PhD thesis defence by Ramin Shirali
Despite a century of bureaucratic reforms aimed at ensuring ethical conduct, legal, and structural measures often fall short. These persistent differences in state performance raise an important question: Why are some public servants more professional than others? Chapters One and Two conceptually suggest that ethical behavior arises from the interaction between individuals and institutions—a relationship not yet modeled theoretically or empirically in the field of governance. Consequently, similar characteristics may activate different psychological responses depending on the institutional context, leading to diverging, even opposite, ethical outcomes. Chapter Three empirically validates this framework, showing that conscientious individuals uphold impartiality within merit-based systems but are less committed in contexts of favoritism. By contrast, individuals with high Public Service Motivation (PSM) consistently maintain impartiality even in non-meritocratic contexts. Chapter Four evaluates civil servants' responses to political directives in Spain and Sweden. A list experiment, employing a novel measure of ideological alignment, indicates that ideological alignment increases impartiality violations among temporary employees but reduces them among permanent staff in Spain. A vignette experiment further shows that individuals with high PSM resist political innovation directives in Spain but follow them in Sweden, while peer initiatives produce exact opposite responses. Chapter Five identifies civil servants at risk of corruption based on demographic and political characteristics. Analysing administrative records from Brazil’s federal executive, I find that men, long-serving employees, temporary political appointees, and those at the lowest and highest salary levels face a higher risk of corruption sanctions. By contrast, civil servants politically aligned with the governing coalition are significantly less sanctioned, suggesting political protection. By theoretically and empirically linking psychological characteristics with institutional contexts, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of how good governance emerges. The evidence suggests that neither individual traits nor institutions alone can produce reliable outcomes. Instead, only through their interaction can we truly understand the causes of ethical behavior and, ultimately, why some states are better governed than others.
Ramin Shirali is a political scientist whose work bridges psychology and governance, with interests in comparative governance, administrative behaviour, and institutions. His dissertation, 'Why Are Some Public Servants More Professional than Others?', examines how individual characteristics and institutions shape ethical behavior among civil servants, using experimental and other quantitative methods. In September 2025, he will join the Central European University as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the NET-ROL project, exploring how civic, political, and elite networks influence the rule of law and their impact on democracy and society in Europe.