Citizen Attitudes on Politicians’ Pay: Trust Issues Are Not Solved by Delegation
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719850073 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2019
Article
Political Studies
2020, Vol. 68(2) 389 –407
Citizen Attitudes on
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
Politicians’ Pay:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719850073
DOI: 10.1177/0032321719850073
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Trust Issues Are Not
Solved by Delegation
Rasmus T Pedersen1
and Lene Holm Pedersen1,2
Abstract
Citizens are generally opposed to politicians receiving a high pay. We investigate the degree to which
this aversion is moderated by citizens’ individual-level trust in politicians and whether institutional
delegation can moderate the reactions to proposed changes in politicians’ pay. Using a survey
experiment, we confirm that trust in politicians is a key predictor of attitudes regarding their pay.
Distrust toward politicians seems to matter much more than general attitudes on income inequality
when citizens form opinions on politicians’ pay. Furthermore, citizens’ aversion to high pay for
politicians is affected by institutional delegation, but such delegation only lessen the opposition
to pay raises modestly, leaving most citizens firmly against pay raises for politicians. Finally, while
citizens’ trust in politicians matters greatly for their attitudes regarding politicians pay, proposed
changes in politicians’ pay do not conversely affect citizen’s perceptions of the politicians.
Keywords
political trust, inequality attitudes, institutional delegation, survey experiment
Accepted: 23 April 2019
Introduction
In 1816, protesters burned members of the US Congress in effigy after the congress mem-
bers had enacted a pay raise for themselves (Theriault, 2004). Two centuries later, citi-
zens’ dislike of high pay for politicians persists. Several studies across a diverse array of
countries show that vast majorities of citizens in all of these countries believe that politi-
cians should receive substantially lower salaries than they currently do (Kelley and Evans,
1993; Kiatpongsan and Norton, 2014; Mause, 2014). While this general aversion toward
1VIVE—The Danish Center for Social Science Research, Copenhagen, Denmark
2University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Corresponding author:
Rasmus T Pedersen, VIVE—The Danish Center for Social Science Research, Herluf Trolles Gade 11, DK-
1052 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Email: ratp@vive.dk
390
Political Studies 68(2)
high pay for politicians is well-established, there are, however, several reasons to further
investigate these attitudes.
First, the salary of politicians is an important policy issue in its own right. Public opin-
ion on this issue is important because it may affect the actual salary levels of politicians,
which may again have consequences for the recruitment and behavior of politicians
(Braendle, 2015; Carnes and Hansen, 2016; Fisman et al., 2015; Hoffman and Lyons,
2013; Keane and Merlo, 2010).
Second, in contrast to nearly all other vocations, national politicians typically have the
power to set their own wages (Brans and Peters, 2012; Mause, 2014). We argue that,
because of this institutional feature, citizens’ attitudes on politicians’ pay are closely con-
nected to perceptions regarding politicians’ self-interest and therefore also trust in the
politicians, which is a key indicator of political legitimacy (Turper and Aarts, 2017).
Building on the literature regarding political trust (e.g. Keele, 2007; Levi and Stoker,
2000), stealth democracy (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002), and deservingness (e.g.
Feather, 1999; Petersen, 2012), we theorize that low levels of trust toward politicians is a
key explanation for the publics’ aversion to high pay for politicians. In addition, we also
suggest that changes in politicians’ pay could potentially be used as an instrument to
increase trust in politicians.
Third, because of the relationship between citizens’ low trust in the politicians and
their attitudes on these politicians’ pay, this issue provides a fitting test case on the advan-
tages of policy delegation to an independent agency. Delegation of decision-making
authority to independent agencies is often recommended as a way to increase credibility
and trust by tying the hands of politicians, who could otherwise be tempted to act on their
short-sighted self-interest (Gilardi, 2002; Majone, 1997). Indeed, politicians in a number
of countries have chosen to delegate the authority to set their own wages to independent
institutions (Brans and Peters, 2012; Mause, 2014). We propose that such delegation
might abate citizens’ aversion to pay raises for politicians.
