Does process matter? Experimental evidence on the effect of procedural fairness on citizens’ evaluations of policy outcomes

Abstract

One of the key factors distinguishing democracies from non-democracies is the process by which political decisions are made. Central to democratic thought is the idea that policy made in a procedurally fair manner is more legitimate than policy that violates central tenets of procedural fairness. A large number of studies from social psychology show that procedural fairness matters in citizens’ evaluations of the success and legitimacy of various outcomes. Despite this observation, most political science literature focuses on the outcomes rather than the process of policy-making. Using survey experiments we find that procedural arrangements are an important factor in citizens’ judgement of policy outcomes. Specifically, we find that fair procedural arrangements increase outcome legitimacy to the extent that citizens perceive them to be fairer. Our findings suggest that policy-makers need to pay more attention to procedural arrangements when designing policies.

Keywords

Procedural fairness fairness perceptions policy evaluations experimental methods legitimacy political trust

Introduction

One of the key factors distinguishing democracies from non-democracies is the process by which political decisions are made. Central to democratic thought is the idea that policy made in an (objectively) procedurally fair manner is more legitimate than policy that violates central tenets of procedural fairness. This follows debates in political theory about to what extent a political system’s legitimacy depends on policy performance and to what extent on the conformity to democratic norms in the form of fair procedures (Rothstein, 2009; Strebel et al., 2019: 3). Despite this distinction, most political science literature focuses on the outcomes of policy-making (for example, Easton, 1975: 449; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002). This focus is warranted to a large extent in that it is the outcomes (or performance) of government that many citizens focus on and it is often the outcomes of policy-making that determine the fate of politicians and parties. However, a large number of studies from social psychology show that procedural fairness matters in assessing outcomes and the legitimacy of those outcomes (for example, Lind and Tyler, 1988; Thibaut and Walker, 1975). We contribute to a small but growing body of political science literature examining the effect of procedural fairness as it relates to attitudes towards policy outcomes.

This article expands upon previous research by examining whether procedural fairness matters to citizen’s evaluations of policy outcomes. Specifically, we investigate whether a policy achieved through a process in which tenets of procedural fairness are violated is seen as less successful and legitimate than a policy achieved through a process in which the tenets of procedural fairness are adhered to.

One of the methodological challenges in this area concerns how to test the discrete impact of procedural fairness on evaluations of policy. Many of the studies examining the effect of procedural fairness on attitudes towards policy rely on observational data (for instance, Magalhães, 2017; for recent exceptions see Arnesen, 2017; Esaiasson et al., 2019). Using a survey experiment, we test the effect of procedural fairness on evaluations of policy. We design a survey experiment (that we explain below) where we hold the outcome constant but manipulate the objective process by which the outcome was delivered. In both treatments, the policy is described as a success, but the policy process is manipulated whereby the policy process is either high or low on objective procedural fairness. We adopt the definition of procedural fairness proposed by Magalhães (2017: 161) who defines procedural fairness as ‘the adoption of rules and procedures that allow for a real or perceived treatment of individuals by organisational authorities that is characterised by transparency, impartiality and the right to be heard’ (see also Folger and Greenberg, 1985). In designing a treatment that manipulates ‘transparency, impartiality and the right to be heard’ we find that procedural fairness is an important factor in citizens’ judgement of policy outcomes. Policy delivered through a process that (objectively) violated procedural fairness was deemed to be less successful and less legitimate than a policy delivered through fair procedures. These findings provide some initial evidence that procedural fairness matters in the political context.

