How do political decision-making processes affect the acceptability of decisions? Results from a survey experiment
| Author | Miho Nakatani |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512121998250 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512121998250
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(2) 244 –261
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512121998250
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How do political decision-making
processes affect the acceptability
of decisions? Results from a survey
experiment
Miho Nakatani
Meiji Gakuin University, Japan
Abstract
This study aims to identify the types of city council decision-making processes that influence public
perceptions of procedural fairness and the acceptability of decisions. Using an online experimental scenario
survey conducted in Japan, this study found that, given the opportunity to participate in the decision-making
process and when the decision is reached through a compromise among council members, people tend
to feel that the process is fair and accept the decision even when it is unfavourable to them. This result is
important for the governance of many advanced countries with low economic growth rates but great public
demands. Additionally, this study highlights the process preferences of the public, which has received little
attention compared with research on policy preferences.
Keywords
Procedural fairness, decision acceptance, process preferences, survey experiment
Introduction
What types of decision-making processes lead to the public perception that procedures are fair and
decisions are acceptable even when the results are unfavourable to the public? This question is of
great importance in most advanced countries, where the economic growth rate is low and citizens’
ways of thinking, needs and values vary. Governments in these countries are often unable to pro-
vide policy outcomes that meet everyone’s needs. Under these circumstances, the key to forming a
society in which people are satisfied may lie not only in policies, but also in the policy-making
process.
Procedural fairness studies in social psychology have revealed that people tend to accept a deci-
sion when they perceive the decision-making process to be fair (Lind and Tyler, 1988; Tyler et al.,
1997). This implies that people are interested in not only the outcomes, but also the process that
Corresponding author:
Miho Nakatani, Department of Political Science, Meiji Gakuin University, 1-2-37 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku,
Tokyo 108-8636, Japan.
Email: nakatani@law.meijigakuin.ac.jp
998250IPS0010.1177/0192512121998250International Political Science ReviewNakatani
research-article2021
Article
Nakatani 245
leads to these outcomes. This implication might be important for democratic governance, as most
advanced countries are facing public distrust and dissatisfaction with the way democracy works
(Norris, 2011; Van Ham et al., 2017). In recent years, research applying this perspective to political
science has emerged. However, the conditions of the decision-making process in the political arena
have not been fully studied, as procedural fairness has been examined in social psychology research
and has only recently been applied to the political environment.
Therefore, focusing on the decision-making process in local councils, this study uses an online
experimental vignette survey conducted with Japanese population-based samples to identify the
types of decision-making processes that increase procedural fairness and lead to policy acceptance.
This study differs from conventional research in the following three ways. First, in addition to
the participation process, which previous research has emphasised as a necessary condition to
increase procedural fairness, this study examines the mode of decision-making in local councils,
that is, whether a decision is reached by a compromise among factions or by majority vote. Opinion
polls have indicated that people favour consensus in decision-making; however, research on
whether consensus improves people’s sense of fairness has yielded inconsistent results.
Second, this study considers how the perception of procedural fairness differs depending on
individual characteristics using the majority–minority or winner–losers framework. In situations
where decisions are unfavourable to minorities and losers, they may tend to prefer inclusive deci-
sion-making procedures to obtain greater gains.
Third, this study considers a series of causal flows within the same scenario to examine how
objective procedural conditions such as participation and compromise can increase perceived pro-
cedural fairness, and how this recognition leads to the acceptance of decisions, even if the results
are unfavourable to people. Previous studies have shown that a favourable outcome has the greatest
effect on the acceptance of decisions and that the associated process has no or a very small impact
(Arnesen, 2017; Esaiasson et al., 2016). By contrast, the findings from procedural fairness research
in social psychology have shown that procedures can have an impact, even if they lead to unfavour-
able results (Tyler, 1994; Wu and Wang, 2013). In either case, few studies have examined the entire
causal flow, including the objective procedural conditions, perceived procedural fairness, and
acceptance of decisions. Therefore, this study examines these relationships in the context of Japan.
Even if favourable results have a strong impact on the acceptance of a decision, if it is found that
the process also has an impact, then the process can be an important factor for democratic govern-
ance (Strebel et al., 2019).
The results of this study have practical and policy implications, such as the importance of con-
sidering how local councils should behave in democratic governance and what type of decision-
making process should be followed to obtain public support. The findings also make academic
contributions by accumulating knowledge regarding people’s preferences concerning the decision-
making process, which is scarce compared with knowledge concerning policy preferences.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows: the next section describes procedural fair-
ness theory, the limitations of previous studies, and the proposed hypotheses; this is followed by a
description of the survey’s experimental design and data collection methods, and the results section.
The final section discusses the implications of the findings and some future research prospects.
Theoretical background and framework
Procedural fairness
The procedural fairness theory is concerned with subjective feelings of fairness or justice.1 In this
context, fairness describes ‘a social situation in which norms of entitlement or propriety are
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