To investigate citizens’ reactions to proposed changes on politicians’ pay, we use a
survey experiment (n~2000), where we randomly assign respondents to different scenar-
ios regarding politicians’ pay. Our results show that attitudes toward politicians’ pay are
indeed closely related to political trust, which is a more important predictor of pay atti-
tudes than general attitudes on economic inequality. Furthermore, we show that delegat-
ing the issue of politicians’ pay to an independent agency can affect citizens’ reactions to
such changes. However, institutional delegation does not change the fact that the average
citizen remains staunchly opposed to pay increases for politicians. Finally, while changes
in politicians pay has been proposed as a way of increasing the public’s trust in them
(Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002), our results do not indicate that such an initiative
would be efficacious. A reduction of their own wages is not necessarily a silver bullet for
politicians hoping to increase the electorate’s trust in them.
Attitudes on Pay for Politicians
Full-time politicians in modern democracies generally have substantially higher incomes
than the average citizen (Brans and Peters, 2012; Hood and Peters, 1994; Mause, 2014).
This high level of compensation seems to irk the public, and when politicians enact a pay
raise for themselves, it is often followed by widespread condemnation and opposition from
the news media and from citizens (Baimbridge and Darcy, 1999; Jones, 2007; Theriault,
2004). Furthermore, survey data from 40 countries show that, across all of these countries,
Pedersen and Pedersen
391
majorities of voters think that politicians (specifically cabinet ministers) receive more than
they ought to (Kelley and Evans, 1993; Kiatpongsan and Norton, 2014).1 Thus, the current
knowledge clearly suggests that it is reasonable to expect some aversion to pay raises for
politicians, and our study takes departure in the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Citizens show higher support for a pay decrease than a pay increase for
politicians.
While previous studies suggest that aversion to pay raises for politicians is to be
expected, there is still little knowledge regarding the determinants and mechanisms
behind this attitude. In the following section, we theorize how attitudes regarding pro-
posed pay changes for politicians may depend on the sponsor of such proposals.
The Effects of Institutional Delegation
There are substantial differences in the degree to which national politicians can set their
own wages. In a majority of European national parliaments and in the US Congress, the
politicians can set their own wages, albeit with some restrictions. However, in a few
countries, politicians have delegated the right to determine their pay to independent enti-
ties. This is, for example, the case in Great Britain, where politicians’ pay are set by the
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, in Sweden where the task has been del-
egated to Riksdagens arvodesnämnd (Brans and Peters, 2012; Mause, 2014), and partly
in Denmark, where the task was temporarily delegated to an independent commission in
2014 (Vederlagskommissionen, 2016).
To what degree might such institutional delegation affect how citizens react to pro-
posed changes in politicians’ pay? If citizens’ aversion to high pay for politicians was
driven purely by attitudes regarding income and economic inequality, the sponsor of a
proposed change in politicians’ wages should not matter. However, to the degree that citi-
zens’ aversion to high pay for politicians is driven by their perceptions of—and attitudes
toward—the politicians, the sponsor of such a proposed change in wages could affect
attitudes regarding the proposal. To see how that might be the case, it is worth taking a
closer look at the relationship between citizens’ perceptions of politicians’ self-interest
and citizens’ trust toward the politicians.
Traditionally, studies of citizens’ trust in politicians have often focused on the
degree to which such attitudes are affected by policy outputs and outcomes (Citrin,
1974; Keele, 2007; Whiteley et al., 2016). However, citizens do not just care about
outputs, they also care about how decisions come about, also termed procedural fair-
ness (Bøggild and Petersen, 2016). Hence, as argued by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse
(2002), the low esteem to which politicians are held is not necessarily a result of dis-
satisfaction with the output of the political system. Rather, citizens are dissatisfied
with the political processes preceding the output. A key issue regarding this political
process is, according to Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002), the degree to which the
politicians concern themselves with societal interests as opposed to special interests,
including their own personal interests....
To continue reading
Request your trial