Procedural fairness and public policy

Origins and early findings

Social psychology research on procedural fairness began with Thibaut and Walker (1975), who showed that the fairness of the procedures by which a decision was arrived at was an important factor in outcome satisfaction. Within courtroom settings, they found that both the outcome favourability (i.e. court decision) and the procedural fairness by which that outcome was reached had an impact on satisfaction with the resolution of a dispute. This research shows that ‘although disputants for whom the resolution of a dispute yielded an unfavourable outcome were less satisfied, such dissatisfaction was less pronounced when the outcome was perceived as having resulted from a fair allocation procedure. In the case of outcome satisfaction, therefore, both the outcomes obtained and the procedures used to achieve them exercise an independent influence on outcome satisfaction’ (Tyler and Caine, 1981: 643). Other research has shown that procedural fairness can increase the acceptance of decisions even when the policy may produce unfavourable outcomes such as social inequality (e.g. Sondak and Tyler, 2007). In other words, citizens care about the process as well as outcomes and are more likely to accept policies delivered through consultation and fair procedures (Sondak and Tyler, 2007). This has also been shown to be true of ratings of workplace performance (Greenberg, 1986). More generally, Tyler (1998) and Joss and Brownlea (1999: 324) showed that procedural fairness affects whether an outcome is seen as legitimate and that procedural fairness was the most decisive factor in decision acceptance. This research has taken the focus away from citizens as outcome-oriented.

While the origins of the field have been focused on law enforcement and courtroom settings, reviews of the literature have shown that ‘across a wide variety of studies, high procedural fairness has been found to reduce the effect of outcome favorability on people’s support for decisions, decision-makers, and organisations, relative to when procedural fairness is low’ (Brockner and Wiesenfeld, 2005: 548). In sum, a large body of literature has now shown that there is a positive relationship between procedural fairness and outcome satisfaction and acceptance in a variety of settings.

Procedural fairness in a policy setting

How does this research apply to public policy more specifically? In the political arena, the work on procedural fairness ‘involves judgments about the fairness of the process by which policy decisions are made’ (Lind and Tyler, 1988: 154). As stated above, we utilise the definition of procedural fairness proposed by Magalhães (2017: 161), who defines procedural fairness as ‘the adoption of rules and procedures that allow for a real or perceived treatment of individuals by organisational authorities that is characterised by transparency, impartiality and the right to be heard’. These factors have been deemed to be central to ideas of democratic legitimacy and are frequently mentioned in the political science literature. Yet, while procedural fairness has been emphasised by social psychologists for several decades, it has received less attention from political scientists (see Magalhães, 2017: 169 for a discussion of the lack of political science research on the role of procedural fairness).

Despite the general lack of policy-related research, a number of recent studies have examined factors such as the relationship between procedural fairness and electoral turnout (Stockemer et al., 2013); clientelism (Wang and Kurzman, 2007); and accountability (Tusalem, 2016). Many of these studies affirm the importance of procedural fairness in a policy setting. Herian et al. (2012: 829) show that ‘information regarding public participation in governing decisions, specifically information that emphasizes deliberation and the public’s voice in governmental decisions, can lead to increased perceptions of fairness’ (see also Tyler, 2006). More importantly, research shows that perceptions of the process can affect overall evaluations of a policy’s success and legitimacy. Herian et al. (2012: 818) find that procedural fairness positively impacts ‘overall evaluations of government and policy support represented by the perceived value of tax dollars’. This research supports the idea that ‘fairness judgments are important in both satisfaction with government actions and agreement with government policies’ (Lind and Tyler, 1988: 160; see also Strebel et al., 2019). Although Leung et al. (2007) suggest that procedural fairness matters less for group-level decisions (i.e. public policy) as compared to individual-level decisions (e.g. courtroom decisions), these findings suggest that procedural fairness also matters a good deal at the group level.

A number of other studies suggest procedural fairness is important. Policies using the principles of procedural fairness have been shown to influence the extent to which individuals comply with requests from government agencies (Faulkner et al., 2018; Mazerolle et al., 2012; Wenzel, 2006). Procedural fairness has also been linked to political trust. Hetherington and Rudolph (2015: 34) argue that ‘when people perceive the governing process to be fair and responsive, political trust rises, and when they do not, it falls’. Strebel et al. (2019: 22) also find that procedural fairness matters in obtaining political support and Winters and Weitz-Shapiro (2013) show results from a survey experiment in Brazil in which respondents were intolerant of corruption even if it produced desirable outcomes. This research is important in helping us understand ‘the ways in which individuals link governmental processes to satisfaction with governmental outputs’ (Herian et al., 2012: 829).

