Procedural Fairness, the Economy, and Support for Political Authorities

Abstract

A vast literature in social and organizational psychology suggests that support for authorities is driven both by the outcomes they deliver to people and by the extent to which they employ fair decision making processes. Furthermore, some of that literature describes a process‐outcome interaction, through which the effect of outcome favorability is reduced as process fairness increases. However, very few studies have been conducted to determine whether such interaction is also present in the explanation of support for political authorities. Here, we start by analyzing whether individual perceptions of the political system’s procedural fairness moderate the well‐known individual‐level relationship between perceived economic performance and government approval. Then, we explore the implications of such process‐outcome interaction to the phenomenon of “economic voting,” testing whether impartiality in governance moderates the effect of objective economic performance on aggregate incumbent parties’ support. In both cases, we show that the interaction between processes and outcomes seems to extend beyond the organizational contexts where it has been previously observed, with important implications for the study of political support.

Procedural fairness predicts cooperative behaviour for high‐self‐esteem individuals but not for low‐self‐esteem individuals

“…Among the various factors that facilitate cooperation, procedural fairness, which refers to individuals' perceived fairness of procedures used to allocate resources (Cooney, Gilbert, & Wilson, 2016), is regarded as the key antecedent to cooperation (Miles, 2014). For instance, in previous studies, procedural fairness positively predicted willingness to support political authorities (Magalhães & Aguiar‐Conraria, 2019) and cooperation with law enforcement (Tankebe, 2009). Moreover, procedural fairness can also determine individuals' cooperation in an organisational context.…”

Shoring Up Autocracy: Participatory Technologies and Regime Support in Putin’s Russia

“…In democracies, research has found that the process by which decisions are made mediates policy outcomes (cf. Magalhães & Aguiar-Conraria, 2019; Rhodes-Purdy, 2017a, 2017b). Therefore, it may be the case that the influence of participatory technologies on regime attitudes is conditional on whether or not the issue is resolved.…”

Do people want a ‘fairer’ electoral system? An experimental study in four countries

“…People are also concerned with both procedural justice (Tyler ), which refers to the fairness of the methods, mechanisms and processes used to determine outcomes (Lind & Tyler ) as well as with the fairness of the outcomes themselves (Miller ). Although fairness has been operationalised in different ways (see Magalhães & Aguiar‐Conraria () for a recent review), attitudes towards institutions and authorities are positively affected by fairness in decision making (Miller ). People value representative procedures and systems that treat people fairly and equitably (Baird & Gangl ; Gangl ; Tyler ) and they value procedural fairness in policy making in a variety of contexts (e.g., Hibbing & Theiss‐Morse , ; Rohrschneider ).…”

“…In this regard, Lijphart's (: 275) seminal argument is that proportional regimes are ‘kinder, gentler’ institutions than majoritarian regimes since the difference between the distribution of votes and that of seats is lower compared to first‐past‐the‐post . If voters care about fairness, disproportionality should reduce voters’ support for the voting rules regardless of the outcome because ‘immediate outcomes are less important than the intangible harm associated with unfair treatment’ (Magalhães & Aguiar‐Conraria : 168). In Figure , this corresponds to the dotted line for large parties’ voters and the long‐dashed line for small parties’ voters – that is, support for both groups of voters is lower under disproportional rules.…”