Principal investigator: Omar Barroso Khodr
Authors: Nathan Favero, Colt Jensen, Minjung Kim and Jaclyn Piatak
Original title: Which Public Values are Most Important? Linking Political Ideology and Public Service Motivation to Public Values Preferences.
Location of the Intervention: USA (United States)
Sample Size: 814 respondents
Primary Variable of Interest: Public Assets Assessment System.
Type of Intervention: Performance driven by political and social motivations.
Methodology: Linear Regression (OLS)
Summary
According to Favero et al. (2025), understanding the hierarchies of public values in the population reveals preferences that influence governmental decisions and policy formulation. Although societies often express consensus around broad values—such as democratic ones—the question remains: how do individuals prioritize different public values? Faced with increasing polarization, the authors investigate how political ideology and Motivation for Public Service (MSP) relate to these preferences. Based on a representative sample from the US, they analyze how people prioritize fairness, efficiency, representation, and effectiveness. Despite broad support for all four values, striking differences emerge in their relative importance. More liberal individuals tend to prioritize fairness and representation, while those with higher levels of MSP attribute greater weight to fairness than to efficiency or effectiveness. Further study of these hierarchies can shed light on variations in policy support, implementation approaches, and citizen evaluations of government services.
- Policy Problem
The authors address a central issue in public policy: how to define and measure public sector performance when multiple—often conflicting—values need to be balanced. They argue that academics and practitioners grapple with persistent challenges in accountability, goal setting, and measurement because values such as equity, efficiency, representativeness, and effectiveness correspond to distinct dimensions of performance and are prioritized differently in policy formulation and implementation.
In this context, Favero et al. seek to understand how individuals prioritize these competing values, recognizing that public opinion influences not only electoral politics but also policymaking and the exercise of administrative discretion. However, empirical knowledge about public value preferences remains limited, especially with regard to the general public—and not just public managers.
The critical gap, therefore, lies in the lack of attention to how citizens form their own hierarchies of values. Despite calls for research that goes beyond simply identifying values, little is known about the factors that shape their prioritization. This study addresses this absence by investigating how political ideology and public policy—central factors in shaping attitudes toward government—influence individual preferences among the fundamental values of public administration.
This research is particularly relevant in a context of increasing polarization and declining trust in institutions. Understanding the foundations of public value hierarchies helps to clarify how citizens define what public administration and policies should be. By developing a systematic approach to measuring the relative prioritization between values, the study contributes to ongoing debates about representation and the relationship between equity and efficiency, highlighting the often-neglected role of the public in these discussions.
- Policy Implementation Context
This study is situated within a broader context of public policy, defined by the persistent challenge of balancing conflicting public values in governance. Public values—defined as normative principles that guide citizens' rights, government obligations, and the foundations of policies—have historically been emphasized differently in various reform movements. For example, the New Public Management movement prioritized efficiency, while subsequent reform eras focused on equity and transparency. The study builds on Rosenbloom's framework, which identifies three central perspectives—managerial (efficiency and effectiveness), legal (equity), and political (representation)—that frequently conflict and require a balance similar to the separation of powers in US government. Despite the importance of these values, research has predominantly focused on public managers rather than the general public, leading scholars to advocate for greater attention to citizens' public value preferences, which play a fundamental role in democratic governance through mechanisms such as agenda setting, legitimacy building, and administrative responsiveness.
The political context is further shaped by the recognition that public opinion influences policy formulation and implementation at all levels of government. The study argues that historical shifts in public opinion on issues such as civil rights, social welfare policies, and defense spending can be understood as rooted in changes in the collective prioritization of values such as equity, efficiency, and freedom. Citizens develop their own hierarchies of public values, based on their cultural and social experiences, and these individual rankings structure how people evaluate the role of government and specific policy alternatives. In an era of increasing political polarization in the United States, understanding how political ideology and Motivation for Public Service (MSP) shape preferences for competing public values becomes particularly relevant. The study hypothesizes that conservatives will rank efficiency and effectiveness as more important than equity and representativeness, aligning themselves with reform movements focused on reducing waste and improving managerial efficiency, while liberals and those with higher MSP (Management Social Policy) will prioritize equity and representativeness, based on the theory of representative bureaucracy and the fundamental role of social equity in public administration.
- Evaluation Details
The data for this study were obtained from a single research source, originally presented by Meier & O'Toole (2013), resulting in an analytical sample of 814 respondents. The dependent variables were constructed using a subtractive coding method, in which six paired difference measures were created by subtracting the importance attributed to one public value relative to another (e.g., equity minus efficiency; representation minus effectiveness). This strategy seeks to absorb common method variance, reducing the risk of common source bias in the regressions. Descriptive statistics for these measures, as well as for the independent and control variables, are presented in the summary tables.
