Why People (Dis)like the Public Service: Citizen Perception of the Public Service and the NPM Doctrine

This article examines how the components of the New Public Management (NPM) doctrine are related to the ways citizens evaluate the public service. It investigates how five macro-level explanations-free-market orientations, public-sector size, tax burdens, administration decentralization, and public-service quality-affect citizen evaluation of the public service. Data from the International Social Survey Project Citizenship 2004, The Role of Government 2006 Modules, and country-level data are used to study the relationship across 25 countries, employing multilevel analyses of the data to analyze the relationship between country-level explanations and citizen valuation of the public service. The results indicate that, while a free-market orientation is related to a negative image of the public service and public-service quality is related to a positive image of it, public-sector size, the tax burden, and the level of administration decentralization are not related to the public-service image. These results are discussed in light of the NPM doctrine.