There has been more recent research that has examined factors moderating attitudes towards policy outcomes, which questions the conclusions of some of these earlier studies. Arnesen et al. (2019) show that turnout, the size of the majority and the outcome can affect perceptions of the legitimacy of a referendum outcome. Marien and Kern (2018) examine a local referendum in Belgium and find that the ‘winners’ in the referendum perceive the process to be fairer than the ‘losers’. Based on an extensive set of experiments, Esaiasson et al. (2019) argue that outcome is the key moderating factor of perceptions of legitimacy and outcome. In other words, respondents’ attitudes towards the outcome are conditioned by the respondents’ subjective perceptions of the process. In this way, their findings suggest that subjective perceptions of the process (as opposed to objective procedural arrangements) are what really matters in assessments of policy outcomes. Magalhães and Aguiar-Conraria (2019) also show that outcome and perceptions of the process interact in a variety of contexts. These recent studies suggest that citizens’ perceptions of the process may not be as important as prior work suggests (for a different critique see Bauman and Skitka, 2009). Our study, however, focuses on manipulating the objective procedural arrangements to determine what effect these have on the assessment of the policy outcome.

Procedural vs distributive fairness

As we indicated above, some of the research focusing on the policy process is at odds with a large body of political science literature focusing on the outcomes of policy-making. For example, Easton (1975: 449) argues for the central importance of outputs and Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) extend this by arguing that citizens prefer a policy-making process that is invisible and care little about public input – what they term ‘stealth democracy’. Clearly, many citizens judge policy and government on what it produces (for a more pessimistic counter view see Achen and Bartels, 2015). This is often referred to as output legitimacy or distributive justice, which refers to how benefits are distributed across society (see Dreyer and Walker, 2013: 346).¹ But in focusing on outcomes this literature often misses the opportunity to further consider the possible effects of procedural fairness. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse’s (2002) work is jarring to many from a normative perspective because it questions what is often regarded as a key component of democracy – how political decisions are made.

The work on procedural fairness is a helpful corrective to this. While it does not deny the importance of outcomes, it emphasises that attention should also be given to the process used to reach an outcome (Thibaut and Walker, 1978). As shown above, this work also shows that objective procedural fairness and fairness perceptions can be an important moderator in outcome acceptance and legitimacy. The work on procedural fairness has been motivated in part by research showing that performance – in most cases conceptualised as economic performance – alone cannot explain political support (McAllister, 2014). Dalton (2004: 111) argues that there is little ‘evidence that economic performance is a major reason for the decline in political support’. It is clear, then, that citizens’ views cannot be described purely in instrumental terms (Magalhães, 2017: 157). Studies have shown that attitudes towards corruption (e.g. Seligson, 2002) and aggregate measures of corruption (e.g. Norris, 2019) affect satisfaction with democracy (Magalhães, 2017: 157). This suggests policy process matters to citizens. While it is clear that performance matters and, more importantly, performance and process interact (Magalhães, 2017), the policy process has often not been given sufficient attention.

Given the above, it is important to understand the effect of procedural fairness arrangements on attitudes towards policy outcomes. This is particularly important in light of moves towards more inclusive forms of policy-making. For example, in 2015 the Australian High Court succinctly stated that in ‘the absence of a clear, contrary legislative intention, administrative decision-makers must accord procedural fairness to those affected by their decisions’ (Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v WZARH [2015] HCA 40 (4 November 2015). In the US, ‘President Obama issued a call for Transparency and Open Government aimed at fostering public participation immediately on assuming office in January 2009’ (Herian et al., 2012: 833). It is assumed that such efforts will increase outcome satisfaction and legitimacy. It is important, then, to understand some of the effects of these public outreach efforts, as deliberation and transparency are key components of procedural fairness. Indeed, it would be troubling both normatively and empirically if all citizens cared about outcomes regardless of the democratic process.

Data and methods

Based on the literature above we hypothesise that procedural fairness will have an effect on attitudes towards policy outcomes. The empirical challenge is how to test this link, given that the policy process and the outcome often interact. To address this shortcoming, we designed a survey experiment that manipulated procedural fairness while holding the outcome constant. We did so by introducing one treatment high on procedural fairness and another low on procedural fairness (described in terms of objective procedural arrangements). Specifically, we presented respondents with a journal article allegedly reporting on a real case of a successful policy outcome achieved by a member of parliament in Australia (see below for more detail). We chose public transport because in the Australian context it is a policy issue with few partisan overtones and one that is generally supported by the Australian public. It is also an issue both major parties frequently include as part of election campaigns (especially at the state level). We also believe (in line with Strebel et al., 2019: 9) that the relatively uncontroversial nature of this topic gives us an appropriate test case for our assumptions.

