution
Procedural Fairness	1.81***	.54	1.11***
	(.29)	(.35)	(.32)
Outcome Fairness		.84**	.80**
		(.40)	(.34)
N	369	386	403
R²/Pseudo R²	.39	.22	.30

Notes: Predicted probabilities are shown for Models 1–3, and regression coefficients for models 4–6. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Controls included but not shown are: incident type (Abuse, Crime), institutions (Law Enforcement, Local Government, Village Court), Male, Muslim, Rural, Married, and No Education. The six predictor variables were also included as controls. ***p < .01; **p < .05; *p < .10.

Discussion and conclusion

The effectiveness of legal institutions depends to large extent on whether people trust and have confidence in their ability to render fair and accurate decisions (Van Ryzin, 2011). When police, courts, and judges uphold procedural fairness, people are not only more likely to trust legal authorities and institutions, but also are less likely to break the law (Tyler, 2006). Interactions with government institutions also prompt broader attitudes about social inclusion and engagement in government processes (Moynihan et al., 2015; Moynihan and Soss, 2014; Soss, 1999). Research on how to restore or improve trust in legal institutions is timely and important as public confidence in legal institutions diminishes with reports of corruption, misuse of power, and brutality by law enforcement in developed and developing countries.

We examined how differences in institutional characteristics and experiences shape citizens’ perceptions of procedural fairness and trust and confidence in legal institutions in Bangladesh. We focused on perceptions of procedural fairness because such perceptions are related closely with people’s assessments of the effectiveness and legitimacy of legal authorities and institutions (Tyler, 2006). The results show that citizens’ experiences with institutional factors that contribute to perceptions of procedural fairness do differ across justice venues. We observe that a substantial percentage of citizens who relied on formal courts to resolve disputes considered the court proceedings to be fair even though the process was more complex and they were more likely to involve a bribe. A potential explanation of this seemingly contradictory finding is that citizens were required to pay a bribe to frontline employees (i.e. clerks) to access the court service or expedite the court hearing but subsequently found the court proceedings to be more open and the magistrates/judges to be more competent than most other justice venues. Soss (1999) made similar observations, finding that clients of the SSDI program were more positive than clients of the AFDC program about their encounters with government officials even though they found the social security administration to be an unwieldy and complex bureaucracy.

Our finding that citizens found proceedings of the village courts to be easier to understand than the proceedings of formal courts provides new insight about why the shalish system continues to operate as a parallel legal institution in much of rural Bangladesh. In addition to the transparency of the proceedings, citizens did not think shalishikars (i.e. adjudicators) of the village courts were less knowledgeable on legal issues or social customs than the judges/magistrates of formal courts. In addition, they were least likely to be asked to pay a bribe to receive legal service.

Our results direct attention to the importance of the decision makers’ perceived legal and social competence and clarification efforts. Most of the prior research on procedural justice has not dealt with state-sponsored legal systems in developed economies and has largely focused on the influence of voice. When we examine voice alongside other precursors, we find that it is the predictor with the smallest effect. In fact, competence of decision makers was the strongest predictor of the five we tested. Proficiency in law is valued most. The strength of this value may contribute to the finding that Bangladeshis consider the police to be less procedurally fair than formal courts, even while the procedures of formal courts were the most difficult to understand. If citizens perceive those presiding over the formal courts to have more legal knowledge or experience, they may consider them more fair or legitimate.

Trust in the justice institution, as measured by willingness to return to that institution in the future, is influenced by perceptions of procedural fairness. In contrast, compliance with the legal decisions appears to be motivated by outcome fairness, rather than procedural fairness. This is interesting as prior studies have found that procedural fairness influences cooperation with legal authorities more strongly than outcome fairness (Tyler, 2006). We find a positive correlation between perceptions of procedural and outcome fairness which suggests the possibility that procedural fairness indirectly contributes to compliance by influencing perceptions of outcome fairness (i.e. the effect of procedural fairness on legal compliance is fully mediated by outcome fairness). Still, these newly realized differences between Western countries and Bangladesh emphasize the need to conduct studies in contexts with different cultures and value systems.

Our study presents actionable results for governance improvements. In many countries, tensions between citizens and law enforcement could be improved by revisiting Tyler’s (2006) recommendation that process rather than coercive sanctions lead to improved self-regulation. Our results support this by providing additional evidence that the perceived fairness of authoritative decisions, accompanied by social perceptions, influences compliance.

Governance improvements in Bangladesh can be achieved by focusing on the aspects of the process that most influence perceptions of fairness; the legal and cultural competence of decision makers. Initiatives by government and non-government organizations that enhance the competence of state and community-affiliated leaders in legal decision making roles may improve confidence and decision compliance. Cracking down on bribery is another key reform area. Individuals who pay a bribe are less likely to perceive a fair process, even when they receive the favored outcome they are seeking. The connection between decision compliance and confidence that we observe further underscores the necessity of improving procedural fairness in Bangladeshi institutions. State-sponsored efforts should target law enforcement, village courts and procedures overseen by local officials. These are commonly used, particularly in rural areas, but citizens consider them less fair than formal courts.

The contributions of our study should be considered in light of its limitations. First, data for both the predictor and outcomes measures were collected from the same source, making common source bias a potential concern. However, data for perceptual constructs (such as procedural fairness) can only be collected through surveys or interviews and in certain situations it is not viable, or useful, to obtain such data from multiple sources. If it became possible to collect outcome data from justice institutions or independent sources in conjunction with surveying citizens about their procedural experiences, this would allow a stronger test of the relationships reported here. Second, the cross-sectional design of our study means that antecedents to procedural fairness should not be considered causes. Future studies using an experimental design may help identify the causal effects of institutional characteristics on citizens’ perceptions of procedural fairness.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Kim A. Young is visiting Assistant Professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. Her current research focuses on gender equity and administrative burden. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

Shahidul Hassan is Associate Professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on leadership, citizen-state interactions, and law enforcement. He has appeared in leading public affairs journals including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, and Public Administration.

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