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Abstract:

Procedural fairness has been put forth as one of the key features of legitimate, well-functioning, stable societies. It is argued that perceptions of procedural fairness encourage people to accept and follow political decisions voluntarily (Doherty & Wolak, 2012). Recently, Tyler (2011) argued that legitimate procedures even motivate people to help political institutions enforce these decisions. However, to date empirical research on the effect of procedural fairness on citizens’ attitudes and behavior is scarce. Using the most recent wave of the European Social survey (2010-2011; N=52,444) and Multilevel Structural Equation techniques, we break new ground on this question by investigating how fair treatment by the police shapes the willingness to follow the law and cooperate with this institution in 27 countries. Further we show that the fairness effect is not equal across countries but depends on the prevalence of corruption in a country. In countries with a low level of corruption fair treatment plays a much larger role in shaping trust and compliant and cooperative attitudes than in countries with high levels of corruption.