In line with the key characteristics of procedural fairness identified by Magalhães (2017: 161), the manipulated text included the ‘transparency’, ‘impartiality’ and the ‘right to be heard’ components of procedural fairness. In the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment the politician sought no public input and drowned out opponents (‘right to be heard’), did not hold a proper tendering process (‘impartiality and transparency’) and cut deals with property developers (‘impartiality and transparency’). Conversely, in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment the politician engaged with the public and his opponents held a proper tendering process and refused to cut deals with property developers.

In the experiment, we randomly assigned respondents to read one of two articles: in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment the article’s headline read ‘Fast train cuts commuting time, proves popular and surprisingly uncontroversial’; in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment the article’s headline read ‘Fast train cuts commuting time but remains controversial’. Both articles started with the same opening passage:

Joe Robbins lives 60 kilometres outside of Perth and used to spend several hours every day stuck in traffic. This meant missed time with his young kids, creating pollution from his car and the numerous costs and frustrations associated with travelling well in excess of 500 kilometres per week.

Today Joe walks to the nearby and newly built train station and it takes him less than 30 minutes to reach his workplace. Gowan, an area historically with little to no public transport, now has a fast train to the city. Joe now has more time with his kids and his carbon footprint is now a third of what it used to be due to reduced car emissions. He has cut his commuting time in half and travel into work is considerably more pleasant than it used to be. Joe’s wife said the mood of the household has changed remarkably as a consequence.

This is a win for the environment. But most of all it is a win for individuals like Mr Robbins. This has all been afforded by a highly effective local member, Bill Thompson, who is almost solely responsible for the project.

The second half of each article included a different description of procedural fairness. In the procedurally fair treatment, respondents read:

This, like other projects of this kind, is not mired in controversy.

One of the reasons the rail line is so uncontroversial is because of the process by which it was achieved. Mr Thompson consulted with the community and citizens affected by the rail line. His office made deliberate attempts to engage those who had problems with the project. He held numerous consultation forums and invited public input. He also held a proper tendering process. He refused to cut deals that would enrich some local property developers. All in all, Mr Thompson showed high regard for fair processes that other politicians also, often grudgingly, abide by.

The results have been a startling success. Furthermore, the means by which they have been achieved are surprisingly uncontroversial.

In the procedurally unfair treatment respondents read:

Where things become more controversial is the way that this policy was achieved.

One of the reasons the rail line is so controversial is because of the process by which it was achieved. Mr Thompson did not consult with the community and citizens affected by the rail line. His office made deliberate attempts to drown out dissent. He held no consultation forums and invited no public input. He did not hold a proper tendering process, as advised by state law. He also cut deals that enriched some local property developers who will now be given priority treatment in having housing developments approved and winning other lucrative government contracts. All in all, Mr Thompson showed little regard for fair processes that other politicians, often grudgingly, abide by.

The results have been a startling success. The means by which they have been achieved are controversial.

The manipulated texts were presented to respondents as real articles published in WA Today, a state-based newspaper from the state of Western Australia (WA). The article concerned a fictional town on the outskirts of Perth (the capital city of WA). We assume that a lot of the respondents would not follow WA politics closely – given its geographically remote location and rare coverage in national news – nor know much about the state, hence setting the experiment there. To reduce possible bias, WA respondents were excluded from the experiment. We did not include a control group because the post-treatment questions would not have had enough face validity if the information about the policy process was missing from the article.

Following the article, respondents were asked a series of questions, based on the procedural fairness literature, which we have grouped under themes below.

Attention and manipulation checks

Respondents were asked if the new rail line reduced commuting time for Mr Robbins ((1) no, (2) yes, a little (3) yes, a lot) and whether the project has been deemed controversial (yes/no).

