Voice, responsiveness, and alternative policy venues: An analysis of citizen complaints against the local government to the national Ombudsman
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Author | António F. Tavares,Sara Moreno Pires,Filipe Teles |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12787 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Voice, responsiveness, and alternative policy
venues: An analysis of citizen complaints against
the local government to the national Ombudsman
Ant
onio F. Tavares
1
| Sara Moreno Pires
2
| Filipe Teles
2
1
Research Center in Political Science, School
of Economics and Management, University of
Minho & Operating Unit on Policy-Driven
Electronic Governance, United Nations
University, Guimar~
aes, Portugal
2
Department of Social, Political and Territorial
Sciences (DCSPT), Research Unit on
Governance, Competitiveness and Public
Policies (GOVCOPP), University of Aveiro,
Aveiro, Portugal
Correspondence
Ant
onio F. Tavares, Research Centre in
Political Science, School of Economics and
Management, University of Minho (Campus
de Gualtar), 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.
Email: atavares@eeg.uminho.pt
Abstract
The Ombudsman is one of the most relevant and institu-
tionalized tools to give voice to citizens, so they can express
their dissatisfaction with local public services. The literature
has yet to produce a systematic explanation for the varia-
tion in complaints to the national Ombudsman. This article
uses classic literature from public administration and public
policy to consider arguments of voice, responsiveness and
alternative policy venues concerning the role of the
Ombudsman in citizen complaints against local govern-
ments. Data on all 2139 citizen complaints submitted to the
Ombudsman in Portugal (2012–2015) are analyzed using
negative binomial regression models. Policy implications
drawn from the results show not only that the presence of
alternative voice venues reduces the number of complaints
to the national Ombudsman but also that context matters.
Local politics stimulates civic engagement and difficult local
conditions, such as unemployment, crime, and aging
populations, activate citizens to resort to the Ombudsman.
Funding Statement: This article is part of a research project financially supported by the Fundaç~
ao Francisco Manual dos Santos (FFMS), entitled
“Qualidade da Governaç~
ao Local.”Antonio Tavares acknowledges the Research Center in Political Science (UIDB/CPO/00758/2020), University of
Minho/University of
Evora supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and
Science through national funds. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Fundaç~
ao Francisco Manuel dos Santos and the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation.
Received: 19 May 2020 Revised: 17 September 2021 Accepted: 21 September 2021
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12787
1054 © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Public Admin. 2022;100:1054–1072.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
1|INTRODUCTION
The establishment of formal complaints mechanisms and a rapid increase in Ombudsman institutions are characteris-
tics of a trend in administrative reforms in the 1980s and 1990s that sought to improve the delivery of public
services (OECD 2001; Overman 2017; Schläpfer 2017; van de Walle 2018). The Ombudsman is one of the most rel-
evant and institutionalized mechanisms to give voice to citizens. Voice is the process through which citizens (individ-
ually or collectively) express their dissatisfaction with public services through speaking out. According to van de
Walle (2018), they can do so in different ways: by complaining directly to a service provider during the service inter-
action or afterwards, complaining through media and, nowadays, social media or by addressing the complaints to
those delivering the service, those managing it, those politically responsible for the public service or higher
authorities.
A burgeoning literature in public administration investigates the factors that affect citizen satisfaction at many
levels (e.g., DeHoog et al. 1990; van de Walle 2018). The majority of the studies to date look at local complaints
made directly to local public services or tend to study the use of surveys of individuals to assess satisfaction or dis-
satisfaction with service delivery (DeHoog et al. 1990). In many of these studies, satisfaction is assessed with either
perception-based data or self-reported measures rather than objective measures such as complaints to an external
body. Others extensively analyze the role of Ombudsman institutions in general (Hossu & Dragos 2013; Ladi 2011)
or in managing complaints against all types of public services (Magruder et al. 2018; van Roosbroek & van de
Walle 2008) and do not particularly address complaints against local governments. Interestingly, this literature has
yet to produce a systematic explanation for the variation in complaints to the national Ombudsman. This article relies
on classic arguments from public administration and public policy, including the exit-voice-loyalty (EVL) framework,
to develop such an explanation and analyze the role of the national Ombudsman as a voice solution of last resort for
citizen dissatisfaction with their local governments.
Complaints are the result of citizen experiences with “inappropriate or discourteous treatment, omissions, mis-
takes, faults, inconsistencies, misleading guidance, unclear procedures, or displayed bias or injustices”in public ser-
vices (Brewer 2007, p. 550). Hence, the inability or unwillingness to respond to negative citizen perceptions are
likely to result in complaints, starting at the local level of government and moving to other venues
1
if this level
proves to be unresponsive. Following Schattschneider's claim, losers in one particular policy venue may seek to
expand the scope of conflict in the hopes of winning at a different venue (Schattschneider 1960). The presence of
additional venues of political representation provides alternative channels to accommodate citizen dissatisfaction
with municipal governments. The national Ombudsman is one such alternative channel and the degree of variation in
citizen complaints against their respective local governments to the Ombudsman is one avenue of research worth
pursuing.
Ombudsman complaints can contribute to increase accountability in local government. Brewer (2007) argues
that the opportunities to use complaints as administrative appeals outside the local sphere can serve to bolster the
legitimacy of the political system (Aldons 2001), and may even provide some compensation for the absence of demo-
cratic legitimacy (Scott 2005) by bringing about an alternative policy venue. Complaints to the national Ombudsman
become a mechanism, albeit limited, for balancing the power between the local state and the ordinary citizen and a
means of accountability (Devereux & Weisbrod 2006).
In order to expand research and knowledge about the role of Ombudsman institutions, we collected data on all
citizen complaints submitted to the national Ombudsman of Portugal between 2012 and 2015 filed against the
municipal governments (2139 complaints in total). These data are part of a larger project designed to assess the qual-
ity of local government in Portugal. Data are analyzed using negative binomial regression models to test our
hypotheses.
After this introduction, Section 2explores the literature and prior research examining the determinants of citizen
satisfaction with local public services. The subsequent section discusses how the concepts of EVL can be combined
with ideas about responsiveness and alternative venues of political representation to provide an explanation of the
TAVARES ET AL. 1055
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