Survey on Rule Compliance in the Mass Public

• In Event: Public Policy and the Response to COVID-19

Abstract

This research studies COVID mask mandates as a device for understanding how the mass public complies with rules as a function of legitimacy. When individuals feel morally obliged to acquiesce to police, courts, or other institutions grounded in procedural fairness, society maintains some mutual restraint—that is, a rule of law. During the COVID pandemic, many Americans have questioned the legitimacy of government restrictions. In conducting a survey experiment, I exploit different governmental sources for COVID-related rules that respondents would be required to follow. I expect that differences in rule compliance are driven by (1) impressions of community credibility and (2) the perceived proximity between a citizen and institutional actors.

Past research on compliance indicates that a driving factor of rule compliance is legitimacy (Gibson and Caldeira 1995). Legitimacy perceptions are driven by (1) perceived moral alignment with the institution (Kuperan and Sutinen 1998), (2) the perceived fairness of that institution’s actions and laws (Ramcilovic-Suominen and Epstein 2015), and (3) the obligation that an individual feels towards an institution (Tyler and Jackson 2014). Thus, it is known that the aforementioned aspects of legitimacy influence rule compliance in a population; however, there exists somewhat of a confounding factor of social environmental influence (Kuperan and Sutinen 1998) that interacts with legitimacy and can also affect compliance.

The scholarly literature above established that social phenomena impact institutional legitimacy. But what if there are multiple institutions to which individuals can turn for rulemaking and governance? This is not just hypothetical since Americans always deal with state and local governments. I find that it is to a greater extent unknown how legitimacy perceptions and rule compliance vary among these institutions. Variation in ascribed legitimacy could change the levels of likely rule compliance.

More specifically, everyone in a sub-population of an institution can be considered a principal, and the bureaucratic actors at each respective institution can be considered agents. I expect that a community composed of a relatively small number of principals will have a higher sentiment of shared values and goals with the institution, will feel heightened social influence, and will, overall, be more likely to comply with a given rule for these reasons.

To empirically test these hypotheses, I employ an experimental survey design with eight vignettes. Each treatment condition – applied at random to survey participants – manipulates principal and agent relationships, normative perspective on compliance, and fairness regarding the principal and agent relationship decision.

The findings of this research have two major implications for rule compliance in society. First, as institutions continue to navigate what elicits rule compliance, an institution can use the effects of principal/agent distance to better measure and ensure that the persons to which they hand down rules are more likely to comply and feel a sense of shared values and goals. Further, as we begin to understand the dynamics of rule compliance at an inter-institutional level, institutions with a more effective principal/agent distance can partner with other institutions to increase overall rule compliance among the greater population.

Author

• Michael Johnston, Bowling Green State University