I presented a preliminary version of the study “Who wants to jeopardize the merit principle? Evidence from an Issue Framing Experiment among Citizens and Future Bureaucrats” (together with Michael Jankowski and Markus Tepe) which addresses the question whether critics of Equal Employment Opportunity policies are correct by stating that supporters of these policies are willing to give up the merit principle in public hiring. We find a relationship between right-wing poltical attitudes and overemphasizing support for the merit principle when potential migrant discrimination is taken into account. The findings count for civic respondents as well as respondents with a public administration background.
Thanks to Gregg Van Ryzin and Sebastian Jilke from the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University Newark/New Jersey,
USA, for inviting me to present recent work and to all participants for their fruitful comments on the paper.