Does citizen participation make public servants more satisfied with their jobs? It depends on whether they are Spectators or Participants
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Kazi Maruful Islam,Jan‐Hinrik Meyer‐Sahling,Kim Sass Mikkelsen,Taiabur Rahman,Christian Schuster |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.2031 |
Received: 6 March 2023
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Revised: 16 October 2023
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Accepted: 30 October 2023
DOI: 10.1002/pad.2031
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Does citizen participation make public servants more
satisfied with their jobs? It depends on whether they are
Spectators or Participants
Kazi Maruful Islam
1
|Jan‐Hinrik Meyer‐Sahling
2
|Kim Sass Mikkelsen
3
|
Taiabur Rahman
1
|Christian Schuster
4
1
University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
3
Roskilde University, Roskilde, UK
4
University College London, London, UK
Correspondence
Jan‐Hinrik Meyer‐Sahling.
Email: J.Meyer-sahling@nottingham.ac.uk
Funding information
British Academy
[Correction made on 29 November 2023,
after first online publication: In the first
author affiliation, ‘UK’ was changed to
‘Bangladesh’.]
Abstract
Is citizen participation in policymaking and implementation desirable? Numerous
studies have explored its effects on policy outcomes and citizen attitudes. We,
instead, examine its effects on public servants. Citizen participation changes public
sector job characteristics and thus potentially job attitudes. Looking at job satis-
faction, we argue that citizen participation negatively affects public servants who
observe, but do not participate in citizen participation initiatives in their institution's
decisions (“Spectators”), yet not public servants who are “Participants.” “Partici-
pants” learn to appreciate the benefits of citizen participation while minimizing its
cost. Survey data from public servants in one developing country, Bangladesh,
provides empirical support.
KEYWORDS
Asia, civil service, job satisfaction, participatory governance
1
|
INTRODUCTION
In the past decades, the literature on citizen participation in public
policy and management decisions has mushroomed (for reviews, see
McGuire, 2006; Garau, 2012; Ianniello et al., 2019). Citizen
participation—or, as often used interchangeably, participatory
governance—is understood as state‐sanctioned institutional venues
for citizens to discuss and/or decide matters of public concern
(Fung & Wright, 2001). The interest in citizen participation need not
surprise: citizen participation venues have proliferated in both
developed and, often under a social accountability (Fung, 2015) and
public service improvement labels (Knox & Sharipova, 2023), in
developing countries.
Advocates of citizen participation point to a range of potential
benefits of citizen participation, including more effective, just, and
legitimate administration and policy (Rowe & Frewer, 2004). A large
set of studies, however, equally underscores that benefits from citi-
zen participation are anything but a foregone conclusion. Instead,
citizen participation may increase transaction costs, slow down
decision‐making, create unrealistic expectations among citizens, and
open government processes to capture by special interests
(Fung, 2006; Fung & Wright, 2001; Irvin & Stansbury, 2004).
This debate has pushed the knowledge frontier, including
through high‐profile field experiments, on the effects of citizen
participation on public service delivery, citizen attitudes towards
government and social cohesion in society (e.g. Olken, 2010).
However, it has overlooked what should be a core area of scholarly
interest: the effects of citizen participation on public servants inside
government. This omission matters in two important ways. First,
public servants play central roles in the machinery of government
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2023 The Authors. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Public Admin Dev. 2023;43:381–392. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad
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