Do public administrators overstate their support for good governance? Evidence from a list experiment in Finland

In this study, we analyze the social desirability bias related to good governance principles among public administrators. While good governance is a cornerstone in public administration reforms, the normative stance of good governance in contemporary democratic governing may provoke socially desirable survey responses among those that do not share the values. This is important to consider, because a latent resistance to good governance would indicate a risk of mission drift in promoting good governance. Using a list experiment on Finnish public administrators we estimate bias-corrected opinions on the principles of participation, government effectiveness, responsiveness, and transparency. Finland is a critical case; scoring high on international good governance rankings and serving a model for reforms, finding a bias against good governance principles among its administrators would imply that governance reforms come with the dilemma of negative opinion suppressed due to social desirability. We discover a considerable social desirability bias related to participation, responsiveness, and transparency. Our findings challenge traditional survey research and provide important considerations for researchers when studying the values and attitudes of public administrators.