This thesis provides an alternative view on the Quality of Government (QoG) framework. The current norm within this framework is that impartiality in bureaucrats’ decision-making leads to better...Show moreThis thesis provides an alternative view on the Quality of Government (QoG) framework. The current norm within this framework is that impartiality in bureaucrats’ decision-making leads to better governmental outcomes because citizens perceive the government institutions to be more effective. Based on criticisms of this framework, this thesis provides an alternative metric of decision-making for street-level bureaucrats; equity: decision-making by government officials that temporarily favors members of marginalized groups in society over people that come from a privileged group in society with the purpose of creating more equality amongst societal groups. It is hypothesized that equity affects citizens’ perceptions of governmental institutions in four ways: (1) it increases the suitability of decisions made by street-level bureaucrats to the individual cases, (2) it increases the accessibility of public institutions to citizens, (3) it decreases the predictability of a requests’ outcome and (4) it decreases the timeliness with which is responded to citizens’ requests. Based on these four hypotheses, the general expectation is that equity creates a better citizen perception of governmental institutions. To test this, an exploratory small-N comparative case study is made in which the Dutch SVB and Allowance of the Dutch Tax Department are compared. The aim is to provide scholars with a more nuanced understanding of the QoG framework and for practitioners to have a wider tool-set available which they can use to provide services to citizens.Show less
This study examines the correlation between Quality of Government indicators and healthcare-performance indicators. Quality of Government is measured using state legitimacy, rule of law and...Show moreThis study examines the correlation between Quality of Government indicators and healthcare-performance indicators. Quality of Government is measured using state legitimacy, rule of law and corruption. Healthcare-performance is measured using infant mortality, life expectancy and primary care. The effect of corruption has been researched on the subnational level and the effects of state legitimacy and rule of law have been linked to healthcare theoretically. However the relationship of Quality of Government on healthcare-performance remains understudied for the national level. This study hypothesizes that countries that have a high Quality of Government tend to have better healthcare-performance. Findings from time-series data between 2000 and 2017 from 35 countries out of the OECD and QoG OECD database, report that healthcare-performance is significantly higher in countries that score better on state legitimacy. Results also show that infant mortality is likely to be lower in countries that score high on rule of law and low on corruption. The result suggests an importance of state legitimacy for healthcare-performance.Show less
