University of Haifa

Abstract 

Political science research highlights the increasing prevalence of populist attitudes among citizens, characterized by a simple binary worldview that contrasts the “pure people” with the “corrupt, self-serving elite.” Studies have demonstrated the profound impact of populist attitudes on citizens’ voting behaviors, political beliefs, and preferences. We argue that such attitudes may also shape how individual citizens perceive public organizations and employees, and, more broadly, the legitimacy of bureaucracy and state institutions. We suggest that citizens’ populist attitudes are particularly influential in shaping perceptions of the public sector within the context of populist governments. We develop and test a theoretical model that links citizens’ populist attitudes to specific stereotypes of the public sector. We theorize that citizens with strong populist attitudes are more likely to hold negative stereotypes of civil servants. While bureaucrats are usually stereotyped as inefficient, lazy, risk-averse, and incompetent, we propose that citizens’ populist attitudes are associated with viewing civil servants as corrupt, immoral, and overly powerful—echoing “deep state” narratives. Given that attacks on the bureaucracy are central to the agenda of populist governments, we hypothesize that these effects are especially pronounced among supporters of populist government coalitions. We test our hypotheses using a two-wave survey study in Israel. We analyze the multidimensional content of citizens’ stereotypes of public employees by examining and coding spontaneous associations. We examine their relationship with validated measures of populist attitudes as measured via validated scales (which we pre-tested in pilot studies), controlling for key political and demographic covariates. We further explore whether stereotypes vary across group labels (“bureaucrats,” “clerks,” “civil servants”). Our research contributes to political science and public administration research by advancing understanding of the implications of populism for citizen-government relations and the resilience of the rule of law amidst global trends of populism and polarization.