Process evaluations

Respondents were asked to evaluate the policy process (on a scale from (1) very negative to (4) very positive), whether they approved or disapproved of the means Mr Thompson used to get the rail line built (on a scale from (1) strongly disapprove to (4) strongly approve), and how fair the policy process was ((1) completely unfair, (3) neutral, (5) completely fair).

Outcome and legitimacy evaluations

Respondents were asked to evaluate the policy ((1) complete failure, (3) neutral, (5) complete success), whether they agreed or disagreed that the policy outcome was good ((1) strongly disagree, (4) strongly agree), and the legitimacy of the policy outcome ((1) completely illegitimate, (3) neutral, (5) completely legitimate).

We ran two experiments to test the effect of procedural fairness on policy attitudes. The first was a pilot on 250 undergraduates at an Australian university. We then ran a second experiment drawing from a more diverse panel of Australian respondents provided by Vote Compass, a voter literacy platform (see http://votecompass.com). In this experiment, we had 1272 respondents balanced to be representative of the Australian population on gender, age, education and location (see the Online Supplementary Material). As the results were very similar across the two experiments, this article only reports the findings from the second experiment (the results of experiment 1 are available in the Online Supplementary Material).

After excluding respondents who did not complete the survey or failed the first attention check (i.e. answered ‘no’ to the question about Mr Robbins’s commuting time), the final sample for analysis comprised n = 1272 respondents, n = 639 of which were presented with the ‘procedurally fair’ scenario, n = 633 with the ‘procedurally unfair’ scenario. The sample was fairly balanced with regard to gender (49% female), age (range 19–89, M = 54.6, SD = 16.8), education (43% Year 12 or lower, 12% Certificate I–IV, 19% Diploma/Advanced Diploma, 22% Graduate Diploma/Bachelor Degree, 4% Master/Doctoral Degree), and political orientation (M = 2.54, SD = 1.07 assessed on a scale from 1 – ‘left’ to 5 –‘right’). See Table 1 for a descriptive comparison of the socio-demographic variables in both experimental groups. Additionally, Table S1 in the Online Supplementary Material shows a comparison of the sample and each subsample with the general Australian population.

Table 1.

Socio-demographic variables in both experimental groups.

	‘Procedurally unfair’ group (n = 633)		‘Procedurally fair’ group (n = 639)
	N	%	N	%
Gender
Male	312	49.3	335	52.4
Female	321	50.7	304	47.6
Education
Year 12 or lower	274	43.3	270	42.3
Certificate I–IV	75	11.8	79	12.4
Diploma/Advanced Diploma	121	19.1	125	19.6
Graduate Diploma/Bachelor Degree	146	23.1	136	21.3
Master/Doctoral Degree	17	2.7	29	4.5
	M	SD	M	SD
Age	55.34	17.07	53.82	16.59
Political orientation (1 – left, 5 – right)	2.59	1.06	2.49	1.09

Note. N = 1,272.

Results

Attention and manipulation checks

Almost all respondents who completed the survey (98%) indicated that the new rail line reduced commuting time for Mr Robbins. As described above, respondents who indicated that Mr Robbins’s commuting time did not decrease (n = 30) were removed from the final analysis. The vast majority of respondents (96%) in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment said the project was controversial, compared to 18% in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment, Χ²= 797.00, p < 0.001. In short, it seems the treatments were received as intended.

Process evaluations

To test the effect of the fairness manipulation on the process and outcomes evaluations, we conducted a set of one-way ANOVAs.

Analysis indicated significant and large main effects of the manipulation on all evaluations of the policy process (see Figure 1). Respondents in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment evaluated the process as fairer (M = 4.43, SD = 0.81) than respondents in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment (M = 1.94, SD = 0.96); F(1,1271) = 2507.66, p < 0.001, f² = 1.97. Similarly, those in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment rated the process as more positive (M = 3.40, SD = 0.64) as compared to those in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment (M = 1.82, SD = 0.70); F(1,1271) = 1772.09, p < 0.001, f² = 1.39. If we put this in percentage terms the difference was even starker. Merely 15% of those in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment saw the process by which the policy was achieved as positive or very positive versus 93% of those in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment. Respondents in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment were also more likely to approve the means used by the politician to achieve the policy outcome (M = 3.40, SD = 0.63 vs M = 1.78, SD = 0.72); F(1,1271) = 1834.96, p < 0.001, f² = 1.44. Again, in percentage terms, the difference was even more pronounced. Only 14% in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment approved or strongly approved of the means used by Mr Thompson versus 93% in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment.

