Replication Data for: Evaluating Excuses: How the Public Judges Noncompliance

Public officials often make policy but delegate its implementation. Yet, for reasons ranging from intransigence to incompetence, those tasked with implementation may not faithfully carry out policies. If implement-ors can frame noncompliance in a way that engenders sympathy, they may be able to disrupt the policymaking process with limited public backlash. We examine if the public's willingness to excuse noncompliance varies with the implementing actor's stated rationale for its failing to carry out the policy. Drawing on a sur-vey experiment fielded in Germany, we find that the public is more sympathetic to resource-based, rather than principled, justifications for noncompliance, though the size of the effect is small. Further, contrary to fears that the pandemic would decay democratic functioning by leading citizens to be more forgiving of emergency-based inaction, we find no evidence that the public is more accepting of noncompliance justified on the base of the pandemic.

公职人员通常负责政策制定，但会将政策执行工作委托给其他主体。然而，出于从拒不合作到履职不力等各类原因，受委托执行政策的主体可能无法忠实落实既定政策。倘若政策执行者能够将自身的不合规行为包装为可引发公众同情的理由，便可在引发有限公众反对的前提下干扰政策制定流程。本研究旨在考察公众对政策不合规行为的谅解意愿，是否会随政策执行者公开阐明的未执行政策理由不同而产生差异。依托一项在德国开展的实地调查实验，本研究发现：相较于基于原则的不合规行为辩解，公众对基于资源不足的辩解更具同情心，尽管该效应幅度较小。此外，此前有观点担忧新冠疫情会促使民众更宽容基于紧急状态的不作为行为，进而削弱民主运行，但本研究未发现证据表明公众对以新冠疫情为理由的不合规行为拥有更高接受度。