Autor/in: Tepe, Markus, Widmer-Lytkina, Ekaterina
Abstract: This study examines civil servants’ normative orientations toward democracy, focusing on the absence of populist attitudes as a potential source of resilience against democratic backsliding in public administration. Drawing on the concept of democratic anchoring, we expect civil servants and public sector employees to display lower levels of populism than their private-sector counterparts. Panel data from Germany confirm this expectation and show that the public/private sector gap in populist attitudes persists despite an overall increase in populism between 2021 and 2023. A complementary cross-national analysis of 16 democratic states reveals robust evidence for such a gap only in Germany and Austria. Both countries witnessed the collapse of constitutionally fully developed interwar democracies. We discuss whether the experience of a democratic breakdown may have left a lasting imprint on civil servants’ democratic attitudes in these countries. We further discuss how such imprints may shape behaviors that support administrative resilience against illiberal threats.
Erscheinungsjahr: 2026
Titel der Zeitschrift: International Review of Administrative Sciences
doi: 10.1177/00208523261434833

FGZ-Dataset:
German Social Cohesion Panel 2021 – Anchor Persons, SCP 2021_1 (Anchor)
German Social Cohesion Panel 2021/22 – Wave 1, SCP 2021/22 Wave 1
German Social Cohesion Panel 2021/2022 - Wave 1-2, SCP 2021-22 W1-2