Seen and Soon: Political Competition, Formal Evaluation Status, and Perceived Goal Displacement in Local Governments

• In Event: Performance and its Discontents: Contemporary Challenges in Public Management

Abstract

Local governments must secure approval from two audiences: voters who judge their elected leaders, and evaluation systems that grade their organizations. Drawing on goal displacement theory, this study asks how electoral competition and formal evaluation status relate to public officials' perceptions that their organizations place excessive emphasis on visible results and on short-term considerations in policy design. Because such assessments reflect unfavorably on an organization and its leadership, we elicit them through a sequential list-based procedure that allows respondents to report the number of applicable statements without identifying any single one. We analyze a December 2024 survey of 245 officials in 121 basic-level local governments in Korea, linked to the competitiveness of the 2022 local executive election and to each government's grade in the 2023 Comprehensive Integrity Assessment. Three findings emerge. Among five organizational problems, the overemphasis on visible results shows the largest average list-response difference. Officials in governments rated in the lower three grades exhibit a larger adjusted difference for this problem than those in governments rated in the top two. Political competition is positively associated with perceived policy short-termism, although the estimate loses precision when comparisons are restricted to governments within the same province. The study brings electoral and evaluative conditions into a common analysis of perceived organizational priorities, extends goal displacement research to officials' internal assessments, and shows that formal evaluation results and internal accounts of how attention is allocated offer related but distinct perspectives on organizational life.

Author

• Jeeseun Baik, Yonsei University
  Presenting Author