Does Citizen Voice Matter for Public Service Performance?

Does Citizen Voice Matter for Public Service Performance?
Citizen voice means the capacity of citizens to express their views to the public officials. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the impact of citizen voice on the officials’ perceptions of the public service performance. Empirical research uses the correlation analysis and the Granger causality test to reveal the differences in the relationships between public service performance and corruption/transparency/rule enforcement/meritocracy that may result from the existence or the lack of citizen voice mechanisms. The source of  the data set is a survey of 858 public officials working in 100 commune councils in Poland in 2009. The whole sample of 858 officials is divided into several sub-samples based on the citizen voice impact. The findings show that the influence of citizen voice on public service performance is indirect. In councils where the citizen’s opinion is taken into consideration the officials more clearly see the link between meritocracy and public service performance  as well as between corruption and public service availability. Where citizen’s opinion matters the influence of meritocracy on service performance as well as of corruption on quality and availability of public services is more sharply perceived. In contrary the lack of clear mechanism of citizen’s voice consideration makes the internal procedure obedience the main factor determining the quality of public service what may result in bureaucratic behaviors.
Keywords: citizen voice, public services, corruption, transparency