- Method
This study employs a subtractive coding strategy to construct its main dependent variables, which consist of six pairwise comparisons of public values. Instead of analyzing support for individual values, such as equity or efficiency, in isolation, the researchers created differentiated measures by subtracting the rating of one value from the rating of another (e.g., Equity minus Efficiency, Representation minus Effectiveness). This approach, applied to data from a single research source, aims to absorb common method variance, thus mitigating concerns about common source bias in the analysis.
The independent variables of primary theoretical interest are political ideology, measured on a five-point scale from “Very Conservative” to “Very Liberal,” and MSP, assessed using a validated five-item global scale with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0,838, indicating high internal consistency. To reduce the risk of bias from confounding variables, the analysis incorporates a comprehensive set of demographic and attitudinal control variables. These indicators include race and ethnicity (Black, Latino, Other, with White as reference), education level (incomplete high school or less, four-year or more college degree, with some higher education as reference), gender, age, income, employment status, location (city, rural, with suburb as reference), and US region (South, Midwest, Northeast, with West as reference).
Furthermore, the methodology considers political engagement and trust through controls for political interest, trust in federal, state, and local governments, and religiosity (measured by church attendance). By including these variables, the study aims to isolate the specific effects of ideology and PSM (Politically Socially Responsible) on the relative prioritization of core public administration values—equity, efficiency, effectiveness, and representativeness—in the responding population.
- Main results
The results of ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions show that ideology is a consistent and significant predictor across all six value prioritization models, offering strong support for Hypothesis 1. As respondents become more liberal, their preference for fairness and representativeness increases at the expense of efficiency and effectiveness. Specifically, a one standard deviation shift toward a more liberal ideology is associated with a 0,406-unit increase in preference for fairness over efficiency.
In this context, according to Favero et al., liberals also tend to prioritize equity over representativeness and effectiveness over efficiency, suggesting equity as the ultimate goal, with representativeness as a means to achieve it, and government effectiveness as a necessary condition to support interventions. In contrast, conservatives favor efficiency and market-oriented approaches. Models involving equity show the highest adjusted R² values, indicating that this value is the most predictable and demographically polarized, possibly reflecting more deeply rooted attitudes.
Thus, MSP, in turn, is a weaker and less consistent predictor, offering only partial support for Hypothesis 2. MSP shows a positive and significant relationship only with the preference for fairness over efficiency and effectiveness, not significantly influencing preferences related to representation.
Furthermore, the authors highlight that relevant patterns emerge among the control variables. Black individuals tend to prioritize representation and equity over effectiveness, although the overall effect of race may be underestimated due to controlling for ideology. Part-time employment is systematically associated with prioritizing equity, suggesting that threats to material status reinforce preferences for redistributive values.
Additionally, higher income and greater political interest are related to prioritizing representation, effectiveness, and efficiency over equity, indicating that these groups attribute less relative importance to redistributive value. Education also exerts influence: graduates of four-year college programs tend to prefer equity to representation and effectiveness to representation and efficiency. Finally, residents of the Southern US consistently prioritize efficiency over equity and representation, highlighting the role of regional culture in shaping hierarchies of public values.
- Lessons in Public Policy
Favero et al. (2025) offer important public policy lessons by showing how value conflicts shape governance and highlighting that public values are not uniformly distributed across the population. The main conclusion is that equity is the most polarizing value, with political ideology emerging as the central predictor of prioritization among competing values. Liberals tend to prioritize equity and representativeness, while conservatives favor efficiency and market-oriented approaches. For policymakers, this implies that a homogeneous “public interest” cannot be assumed; value conflicts must be anticipated, especially around equity, which requires clear justifications, transparency, and public engagement.
A second lesson relates to the role of MSP in reconciling conflicting values. Individuals with higher levels of MSP demonstrate a greater preference for equity over efficiency and effectiveness, suggesting that this motivation may guide public servants and citizens to prioritize distributive justice even in the face of competing performance goals. In a context of increasing polarization, this indicates that strengthening MSP may help build points of convergence around equity as a central principle of public administration.
The study also highlights the influence of race and socioeconomic status: Black individuals especially prioritize equity and representation, bearing in mind that historical inequalities shape perceptions of justice and institutional legitimacy. This reinforces the idea that public administration is not neutral, but permeated by values, requiring deliberate efforts to center equity in the formulation and implementation of policies.
Finally, the findings offer practical guidance for public managers facing heterogeneous expectations. Values such as effectiveness and representativeness enjoy broad support and can serve as relatively stable guides, while equity demands greater sensitivity due to its contested nature. Recognizing the diversity of preferences—instead of treating the public as a uniform bloc—allows for anticipating areas of consensus and points of conflict. By balancing equity, efficiency, representativeness, and effectiveness in a manner analogous to the logic of checks and balances, public institutions can move toward more responsive, legitimate, and just governance. The authors also advocate for further research on public values in different political contexts and on the potential of public participation as a unifying force in times of polarization.
References
Meier, K.J., & O'Toole, L.J. (2013). Subjective organizational performance and measurement error: Common source bias and spurious relationships. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(2), 429–456. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mus057