Figure 1.

Evaluations of the policy process.

Outcome and legitimacy evaluations

Similarly, the analysis indicated significant main effects of the manipulation on all evaluations of the policy outcome (see Figure 2). Respondents in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment evaluated the policy as more successful (M = 4.52, SD = 0.77) than respondents in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment (M = 3.39, SD = 1.15); F(1,1271) = 419.49, p < 0.001. In percentage terms, 49% in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment called it a success (i.e. indicated 4 or 5 on a 1–5 scale) versus 89% in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment. Those in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment also rated the policy outcome as more beneficial (M = 3.44, SD = 0.61) as compared to the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment group (M = 2.83, SD = 0.74); F(1,1271) = 263.54, p < 0.001. The difference in percentage terms was that 73% of those in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment agreed or strongly agreed the outcome was a good one versus 96% among those in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment.

Figure 2.

Evaluations of the policy outcome.

Importantly, respondents in the ‘procedural fairness’ treatment rated the outcome as more legitimate (M = 4.30, SD = 0.89) as compared to the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment group (M = 2.36, SD = 1.04); F(1,1271) = 1283.31, p < 0.001. In percentage terms, 13% of respondents in the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment called it legitimate or completely legitimate versus 83% in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment. The effect sizes ranged from medium for the perceived benefit of the policy (f² = 0.21) to close to large for perceived policy success (f² = 0.33) and large for the perceived legitimacy of the outcome (f² = 1.01).

Mediation analysis

To assess the direct and indirect effect of procedural fairness (via fairness perceptions) on perceived outcome legitimacy, we conducted a mediation analysis. For the analysis, we used PROCESS macro (v3.2.01; Model 4; Hayes, 2018; see Figure 3) and requested 10,000 bootstrap samples. Results were computed using the Cribari-Neto heteroskedasticity-consistent standard error estimator (HC4; Hayes and Cai, 2007).

Figure 3.

Mediation model testing direct and indirect effects of treatment on outcome legitimacy.

Results indicated (see Table 2) that both the indirect and the direct path were significant, meaning that the procedural fairness affected outcome legitimacy both directly and indirectly, through increased perceptions of procedural fairness. A comparison of partially standardised effects (B = 1.12 for the indirect effect vs. B = 0.30 for the direct effect) indicated that the indirect effect was substantially larger (approximately four times in magnitude) than the direct effect.

Table 2.

Direct and indirect effects of treatment on outcome legitimacy.

	B	SE	t	p	95% CI
Procedural fairness fairness → perceptions	2.49	0.05	50.12	<0.001	[2.39, 2.59]
Direct effect	0.41	0.09	4.66	<0.001	[0.24, 0.59]
Indirect effect	1.53	0.08			[1.37, 1.69]
Partially standardised indirect effect	1.12	0.06			[1.01, 1.22]

A robustness test

We ran an additional experiment (with approximately 300 respondents) to test whether framing the policy as ‘controversial’/‘uncontroversial’ was priming respondents to respond in a certain way. In this additional study, we used what we considered to be a much less loaded term (‘complicated’) to describe the policy. Specifically, we described the ‘procedurally unfair’ treatment as ‘complicated’ and the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment as ‘uncomplicated’. While this term may have negative/positive valence for some respondents we believe it is much more subtle than ‘controversial’ and also think most real news articles that respondents read are almost never completely value-neutral. We also deleted the ‘proves popular’ from the headline in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment as this also may have been priming respondents. We then ran these along with the original manipulations (i.e. four treatments randomised across respondents) to test whether there were any discernible differences in attitudes towards the policy outcome. We found only one small difference between the old and new treatments across all our dependent variables, suggesting framing effects were not playing a large role in our results (detailed results can be found in the Online Supplementary Material).

