Social Justice and Non-Compliance Among Chilean Local Government Functionaries

Civil servants and officers in Chilean local governments have an active relationship with the rules that define the scope of their authority and do not apply them mechanically. Their willingness to bend the rules can be triggered in part by considerations of social justice, channeling public resources to those in need, even if they do not fulfill the required conditions. The mechanism underlying non-compliance consists of an interactive definition of the situation involving the officer and the user. This study refers to the perception of users of local services in Chile regarding the likelihood of non-compliance among the functionaries. Using a factorial survey of Chileans older than 18 yeas old (n=1153), we tested four scenarios that define a communication frame between users and civil servants: reiteration of the demand, material need of the user, flexibility to apply the rules and active support to the mayor during electoral campaigns. Flexibility and material need are more likely to trigger deviation from the norm because public officers see it as necessary in the light of social justice considerations and do not raise suspicions of unfairness or dishonesty. Complementarily, demands based on patron-client relationships associated with the support to the mayor would be rejected as unfair and dishonest. The paper also tests contextual explanations regarding the perception of corruption or discretionary practices in the organization as well as the administrative knowledge of respondents.