Discussion

One of the key factors that distinguish democracies from non-democracies is the policy process. Central to democratic thought is the idea that policy delivered through a ‘procedurally fair’ process is more legitimate than policy that violates central tenets of procedural fairness. Indeed, the work of Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) on ‘stealth democracy’ is jarring to many from a normative perspective because it questions what is often regarded as a key component of democracy – how political decisions are made.

Our findings provide some grounds for optimism by showing that procedural fairness does matter in the evaluation of policy outcomes. Respondents in the ‘procedurally fair’ treatment group in our study were much less likely to disapprove of the policy process. Importantly, perceptions of the process fed into perceptions of the policy legitimacy: that is, fair procedural arrangements increased perceptions of outcome legitimacy to the extent that participants perceived them to be fairer.

All of this suggests that procedural fairness matters for evaluations of the policy outcomes (although we add some important caveats below). While these findings are consistent with much of the fairness literature in social psychology, they go against some of the arguments made by scholars in political science about the importance of outcomes. For example, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) advocate for a form of ‘stealth democracy’ by which process is hidden from citizens. Our results do not refute these arguments, but they do suggest that objective characteristics of the process can inform perceptions of the process, which in turn can inform attitudes towards outcomes. Put another way, we find that ‘input legitimacy’ and ‘output legitimacy’ (Scharpf, 1999) are closely related and not independent of one another. Our findings suggest that procedural fairness has a key moderating influence on output legitimacy. These findings support the contention that ‘Citizens do not care only about “what” regimes deliver: they also care about “how” regimes work. When the state apparatus, political institutions, and public officials are perceived to be fair and transparent, impartial and fair, satisfaction with democracy also rises’ (Magalhães, 2017: 169).

There are a number of limitations to our research that should be pointed out. A possible limitation concerns our study design and the use of only one policy in the vignettes. While we have replicated the results using different samples (and alternate wordings), we do not know the extent to which the findings apply to different policies, policy outcomes and political contexts.

Further, we have examined an issue that we believe is important to many people and one without too many partisan overtones (in the Australian context). However, we do not know how the results would generalise to federal issues or issues with strong partisan overtones and/or where complex trade-offs are required (where this has been studied, Visschers and Siegrist (2012) find that procedural fairness only plays a small role in overall decision acceptance). Furthermore, for more controversial areas, citizens may engage in motivated reasoning. Public transport is an uncontroversial topic (at least in the Australian context) with little at stake for participants. We also do not know much about how often citizens are exposed to information about political processes beyond hearing about incidents of political corruption. ‘Process accounts assume that citizens are capable of making informed and rational assessments about whether regimes meet standards of transparency, accountability, effectiveness, social justice and participation’ (Norris, 2019: 15). But citizens may not have such information and social media may distort people’s perceptions of the process. Furthermore, partisanship might play an important role in shaping these views. In addition to this, it is clear there is a performance–procedural fairness nexus and these two things interact (Magalhães, 2017), where this study has only looked in detail at the process side of this equation.

The other important qualification concerns the issues raised by Esaiasson et al. (2019), Marien and Kern (2018) and Magalhães and Aguiar-Conraria (2019), as stated in the literature review. In this study, we manipulated the objective procedural arrangements of a policy. However, we know from other studies that respondents’ subjective perceptions of the procedural arrangements also matter and that these are often endogenous to outcome favourability. It is possible, then, that the strength of the effects we have found depends on the perceived favourability of the outcome. To address this issue, we ran a moderated mediation model in which the direct and indirect effect of procedural arrangements on outcome legitimacy was moderated by outcome favourability. Analysis indicated that both the direct and indirect effect depended on the perceived favourability of the outcome. Specifically, the effects were stronger among those who evaluated the outcome as more positive. Both effects, however, remained significant at all levels of the moderator, indicating that fairness of the process predicted attitudes independently of perceived favourability (detailed results can be found in the Online Supplementary Material). We do not want to make too much of these findings because they do not allow us to comprehensively examine fairness perceptions, given that outcome favourability was not an exogenous variable in our study, but rather measured post-treatment. It was also relatively high among all respondents. For the above reasons, our results are not directly comparable with those obtained by Esaiasson et al. (2019).

Even acknowledging these limitations, our findings generally support the literature on procedural fairness that suggests that policy-makers need to pay more attention both to the role of procedural arrangements and to fairness perceptions (see e.g. Wong, 2017). Our findings show, as Lind and Tyler (1988: 162) suggest, ‘that political leaders should recognize that citizens are evaluating them in terms of judgments about their fairness. When formulating public policy, leaders should be concerned with using procedures that citizens will view as fair. In addition, the process policies should be presented to citizens as having been developed in a fair manner.’ Our findings are also consistent with Strebel et al. (2019: 22), who argue that ‘while procedures are not (always) citizens’ prime concerns, they remain important features of legitimate governance arrangements’.

This may also have an effect on political trust: Lind and Tyler (1988: 163) argue that ‘although citizens may react to policies in part on the basis of personal gains and losses from those policies, their sense of distributive and procedural justice will act as a cushion of support, leading them to accord some support to policies and leaders if they view them as having acted fairly’. By contrast, in authoritarian states leaders openly challenge the importance of procedural fairness. The findings from this study suggest that the norms and procedures that distinguish democracies from non-democracies matter, at least in the context presented here. Lind and Tyler (1988: 163) ask: ‘Is public alienation a reflection of an actual decline in the quality of the political system’s decision-making procedures? It may be that public support for the government can be increased only through improvements in the quality of government decision-making.’ Our findings support this hypothesis.

One of the unanswered questions concerns how much citizens know about the policy process and how governments can advertise this. A question for policy-makers concerns how they communicate procedural fairness at a time of government distrust. The government will rightly want to advertise outcomes rather than process. However, our findings suggest that the government should also advertise procedural fairness in their communications as an important component of how citizens view policy. As suggested above, this could also play a role in restoring political trust. This is also important in terms of how government agencies communicate with the public, with prior research showing that messages emphasising procedural fairness increase compliance with requests from government agencies (Faulkner et al., 2018; Mazerolle et al., 2012; Wenzel, 2006).

This study contributes to the growing body of literature in political science examining the effect of procedural arrangements on policy attitudes. Our results suggest ‘that policy can and must be justified not only in terms of its distributive fairness but also in terms of its procedural fairness’ (Lind and Tyler, 1988: 165). Following on from the work done in social psychology, political scientists are now addressing these questions and our study makes a contribution to this important body of work. These questions are significant ones given the centrality of the process to accounts of democracy.

Supplemental Material

Supplementary_material – Supplemental material for Does process matter? Experimental evidence on the effect of procedural fairness on citizens’ evaluations of policy outcomes

Supplemental material, Supplementary_material for Does process matter? Experimental evidence on the effect of procedural fairness on citizens’ evaluations of policy outcomes by Aaron Martin, Gosia Mikołajczak and Raymond Orr in International Political Science Review

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor, Prof. Marian Sawer, and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the paper. This research was presented at the Australian Society of Quantitative Political Science Conference, Griffith University, the International Society of Political Psychology conference in Lisbon and the University of Texas-Austin and we thank participants for their comments. We would also like to thank Kyle Peyton and Nick Faulkner for their comments and contributions. We also thank Vox Pop Labs for the collection of the data.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council (Understanding the Causes of Political Trust, DE160100603) and support from the Chancellery and the Policy Lab, University of Melbourne.

ORCID iD

Gosia Mikołajczak

Supplementary material

Supplementary material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author biographies

Aaron Martin is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on political trust, young people and politics, public opinion, and policy agendas. He is the author of Young People and Politics: Political Engagement in the Anglo-American Democracies (Routledge) and, with Keith Dowding (ANU), Policy Agendas in Australia (Palgrave), as well as numerous articles.

Gosia Mikołajczak is a Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on policy support, collective action, gender, and well-being of vulnerable groups.

Raymond Orr is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma where he is the Chair of the Department of Native American Studies. His research explores Indigenous politics through qualitative and quantitative methods. He is the author of Reservation Politics: Historical Trauma, Economic Development and Intertribal Politics (University of Oklahoma).

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